JAMAICA, N.Y. - Travis Dunkelberger, the country's third-leading rider last year with 395 winners, began riding fulltime at Aqueduct on Wednesday.

Dunkelberger, 24, has come to New York to ride on a first-call basis for the hot owner-and-trainer team of Richard Englander and Scott Lake. The rider finished sixth and fifth aboard his first two mounts on Wednesday.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Despite having things his own way and losing a two-length lead in the final furlong, Scagnelli's second-place finish at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 12 was extremely strong.

Speed on turf was not holding, Scagnelli was making his first start in two months, and it took a graded stakes winner, Drama Critic, to run him down.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Cashel Castle, the undefeated 3-year-old colt who was training for Saturday's $150,000 Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream Park, will not run after coming out of a Tuesday workout with an injury to his right front ankle.

NEW ORLEANS - It was nearly two years ago that Gary and Mary West had a pretty fair reason to believe they might have a contender for the 2000 Kentucky Derby. Their Wild Again colt named Patent won a maiden race at Gulfstream Park in highly impressive style, and soon would face a more revealing test about his quality.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Duke de Portola and Stregawood, the one-two finishers in a claiming race on Jan. 21, will head a bulky field of 11 under similar conditions in Friday's 1 1/16-mile Portland Meadows feature, for older $4,000 claimers who have never won three races.

ALBANY, Calif. - Trainer Don Burke is looking forward to Saturday's $100,000 Brown Bess Handicap at Golden Gate Fields.

He's hopeful that a six-month freshening will help Polaire earn her first American graded stakes victory when she runs in the Grade 3, 1 1/16-mile turf race.

Polaire has not run since a fifth-place finish in the Modesty Handicap at Arlington Park last July 28.

"She came out of the race a little sore in front," Burke said. "I think it was a residual effect after being in training for a year and a half.

NEW ORLEANS - For the last 10 years, purse increases have been as much a part of the Fair Grounds meet as seafood gumbo or red beans and rice. In fact, director of racing Mervin Muniz estimates he has announced purse increases 35 or 40 times during the last decade.

So when it was announced Monday that purses would be going down, not up, a long-welcome trend met a rude reversal.

Tuesday's featured 10th race did little to clear up the confusing picture among the older route horses at Sunland Park.

By winning four races on back-to-back cards at Mountaineer Park last weekend, jockey Dana Whitney has taken a commanding lead in the rider standings after 12 days of the winter meet.

Whitney has ridden 24 winners in 94 mounts, more than twice the number of winners of distant runner-up Gary Birzer, who has 10.

Among the trainers, despite being shut out on Monday and Tuesday, Dale Baird maintains a 12-5 lead over Gary Johnson.

Eleven weeks into the current meet at Delta Downs, veteran Steve Bourque continues to sit atop the rider standings with 61 wins. Bourque is currently serving a seven-day suspension for careless riding.

During Bourque's downtime, Guy Smith narrowed the gap in the standings with a couple of two-win evenings last week and now trails Bourque by 10 victories. Journeyman C. J. Woodley and Jeri Nichols are tied for third with 40 wins each.