JAMAICA, N.Y. - End of the Road's brush with fame came in April 2000 when he finished an Aqueduct allowance race in a dead-heat for first with Lemon Drop Kid, that year's Eclipse Award winner as top older horse.

NEW ORLEANS - A switch to turf racing picked up Extra Check's form. His last win picked up his head. And on Friday, Extra Check is in a good spot to pick up his first stakes win when he starts as the highweight and likely favorite in the $75,000 Black Gold Handicap.

* was one of 10 newly turned 3-year-olds entered in the Black Gold, which is scheduled for about 7 1/2 furlongs on grass. The field includes a John Franks-owned, Bobby Barnett-trained two-horse entry.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Bobby Frankel sat placidly in his Santa Anita box during Wednesday's first race, watching his two horses, Autumn Rhythm and Narasimha, finish one-two. The day was starting just right, but Frankel had worries that he would not be as fortunate during the next two days of racing.

ALBANY, Calif. - Friday's feature race at Golden Gate Fields will be a learning experience for Diekenes.

A newly turned 3-year-old colt trained by Greg Gilchrist, Diekenes was third in his debut when Arsen, another first-timer, exploded onto the scene with an impressive victory. Diekenes came back to win his second start.

Hallowed Dreams, who won the first 16 races of her career, may not hold the most unusual race record in Louisiana. That distinction arguably could go to Thar He Blows, a 14-year-old who will make his seasonal debut Friday night at Delta Downs in Vinton, La.

* has raced every year since he made his career bow as a 2-year-old in 1990, and on Friday will attempt to start his racing season the same way he did last year - with a win. In his 13-year-old debut Jan. 7, 2001, the gelding was a 5 1/2-length winner of a $3,000 claiming race at Delta.

Santa Anita Park has dropped the simulcast signal from Aqueduct in New York in favor of Fair Grounds in New Orleans, Santa Anita officials said Wednesday.

The decision to drop Aqueduct was "based entirely on the fact that the signal from Fair Grounds is much more dependable than the signal from New York at this time of year" because of weather conditions, said Jack Liebau, chief executive officer of Santa Anita. "Normally we have five or six last-minute cancelations from Aqueduct each year in January because of bad weather," Liebau said.

MIAMI - The 2001-02 Tropical-at-Calder meeting ended Tuesday showing substantial gains in all categories, topped by a record combined mutuel handle of $224,701,909, an increase of more than 7 percent from last year.

Average ontrack attendance of 5,056 for the 52-day session was up nearly 5 percent from 2000-01, while ontrack handle showed an increase of 1.4 percent, averaging $485,404 per day.

Business was up significantly at the 47-day Hawthorne meet that ended Tuesday. All-sources handle at the Stickney, Ill., track was up 26 percent over similar dates last year, with the daily average of $2,451,178 far surpassing the $1,947,483 in 2000. These figures were more impressive considering that Arlington was the Chicago host for Breeders' Cup simulcast wagering this year, whereas Hawthorne was the host in 2000.

Daily ontrack handle averaged $226,198, up more than 6 percent from last year. Breeders' Cup figures were excluded for comparison purposes.

In a year in which most things appeared to go wrong for Maryland racetracks, handle actually went up.

Overall, all-sources handle on races at Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park in 2001 increased 7 percent over 2000, from $367.7 million to $391.4 million, according to the Maryland Jockey Club, which owns Pimlico and Laurel.

Average field size increased nearly 10 percent over 2000, from 7.9 horses per race to 8.6 in 2001. A larger average field size is believed to translate into higher handle.

ARCADIA, Calif. - The victory by 18-1 shot Snow Ridge in Tuesday's El Conejo Handicap buoyed the confidence of his trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, who believes Snow Ridge could be one of the best sprinters in the country, if he could just be more consistent.

"He's a damn nice horse," Lukas said Wednesday morning at his Santa Anita barn. "He's run a few spotty races where he didn't like the racetrack. But yesterday, he took it to the big horse and took off."