GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - When jockey Roger Velez says Hal's Hope has never been better, he knows of what he speaks. Velez has ridden Hal's Hope in each of his 31 career starts, and will be aboard once again Saturday in the Grade 3, $300,000 Texas Mile at Lone Star Park.

Hal's Hope, a 5-year-old winner of $1,070,922, has won two of four starts this year, his most recent a half-length win over Mongoose in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Handicap on March 30. Before that race, he won the Grade 3 Creme Fraiche.

CHICAGO - Two New Yorkers were supposed to have started in Sunday's Sixty Sails Handicap at Sportsman's Park, but with the defection Thursday of Quiet Lake, now there is one. The one, however, may be enough.

With Ability nearly went to the breeding shed this winter after a bad race in an Aqueduct sprint stakes. Given one more chance, in a race around two turns, With Ability didn't just put her broodmare career on hold, she launched a new career as a route horse and produced an easy Grade 3 win last month.

CHICAGO - With the Fantasy Stakes, Ashland Stakes, and the Kentucky Oaks all sandwiched into a month, Midwest horsemen with a top 3-year-old filly have no trouble picking spots. So with no grade and a $100,000 purse, Saturday's National Jockey Club Oaks can't compete for the top talent, and accordingly, the race has come up with an ordinary, allowance-caliber field.

After almost two years of construction-related delays, Manor Downs near Austin, Texas, will open for its inaugural Thoroughbred meet Saturday. The former Quarter Horse-only track, which has expanded its racing surface to 7 1/2 furlongs to accommodate Thoroughbreds as required by the Texas Racing Act, will race weekends through May 26.

Purses for the 10-day meet are projected at $58,000 a day, while the $40,000-added Manor Downs Futurity on May 11 will highlight the stakes schedule. A total of three trials for the 4 1/2-furlong race will be held Saturday.

Eight 3-year-old colts, who made their last starts in seven different states, have come to Altoona, Iowa, for Saturday's $50,000 Golden Circle Stakes at Prairie Meadows in Altoona, Iowa.

Lott and Vito Corleone are the 119-pound highweights in the six-furlong Golden Circle.

Lott, a son of Open Forum, enters the Golden Circle off a nose victory in an allowance race at Keeneland on April 12. He dueled every step of the way and won in 1:10.72 for six furlongs.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - Finding the winner won't be the only handicapping challenge when a field of 10 goes to the gate for Saturday's $100,000 Bosselman-Gus Fonner Handicap, Fonner's showcase race.

With the lack of a confirmed front-runner, and a host of deep closers in the 1 1/16-mile race, there could be nearly as much jockeying for position at the back of the pack as there will be up front, making it difficult to predict how the pace will unfold.

PHOENIX, Ariz. - Local horses take the spotlight as a pair of $30,000 stakes for Arizona-breds highlight Saturday's Turf Paradise card.

The Dwight Patterson Handicap, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for 3-year-olds and up, goes as the eighth race on the 11-race program. The Patterson attracted a field of 10 runners, led by 122-pound highweight Resolve, winner of last year's Arizona Breeders Derby and recent strong runner-up at Santa Anita in his 2002 debut.

An already competitive jockey colony has become a whole lot tougher.

When Delaware Park launches its 65th season Saturday afternoon, the list of regular jockeys will include last year's leading rider in North America, the 2001 Eclipse Award-winning apprentice, and a five-time track champion. Add Eddie Martin Jr., who led at riders at Fair Grounds with 120 winners, to the mix and it's clear the battle for leading rider will be keen.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Wednesday's opening day of the Hollywood Park spring-summer meeting started on an unusual note when $118,000 in win bets were placed at the last minute on the winner of the first race.

Global Finance was 9-2 as the field for the 4 1/2-furlong maiden race for California-bred fillies went to the gate. In the minute before the race went off, there were 23 $5,000 win tickets and one $3,000 win ticket on Global Finance processed through a betting hub in Lewiston, Maine, according to California Horse Racing Board spokesman Mike Marten.

EAST BOSTON, Mass. - Trainer Peter Bazeos has been suspended 30 days and fined $250 after one of his horses tested positive for the bronchodilator Glycopyrrolate, and faces further penalties after a search of his tack room uncovered a prohibited substance.

In yet another ruling, the Bazeos was fined $500 by New York stewards after one of his horses, Misty Forum, was scratched out of an April 17 race at Aqueduct because of a missing Coggins test.