BALTIMORE - John Passero's workday for the Preakness on Saturday started at 8 p.m. Friday.

Passero, Pimlico's track superintendent, checked the weather Friday afternoon, did some calculations, and then radioed for his crew to hook up 10-ton rollers to the water trucks, fill the trucks with water, and get to the track. The trucks, which weigh 75,000 pounds when fully loaded then drove around the track, side by side, again and again, packing the dirt course to a tight seal.

BALTIMORE - Two weeks after being disqualified from first in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Handicap on Kentucky Derby Day, Snow Ridge romped to a 7 3/4-length victory in Saturday's $200,000, Grade 2 Maryland Breeders' Cup Handicap at Pimlico.

Smile My Lord rallied for second, 1 1/2 lengths ahead of Clever Gem.

BALTIMORE - Strut the Stage had raced eight times before Saturday, and never in any of those races had he been closer than third, or 2 1/2 lengths off the pace, in the early going. But when the field for the Grade 2, $200,000 left the gate, the pace was so slow that Strut the Stage fell into the lead.

BALTIMORE - The handicap division welcomed a new player to its ranks Saturday at Pimlico.

Tenpins, running fast fractions while pressured on the lead, turned back all challengers to win the Grade 3, $100,000 William Donald Schaefer Handicap by 1 1/4 lengths over Bowman's Band.

It was the fifth consecutive victory for Tenpins, who was making his stakes debut.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Shiny Band, the longest price in the field at 17-1, became a stakes winner in Saturday's $200,000 at Belmont Park on an unusually chilly spring afternoon.

Shiny Band, under Robbie Davis, was a 2 3/4-length winner over Raging Fever, the second choice. Victory Ride, the 6-5 favorite, finished third, a half-length behind the runner-up. Two Item Limit and Atelier completed the order of finish in the five-horse field of fillies and mares.

The Grade 2 Shuvee was run over a track labeled good, following morning rain.

STICKNEY, Ill. - A month after he romped in the National Jockey Club Handicap at Sportsman's Park, Hail the Chief moved about 100 yards south and won the $500,000 Hawthorne Gold Cup by 3 1/4 lengths Saturday. He surely has cemented his position as the king of Chicago's West Side; now Hail the Chief is out to conquer the rest of the country.

SHAKOPEE, Minn. - Jockey Dean Kutz, who is making a comeback after suffering from throat cancer, has delayed his return to the races at Canterbury Park following a positive drug test.

The test, administered as part of a routine jockey's physical, "came back a little cloudy," said Minnesota Racing Commission chairman Richard Krueger. He declined to say what drug was detected by the test.

Kutz was contacted by the commission and voluntarily elected not to ride, Krueger said, until fuller test results are available Monday. "This was a safety issue," Krueger said.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Ronald Taylor said before the $50,000 Little Silver Stakes for 3-year-old fillies that Bold World's poor performance as the favorite in the Grade 2 Beaumont at Keeneland in her previous race was, hopefully, a speed bump for the filly.

New York-based trainer Nick Zito took four of his best 3-year-olds to Pimlico, including Preakness starters Straight Gin and Crimson Hero. One of Zito's other shippers who didn't go quite as far south as Baltimore may soon be considered among the

3-year-old stars of Zito's barn.

Nothing Flat, who has yet to finish worse than second in four career starts, made an impressive stakes debut by scoring a three-quarter length victory in the $75,000 Francis LaBelle Memorial at Delaware Park.

MIAMI, Fla. - Wertz, by reputation a front-running turf horse, showed his versatility on Saturday when rallying from off the pace over a sloppy main track to defeat three rivals in Calder's $75,000 Carterista Handicap.

Wertz had won 11 of his previous 13 victories on grass, three of the wins coming in succession at the 2002 Gulfstream Park meet. But when heavy rains forced management to switch the Carterista from the turf to the wet main course, trainer Joe Calascibetta opted to keep Wertz in the race, which scratched down from 12 scheduled starters to a field of four.