VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Trainer Jim Brown finished fourth in the trainer standings with 28 wins last year and had his best season ever when he finished second in 2000.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Will the third time be the charm for A Fleets Dancer?

Canada's reigning champion older horse, A Fleets Dancer makes his seasonal bow in Saturday's Eclipse Handicap after having finished fourth in the last two runnings of the 1 1/16-mile stakes.

Roger Attfield, who trains the 7-year-old A Fleets Dancer for Cam Allard, is cautious when discussing the horse's prospects for the Eclipse, his first start since Dec. 29.

NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Down Thepike Mike is highweighted at 121 pounds at Thistledown on Saturday afternoon, when he will match strides at six furlongs with seven other Ohio-breds in the $40,000 Quick Step Handicap.

Down Thepike Mike, a rapid 8-year-old gelding, has been the top Ohio-bred sprinter throughout his career, fashioning a 18-5-4 record from 32 starts for earnings of $383,901.

In his lone appearance this year he was third in the six-furlong E. Babst Memorial at Beulah Park on March 6 after an 11-month respite.

ALTOONA, Iowa - The Iowa-bred Sumthintotalkabout will face off against Soul Onarazorsedge and five other fillies and mares when she heads the $50,000 Prairie Rose Stakes on Saturday night at Prairie Meadows.

Sumthintotalkabout scored an easy three-length victory in a $52,000 allowance event for state-breds here April 27 in her only start of the year.

A 5-year-old daughter of Kyle's Our Man, she was a multiple stakes winner in 2001, including a victory against open company here last August in the Iowa State Fair Stakes.

EAST BOSTON, Mass. - Step With Style, 2001 New England Horse of the Year, defends her title in Saturday's $30,000 My Fair Lady Stakes.

Many of her competitors in the My Fair Lady, for fillies and mares going a mile and 70 yards on the turf, amassed impressive records over the mild winter. But Step With Style appears to have a class edge, despite going winless in eight starts since winning the Rockingham Breeders' Cup Handicap last summer.

Horses are bought and sold every day, but never has a horse been bought as close as three and a half weeks to the Kentucky Derby and then won the race as War Emblem did this year. The process that brought War Emblem to his new owner, Prince Ahmed Salman's The Thoroughbred Corporation, and his trainer, Bob Baffert, was the combination of a willing seller, an eager buyer, and an industrious bloodstock agent who knew the parties and put them together.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Bob Baffert and Steve Asmussen shared a laugh as training wound down Wednesday morning at Churchill Downs. Asmussen theorized - not without considerable amazement - how differently things might have been in the Kentucky Derby if One Tuff Fox had been permitted to run in the April 6 Illinois Derby.

"If the groom for One Tuff Fox doesn't take a shower, then he hooks War Emblem early and everything turns out different," Asmussen told Baffert. "War Emblem doesn't win the Illinois Derby. You don't want to buy him. He doesn't run here. Everything is different."

ELMONT, N.Y. - Trainer Rick Violette said he was losing sleep, having not won a stakes with Free of Love. Violette must have slept like a baby Wednesday night.

Making his 10th start in a stakes, Free of Love finally got the job done, rallying three wide on the turn and holding off a game Dayton Flyer through the stretch to win the $112,500, Grade 3 Westchester Handicap by 1 1/4 lengths on opening day at Belmont Park. It was another length back to Country Be Gold in third.

Churchill Downs Inc., the owner of six U.S. racetracks, including Hollywood Park and Arlington Park, had a net loss of $12 million in the first quarter of 2002, $1 million more than it lost in the same quarter last year.

Revenues in the quarter were $31 million, down 2 percent from revenues of $31.7 million in the first three months of 2001. The $12 million net loss translated into a loss of 92 cents per share, compared with a net loss of 84 cents a share in 2001.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Six 3-year-old colts and geldings who exhibit good current form meet in Friday night's feature race at Bay Meadows.

The six-furlong $40,000 optional claiming race has two runners who won their last starts, two others who won their next-to-last races, and two others who have been second and third in their past two starts.

Rio's Chase, trained by Bill Delia, seems the sharpest in the field after beating a $32,000 starter allowance field by four in his last start. Before that, he was second in his first race against winners after setting the pace.