BOOSIER CITY, La. - Triple Card, currently riding a three-race win streak, including the Airline Stakes here at Louisiana Downs in his most recent start, heads the field for Saturday's Bossier City Handicap. The 1 1/16-mile turf test for 3-year-olds carries a $40,000 purse.

Nat's Big Party and Gold Nugget, two former claiming horses who have become regional stakes winners, meet in the $50,000 Retama Turf Cup at Retama Park near San Antonio.

The field for the 1 1/16-mile turf race is completed by Kris Havingfunnow, winner of last year's $100,000 El Joven over the Retama Park turf; Dynaboy, who will be coupled with Gold Nugget; Colonial Power, an allowance winner at this distance two starts ago at Lone Star Park near Dallas; and allowance performers Frankly Classic and Quiet Man.

NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Turkowar will attempt to stretch his winning streak to four races while facing 10 Ohio-bred 3-year-old peers in the $40,000, six-furlong, North Randall Stakes at Thistledown.

In his last race, July 22, he drew off to a 4 3/4-length tally in River Downs's 1 1/16-mile Horizon Stakes. Before that he reeled off wins in two allowance sprints at Thistledown. Under the allowance conditions of the race, Turkowar is co-highweighted at 119 pounds and Tony Caminita will ride for trainer Joe Shuman.

Hotdoggin, a 2-year-old Quarter Horse who established a track record for 350 yards while winning his trial for the $263,438 TQHA Sales Futurity last month at Sam Houston Race Park, is clearly the one to beat in the finale. The 350-yard race drew eight others, including the Heath Taylor-trained entry of Secluded and Allkindacats.

Taylor also trains Hotdoggin, who set the fastest qualifying time for the Sales Futurity when he won his trial by 2 3/4 lengths in a time of 17.36 seconds. The old track record for 350 yards was 17.54 seconds, set by Streakin O Toole in 1997.

FERNDALE - Hello Senor, who has climbed up the claiming ranks using front-running tactics, will bid for his stakes diploma in Saturday's third edition of the $7,500 Eel River Sprint.

Six speedsters will line up for the the Eel River, the five-furlong headliner that crowns the Humboldt County Fair's sprint king.

If he maintains his usual style of racing, Hello Senor will play catch me if you can.

DEL MAR, Calif. - More than eight months after his last start, a victory in the Cigar Mile at Aqueduct, El Corredor is ready for his 2001 debut, Sunday's $150,000 Pat O'Brien Handicap at Del Mar. El Corredor, the 119-pound starting highweight in the Grade 2 Pat O'Brien, comes into the seven-furlong race with a stellar record of 5 wins in 7 starts.

Even so, El Corredor has yet to impress trainer Bob Baffert this summer.

Fair Grounds Race Course released its 2001-2002 stakes schedule Thursday with little change in the track's traditional structure of races.

Most notably, Fair Grounds increased the purse of three stakes races, boosting the March 24 Explosive Bid, a nine-furlong turf handicap, by $100,000 to a $700,000. At $600,000 last year, the Grade 2 Explosive Bid already was one of the richest turf races run in this country.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Proud Man, the most accomplished 3-year-old turf horse in the country, is unlikely to start in the Grade 1 Secretariat at Arlington next weekend.

Proud Man had a light breeze at Belmont Park Thursday morning and will work again in a few days. There is still a slight chance he could wind up in Chicago, but Jimmy Iselin, the head of a syndicate that owns the colt, deemed his status "extremely questionable."

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - The race has had more incarnations than a Hindu deity. On Saturday, it will be known as the Singapore Plate, and it is the next stop on what has been a not-so-magical countrywide tour for last year's champion 2-year-old filly, Caressing.

The Blitz is on. But it will be more like a delayed Blitz in Saturday's West Virginia Derby.

Thunder Blitz will not be going all out early. After having him run close to the pace in last month's Long Branch Stakes at Monmouth, trainer Joe Orseno and jockey Jorge Chavez have decided to let the colt revert to his preferred off-the-pace tactics.