NEW ORLEANS - Repent and Take Charge Lady, the Ken McPeek-trained runners who will be heavily favored in Fair Grounds's weekend stakes, arrived safely here on Thursday afternoon after a flight from Florida.

Repent will head the field in Sunday's $750,000 Louisiana Derby for 3-year-olds. Take Charge Lady, an odds-on favorite on the track's morning line, was among eight 3-year-old fillies entered Thursday in Saturday's $350,000 Fair Grounds Oaks. Also on the flight from Florida were Charioteer and White Flame, both of whom will face Repent on Sunday.

NEW ORLEANS - If it isn't enough that he organizes their exercise regimens, worries about their eating habits, and plots out their racing careers, Ken McPeek found them, too.

McPeek selected for purchase as yearlings, as he did with many horses he trains. Both came out of the 2000 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July yearling sale, and both cost a bundle by McPeek's past standards: Take Charge Lady $175,000, Repent $230,000.

Those prices are starting to look like blue-light specials as both horses rise to the top of their classes.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - Ground Storm will find himself in a familiar position Saturday when he goes off as the favorite in Saturday's $100,000, Grade 3 Stymie Handicap at Aqueduct. His connections and his backers are hoping for anything but a familiar result.

In his 19-race career, Ground Storm has been sent off the favorite in four stakes and has lost every time. Overall, Ground Storm, a 6-year-old son of Summer Squall, is 0 for 6 in stakes races. Why should Saturday be different?

TORONTO, Ontario - The Prince of Wales Stakes will offer a record purse of $500,000, up $150,000 from last year, as the centerpiece of this year's stakes schedule at Fort Erie.

The list of 21 stakes, including four $60,000 races that have been relocated from Woodbine, is worth a total of $19.3 million, an increase of $520,000 from last year.

Usually when a graded stakes winner competes in a $50,000 stakes race, the opposition runs scared. Yet when Miss Pickums, a Grade 2 winner who has earned more than $303,000, returns Saturday at Turfway Park in the $50,000 Wintergreen Stakes, the opposition will simply be running.

EAST BOSTON, Mass. - Jockey Abby Fuller got plenty of cheers and a confidence boost when she teamed with Lyd's a Winnah to take Tuesday's second race at her hometown track, Suffolk Downs.

Since race riding has taken a backseat to raising a family and assisting her husband, trainer Mike Catalano Jr., with their small string at Aqueduct, Fuller's first win of the year worked wonders on her morale.

Case of the Blues, the runner-up in last year's Conniver at Laurel Park, takes another crack at the stakes this Saturday.

Case of the Blues, the likely favorite among the nine Maryland-bred fillies and mares entered in the $60,000 Conniver, is a winner of three of her last four starts.

Case of the Blues, trained by Tony Dutrow, is a powerhouse at Laurel Park, winning half of the 12 starts she has made at the Maryland track.

PHOENIX - Freespool can flat fly early, and he's the defending champ in Saturday's $100,000 Phoenix Gold Cup, the meet's marquee race. But in this game there's considerable emphasis on recent accomplishment, and Freespool hasn't done much lately.

Freespool's recent form decline has apparently given optimism to many others: 10 are entered against Freespool, the 121-pound highweight, in the six-furlong Gold Cup.

When bettors sit down to handicap Saturday's Lost Code at Sportsman's Park, they might find themselves paying a lot of attention to a pair of 7-year-old Illinois-breds. Magic Doe and Tic N Tim are the 120-pound co-highweights in the race, a $100,000 handicap at six furlongs that is the first stakes of the meet.

Magna Entertainment Corp., has entered into an agreement to purchase Lone Star Park near Dallas for approximately $100 million, the track announced Wednesday night. The sale is subject to regulatory approvals and conditions, and is expected to be closed in the second quarter of 2002.

MEC currently operates 10 racetracks, including Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., Gulfstream Park in Hallendale, Fla., and Remington Park in Oklahoma City, which is located three hours north of Lone Star.