AUBURN, Wash. - Always a Dixie will lead a formidable quartet of Canadian invaders in Sunday's $40,000 Boeing Handicap for fillies and mares at Emerald Downs.

Always a Dixie, the 121-pound highweight in a field of nine for the 1 1/16-mile stakes, shipped in to win the last two added money race in the division, edging Neon Queen by a nose in the 6 1/2-furlong Washington State Legislators Handicap in May and by three quarters of a length in last month's one-mile King County Handicap.

STANTON, Del. - The resurgence of Delaware Park has been well documented in recent years, yet a paradox remains. Having descended to near the bottom of the East Coast racing barrel in the 1980's, the track still suffers, in some respects, from the residue of those painful times.

Most top-class circuits - namely, California, New York, and Kentucky - primarily stick to a five-day race week of Wednesday through Sunday. But at Delaware, the schedule is Saturday through Wednesday, which leaves Thursdays and Fridays dark.

STANTON, Del. - Horseplayers may not want to read too much into Jerry Bailey coming to Delaware to ride Two Item Limit in the Delaware Handicap.

No, the main reason that Bailey will make a rare appearance at Delaware is Miesque's Approval, who figures as a heavy favorite in the main supporting feature here Sunday, the $250,000 Kent Breeders' Cup Stakes.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Ronny Werner likes to have a little swagger during a race meet. With little success through the first month of the Monmouth meet, his first summer stabling here, Werner was still searching for his swagger.

But with a four-race winning streak, dating from July 7 and running through Thursday, Werner said he has the swagger back. So far this meet, he has 5 wins in 16 starts.

ELMONT, N.Y. - What is it that attracts owner John Rotella to the senior citizens of racing when making a claim?

"Everybody likes winners," Rotella said. "I'll take a hard-knocking horse over a 4-year-old who is 2 for 15 any time."

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - A top racing official on Friday expressed optimism that as many as two insurance companies could offer workmen's compensation policies to California trainers in the next month at lower rates than the government-backed program currently in place.

Ed Halpern, the executive director of the California Thoroughbred Trainers, said formal proposals are expected to be presented by Tuesday or Wednesday. He declined to name the insurance companies involved in the negotiation, but said that if the arrangement is completed, policies could be in place by mid-August.

VALLEJO, Calif. - Trainer Carmella Anderson knows better than to get too high on young horses, so she is avoiding any hyperbole when it comes to Market Garden, who will meet seven rivals in Sunday's $50,000-added Solano County Juvenile Fillies Stakes at the Solano County Fair.

The 5 1/2-furlong race for 2-year-old fillies will be headed by My Honey Bunny, winner of the Juan Gonzalez Memorial Stakes at Pleasanton on June 30.

Market Garden won her maiden at first asking one day earlier.

"You don't want to get too high on a young horse," Anderson said.

MIAMI - Ask trainers on the Calder backstretch to name the hardest-working of their peers and the answer might be unanimous: Kathleen O'Connell.

When asked what the secret to her success was during the current session, O'Connell replied, "Working harder."

Working harder?

That just doesn't seem possible, since training horses has been almost a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job for O'Connell from the time she began her career 20 years ago.

McKinney, who has won five of her last six starts, stretches back out around two turns in the $40,000 Delicada, a 1 1/16-mile stakes for fillies and mares at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La.

The Delicada goes as the fourth race with a field of five entered, including Due to Win, who captured the $75,000 Bayakoa Stakes at Oaklawn on April 5, and the developing Strawbailey, who is 5 for 10 in her career for trainer Joe Offolter.

Dinkers Millennium, third in the Cleveland Gold Cup in his most recent start, could be a slight favorite in the $50,000 Horizon Stakes at River Downs. The Horizon, for 3-year-old Ohio-breds, will be run at 1 1/16 miles on turf.

Finding who has the class and best current form may be the best way to finding the Horizon winner as none of the entrants have turf experience, and few have turf pedigrees.