ARCADIA, Calif. - Affluent has been the leading lady through the first six weeks of the Santa Anita meeting. She won the La Brea Stakes on Dec. 29 and the El Encino Stakes on Jan. 20. On Saturday, she tries for a piece of history in the $200,000 La Canada Stakes for 4-year-old fillies. A win would make Affluent the first filly in 17 years to sweep the series.

Along the way, Affluent has beaten a full field of top-class sprinters in the La Brea and rallied from the back of the field to beat Royally Chosen by a nose in the El Encino over 1 1/16 miles.

PORTLAND, Ore. - The Memorial, a $6,000-added stakes for 3-year-old Quarter Horses at 350 yards, tops a 14-race card on Saturday, the next-to-last day of racing at the Portland Meadows meet.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Spanish Glitter is a horse who knows how to win. She has crossed the wire first in 10 of 19 career starts, and will be odds-on to win again Saturday at Oaklawn Park in the $50,000 American Beauty Stakes.

The six-furlong race for fillies and mares has drawn seven others, including the Cole Norman-trained Southern Tour and Sweet And Firm, who are uncoupled; horse-for-course Naturalingredients; and the promising East Is East.

ALBANY, Calif. - There's a big difference between Decarchy, who will be the morning-line favorite, and the improving Poker Brad in Saturday's Grade 3 Tanforan Handicap at Golden Gate Fields.

Decarchy, a Juddmonte Farms homebred, began his career in Great Britain, then won his first three races in America after a 15-month layoff before finishing second in the Citation Handicap at Hollywood Park in his last start on Nov. 24.

Poker Brad is a $13,000 yearling purchase at the September 1999 Keeneland Yearling Sale.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Trainer Doug O'Neill has waited 14 months for Saturday to arrive.

Sky Jack, the star of O'Neill's barn in the final two months of 2000, makes his first start after a long layoff caused by a knee injury and a severe bout with colic.

The 6-year-old Sky Jack, owned by Renee and Margie Lambert, starts in a $65,000 allowance race over a mile that has six others, including stakes winners Futural and Red Eye.

Run as the third race, the allowance race has drawn a stakes-caliber field.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Bringing a horse who has fallen during a race up to her next start can be a difficult assignment for a trainer. On Saturday, Chuck Turco will attempt to do just that in the $50,000 American Beauty Stakes at Oaklawn Park with Naturalingredients, who has not raced since last October when she took a puzzling fall near the quarter pole in the $50,000 Oklahoma Classics Day Sprint at Remington Park.

NEW ORLEANS - With an eye toward the $500,000 New Orleans Handicap, jockey Pat Day will fly here from south Florida to ride Drewman in Sunday's Whirlaway Handicap.

Day retakes the mount on * for the first time since last year, when he rode the colt to three straight wins and a third-place finish in the Iowa Derby.

"Pat said last year he was a nice-moving colt who would probably get better with maturity," said trainer Hal Williams. "But just about everyone who's ridden him has liked him."

Coastalota, whose last two races have come against open company, returns to racing with statebreds Saturday night in the $30,000 Tomball Stakes at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston.

The 1 1/16-mile race for fillies and mares has drawn eight others, including Holly Sue, who has finished behind Coastalota in her last three starts; Crook's Angel, the field's highest earner with a bankroll of $175,028; and Madison Grace, a full sister to multiple stakes winner Heza Fast Tab.

Magic Weisner, the 2001 Maryland Juvenile Championship Stakes winner, headlines a field of seven Maryland-bred 3-year-olds in the $60,000 restricted Goss Stryker Stakes at Laurel Park Saturday.

A three-time winner in his six-race career, Magic Weisner will try to fend off a powerful entry from trainer Anthony Dutrow in the seven-furlong race, as well as The Sewickley Kid, a four-length winner of a one-other-than allowance in his last start.

When they last met under the lights at Turfway Park, Miss Pickums was a solid favorite over Seven Four Seven in a Jan. 23 allowance race.

Funny how that works. When they meet again Saturday afternoon at Turfway in Florence, Ky., it's hard to say who will be the favorite: Seven Four Seven, who posted an emphatic 6 1/2-length victory in that race at 5-1, or Miss Pickums, who as a graded winner is still well regarded despite her disappointing fourth-place finish at 8-5 that night.