STICKNEY, Ill. - Trainer Leo Gabriel couldn't believe it when Baker Road was claimed from him for $35,000 early this year at Fair Grounds. But when Baker Road dropped back in for a $40,000 claiming price after two conclusive losses, Gabriel and his owners did not hesitate to claim him right back.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Some pretty strange stuff happened the last time U.S. Jets ran at Churchill Downs, but that's the way with long-shot winners.

U.S. Jets, owned by Dan Jones and trained by veteran Bob Holthus, rallied to win a May 15 allowance race, returning $45.60 to win. The mutuel prices were further magnified by the show payoffs on the top three finishers, all of which were inordinately high because Bet on Sunshine, the 3-5 favorite, finished fourth after attracting several sizable show bets.

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - Last week was an emotional roller-coaster ride for owner Bill Clifton.

Clifton won back-to-back races with impressive maidens at Lone Star Park on Sunday, then a day later watched his promising turf horse Legislator suffer a broken leg as the favorite in the $200,000 Diamond "A" USA Stakes.

Legislator had surgery at a Dallas equine hospital on Tuesday to stabilize a longer-than-normal condylar fracture in his right front leg, and was doing well Friday.

FORT ERIE, Ontario - Quick and strong results were expected to follow when it was reported that trainer Mark Casse was assigned 20 stalls for the 2002 Fort Erie meet.

The win output, however, after five weeks into the season, has been zero.

Casse has been the leading trainer at Woodbine since the first week in April but had competed only seven times at Fort Erie going into Saturday's program.

MIAMI - Rosemary Homeister had one second to show from her four mounts on Friday, but she was all smiles when she came back after her last ride, a sixth-place finish aboard Dinkers Bay in the seventh race.

"I'm just so happy to be back in action again, to see all my fans and my friends," said Homeister, who had been sidelined since

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - American in Paris has been a going concern for her owner/trainer, Audre Cappuccitti, since being claimed for $16,000 here in November of 2000.

Next Sunday, June 9, American in Paris will put another feather in Cappuccitti's cap when she is be honored as claiming horse of the year at the Toronto Thoroughbred Racing Club's annual awards day here at Woodbine.

"She's been wonderful," said Cappuccitti. "She reminds me so much of Regal Date - she's not correct, but she's got a big heart.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - One of the reasons that Salt Grinder is making the trip up from Emerald Downs to run in Sunday's Klondike Stakes is that he's a British Columbia-bred and is eligible for bonus money available to province-breds. But he might not have come if he hadn't flipped in the gate and been scratched in the Auburn Stakes at Emerald May 4.

"It set us back a little bit," said his trainer at Emerald, Kay Cooper. "Nothing major, but he wasn't quite ready to run in the Auburn Stakes last weekend, so we thought we would send him up there this week."

AUBURN, Wash. - Lasting Code has a new home, having recently been purchased by Jerre Paxton's Northwest Farms and moved to the Emerald Downs barn of Bob McMeans. And that's the best reason to believe that someone can upset her in Sunday's $45,000 Kent Handicap at one mile.

Though it has been blessed with such stars as Cigar and Skip Away since being reinstated in 1995, the Massachusetts Handicap has rarely had a field as deep as the one that will enter the starting gate Saturday at Suffolk Downs, in East Boston, Mass.

With a field that includes 2000 juvenile champion Macho Uno, defending Mass Cap winner Include, Donn Handicap winner Mongoose, and the multiple stakes winner Evening Attire, the 63rd Mass Cap has proven the beneficiary of the cancellation of the Pimlico Special.

ELMONT, N.Y. - When Sweetest Thing romped to a 3 1/2-length victory in the Grade 3 Bewitch Stakes at Keeneland in April, trainer and part owner Roger Attfield let out a sigh of relief that shook the grandstand.

The victory ended a string of frustrating second- and third-place finishes and was the first graded-stakes triumph for Sweetest Thing, a 4-year-old Canadian-bred daughter of Candy Stripes.