NEW ORLEANS - That little Triple Crown nominee symbol affixed to the past-performance lines of five of the eight 3-year-olds entered in the eighth race Thursday at Fair Grounds is becoming less and less relevant as the year unfolds. These are still first-level allowance horses, and the Kentucky Derby is less than seven weeks away.

But dispense with Derby dreams for now. In any case, trainer Steve Asmussen, who will saddle the likely favorite, Forty Nine Deeds, has enough 3-year-old stakes horses going at the moment not to force this one into being something he's not.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The last time Manny Azpurua switched Blondaway from the turf to the main track he was rewarded with a one-length victory in Calder's Cherokee Frolic Stakes. Azpurua will use the same tactic again with Blondaway, this time against second-level optional claiming company in Thursday's $36,000 feature. The nine-race program also includes the meet's first 2-year-old race.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Bay Monster, fourth in a division of the Southwest Stakes in his last start, will change tactics Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Rebel at Oaklawn Park.

Bay Monster will be stalking the pace in the Rebel instead of contesting it as he did in the second division of the $75,000 Southwest at Oaklawn on March 2, when he raced down the backstretch with the fast Cojet. Bay Monster dropped back on the final turn of that mile race, then came back on in the short stretch to be beaten 1 3/4 lengths by Paloma Parilla.

As someone who has been working with racehorses for 17 years, Steve Margolis is fully aware that most Kentucky Derby contenders don't spend their winters at chilly Turfway Park in Florence, Ky.

Yet Margolis is confident that recent months at Turfway have been very productive for , the colt he will saddle Saturday in Turfway's annual showcase event, the $500,000 Lane's End Spiral Stakes.

"I think it was the right decision to stay here," Margolis said Tuesday on a national conference call. "Everything's worked out timing-wise, and we haven't missed any time training."

ALBANY, Calif. - California's high rates for workman's compensation insurance have led some trainers based in Washington and Canada to return to their home bases early. Other barns have consolidated in an effort to cut costs.

One trainer at Golden Gate Fields has come up with his own solution, one that can be seen in the entries for Thursday's feature race.

Listed as the trainer of record for Mt. Ouray is Elaine Wenstrom, a long-time assistant to Duane Offield. Offield is now listed as Wenstrom's assistant trainer.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - While all the focus of late has been on the 3-year-old colts, a filly who figures to be among the leaders of her division this year has been training sharply for her return. Bella Bellucci, last seen finishing third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, has put in a series of excellent workouts of late, and the best might have come Tuesday morning at Hollywood Park.

NEW ORLEANS - Ship-ins for Sunday's Explosive Bid were to begin arriving at Fair Grounds Wednesday, when three or four horses from Florida were scheduled to fly into New Orleans. On Thursday, a West Coast flight, which probably will carry four horses, is due in.

They have come for a $700,000 purse, and they have come in strength. Hap, a multiple graded stakes winner, heads the East Coast contingent. He will be joined by North East Bound, who has regained his form of two years ago when he was second in the Breeders' Cup Mile, Pisces, and perhaps Whata Brainstorm.

Gulfstream Park was dark on Monday, the first Monday that the track did not hold a live race since opening on Jan. 3. It will be that way for the five remaining weeks in the extended Gulfstream meet, with one fewer day of racing a week for south Florida racing fans, trainers, and owners, and one fewer working day for Gulfstream employees.

But if anyone is upset about lost betting, racing, or earning opportunities, the complaints haven't reached the ears of the horsemen.

Jockey Tony D'Amico on Monday hit the hat trick he didn't want to hit. After being removed earlier this year from the top Ken McPeek-trained 3-year-olds, Harlan's Holiday and Repent, D'Amico has been replaced aboard Perfect Drift for Saturday's $500,000 Lane's End Spiral Stakes.

Murray Johnson, the trainer of Perfect Drift, said two-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Eddie Delahoussaye would ride Perfect Drift in the Spiral.

The Maryland Jockey Club, the owners and operators of Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course, had a profit of $1.5 million in 2001, according to financial statements filed with the Maryland Racing Commission.

The 2001 result was nearly double the profits posted by the MJC in 2000, when net income was $671,000. Joe De Francis, the chairman of the MJC, attributed the gain to record-setting wagering and attendance figures for the 2001 Preakness and cost-cutting at the MJC's racetracks.