INDIANTOWN, Fla. - The closing of the Hialeah barn area has put stall space at a premium in south Florida this winter. Horsemen hoping to turn to the Payson Park Training Center as an alternative have quickly learned there is no room at the inn.

About the only way to secure stall space at Payson these days is to have it willed to you by your next of kin. All 503 stalls at the facility, approximately 95 miles north of Gulfstream Park, have gone to the same familiar faces, all of whom gladly fork over $2,300 per stall for a seven-month stay, Oct. 1 through May 1.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - He played golf, vacationed with his family, and attended a few horse sales. Now that his four-month suspension is over, trainer John Dowd is ready to get back to work.

Dowd is back at Gulfstream Park, where a year ago he won the Grade 1 Fountain of Youth with Songandaprayer, who would not win another race and who is now retired at Marablue Farm in Reddick, Fla.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - Training hours at Belmont Park were relatively quiet on New Year's Day, the official birthday for Thoroughbreds, with few horses on the work tab and many horsemen taking the frigid morning off.

Tuesday was business as usual, however, for trainer Jimmy Jerkens, who is preparing the promising Iron Deputy for his 3-year-old and two-turn debut in Saturday's $75,000-added Count Fleet Stakes.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - After a pair of losses in Grade 1's against males, Xtra Heat resumed her winning ways in Tuesday's $81,925 Interborough Handicap* (click here for chart) at Aqueduct in her first start as a 4-year-old.

The New Year's card, which featured the popular calendar giveaway, drew an announced crowd of 15,383.

Dusty Stimpson, a successful Quarter Horse jockey based at Los Alamitos, was killed in a one-car accident early Tuesday morning. He was 29.

Delta Downs in Vinton, La., which could open a slots casino by the end of January, begins a 56-night mixed meet Thursday with eight races for Thoroughbreds and three for Quarter Horses. The season continues through April 7, and will be followed by a 44-night Quarter Horse meet from April 18 to June 30.

NEW ORLEANS - Trainer Harold Williams's pocket-sized stable fits into a quiet corner of an out-of-the-way Fair Grounds barn. But with Mimi's Tizzy and Drewman making up two-thirds of the operation, Williams has firepower.

Mimi's Tizzy won the Furl Sail Handicap here Friday, and Drewman, who returned from a long layoff and finished fourth in a sprint here Saturday, is likely to make his next start in the Jan. 20 Diplomat Way Handicap. Williams's third horse is Sophie, an unraced 2-year-old sister to Drewman by the promising sire Pulpit.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Jerry Botts, racing secretary at Churchill Downs since 1985, died suddenly Tuesday after been diagnosed last weekend with cancer of the lungs and liver. He was 54.

Botts, a Tennessee native who grew up near Churchill and had been a racing official for 30 years, worked throughout the fall meet that ended Nov. 24. He had been in relatively good health until recently stricken. He died at Norton Hospital in Louisville after being admitted Saturday.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Paga's workmanlike win Monday in the Grade 3 Monrovia Handicap at Santa Anita established the South American mare as a potential star for the year 2002. Plagued by foot problems that prevented her from starting since late September, Paga won the "about" six and a half-furlong turf race by a length and a quarter over Twin Set. It was a half-length back to longshot third-place finisher Impeachable.

ARCADIA, Calif. - From 6 1/2 furlongs to a mile, Jeweled Pirate has proven in the last year that she is among the top California-bred fillies and mares, scoring wins in two turf stakes.

Wednesday, the 5-year-old Jeweled Pirate tries a new distance and surface as the likely favorite in the $100,000 Survive Stakes over 5 1/2 furlongs on dirt at Santa Anita.

Her trainer, Ray Bell, is optimistic that she can handle the shorter trip and surface in her first start since winning the California Cup Distaff on the hillside turf course on Nov. 3.