JAMAICA, N.Y. - After losing 13 juveniles worth approximately $1.3 million in a barn fire last month, owner Carl Lizza would have been forgiven had he wanted to avoid any horse auctions for a while.

But as a man who has been in the game of Thoroughbred racing for several decades, Lizza has learned one thing.

"This game isn't for the faint of heart," said Lizza, who races under the name Flying Zee Stable and who co-owns Highcliff Farms in upstate New York. "I'm not in it for the money. If I was in it for the money, I'd get out."

FLORENCE, Ky. - Although Saturday's running of the Spiral Stakes is the 31st, this is the fourth time in the last five runnings that the race has sported a different name.

Tom Dawson, who has produced the Spiral for Winner Communications television for many years, said he jokingly sent a message to his graphics personnel saying simply to label it the "Spiral/Jim Beam/Galleryfurniture.com/Lane's End/Spiral Stakes."

To explain . . .

FLORENCE, Ky. - At Turfway Park, there are two days a year when the quality of racing far exceeds the everyday fare: Spiral Stakes Day in the spring, and Kentucky Cup Day in the fall. Each program consists of at least five stakes, with nary a claiming race to be found.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Werblin is off the Triple Crown trail, a decision that may land him in the winner's circle of a stakes for the first time at Santa Anita on Saturday.

Werblin will be favored in the $75,000 San Pedro Stakes over 6 1/2 furlongs, a race he is expected to dominate. On opening day of this meeting, Dec. 26, Werblin won a six-furlong allowance race by a convincing 1 1/2 lengths. He was subsequently beaten in two of the meeting's top races for 3-year-olds.

TORONTO - Phillip (Pudge) Brown, director of racing and racing secretary at Fort Erie, has had his license as a racing official suspended for one year and has been fined $5,000 by the Ontario Racing Commission.

The ORC order, issued Wednesday, said Brown had violated the rules of racing "by permitting horses to be entered or to race that had not been tattooed and fully identified."

The suspension will run from April 1, 2002, to March 31, 2003.

NEW ORLEANS - On the one hand, they have combined to make one start in the last 22 months. On the other, they have combined to win 10 of their 12 career races, and both were Group 1 winners during their former lives as European turf stars.

They are Beat Hollow and Suances, two California-based horses shrouded in mystery who have shipped to New Orleans for a start Sunday in the $700,000 Explosive Bid Handicap.

NEW ORLEANS - When Screen Idol looks around during Saturday's Gentilly Handicap, there will be no Repents, no Easyfromthegitgos. There might not even be a filly named You'llbeinmyheart.

Screen Idol takes a major-league class drop from the Grade 3 Risen Star, where he finished a creditable seventh, into the Gentilly, a $100,000 turf race at Fair Grounds restricted to Louisiana-breds. Screen Idol is the horse to beat in any case, and You'llbeinmyheart, the horse to fear, is not certain to start in the Gentilly, though she was entered for the race Thursday.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - A new Woodbine Entertainment Group rule limiting a horse owner to three trainers at Woodbine has drawn criticism from the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association of Ontario.

There was no limit on the number of trainers an owner could employ at Woodbine until this year. Several prominent owners, including Stronach Stable and Eugene Melnyk, have been affected by the change.

GROVE CITY, Ohio - With top Ohio-breds Harlan's Holiday and U S S Tinosa tackling the best in the nation on the East and West Coasts and possibly heading to the Kentucky Derby, eight 3-year-olds who have stayed home will vie for top prize in the six-furlong $40,000 Howard B. Noonan Stakes at Beulah Park Saturday.

Watch Me Fire, the only stakes winner in the field, with a 6 1/2-length victory in the Loyalty at Thistledown in August, heads the field, making his first start of the year for trainer Bill Napier.

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. - Two and a quarter lengths is all that separates Leaping Plum from a seven-year win streak coming into the $30,000 Pepsi Sprint Handicap, which will be run here again Saturday at 6 1/2 furlongs.

Formerly the Coca-Cola Sprint, the Pepsi drew a full field of 10 with two more on the also-eligible list.