MIAMI - Trainer Michael Matz took the blinkers off Batique for Saturday's $100,000, Grade 3 My Charmer Handicap* (click here for chart), hoping to get her to relax. But after watching her drop nearly a half-dozen lengths off the pace during the opening half-mile, Matz - the former Olympic equestrian rider - began to think Batique might be relaxing a bit too much.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Trainer Bobby Frankel has won six stakes at the current Hollywood Park fall meeting, equaling the 1984 record set by the legendary Charlie Whittingham.

Bettors will be expecting a seventh from Frankel when Euchre starts as the favorite in Sunday's $100,000 Native Diver Handicap. But the trainer was not predicting victory on Friday when entries were drawn. "He might need the race," Frankel warned.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - Trainer Carlos Martin was home Friday morning, trying to get over a chest cold. He has 75,000 reasons to get well by Sunday.

That's when Martin will saddle Sunday Driver, who could be the one to beat in Sunday's $75,000 East View Stakes for New York-bred juvenile fillies at 1 1/16 miles over Aqueduct's inner track.

Sunday Driver will meet only five rivals Sunday, including entrymate Seeyouinmydreams, who, like Sunday Driver, is owned by Carl Lizza's Flying Zee Stable, but is trained by Phil Serpe.

ALBANY, Calif. - When Fancee Bargain runs in Sunday's featured allowance race at Golden Gate Fields, trainer Art Sherman knows just what to expect.

A quick glance at the 5-year-old Fancee Bargain's form suggests she will be the runner-up. In 19 starts, Fancee Bargain has won three times and finished second nine times. In eight starts this year, she has won once and finished second five times, once when disqualified from a win.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Barmara will attempt to stretch her considerable speed over two turns Sunday when she heads a field of nine fillies and mares in the featured ninth race at Portland Meadows, a $4,000 starter allowance race at a mile.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Wagering from all sources on Woodbine's 165-day Thoroughbred meeting was $344 million, a healthy increase from the $293 million wagered last year.

The Woodbine Entertainment Group, in a press release Thursday, noted the daily average handle from all sources on live Woodbine racing was $2,085,756, an increase of 14 percent over last year.

Wagering from United States sources continued to rise, with this year's total reaching $106 million, up from $80 million last year. Telephone account wagering contributed $12 million, up from $10 million in 2000.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - In the last four years, Bob Baffert has dominated the Hollywood Futurity like no trainer before in the race's 20-year history.

Baffert won the Futurity three times in the last four years - with Real Quiet (1997), Captain Steve (1999), and Point Given (2000). In Saturday's running, he will have as many as three starters.

Baffert hopes that Hawk's Top Gun or Mountain Rage or Popular will give him a fourth Futurity winner, and tie him with D. Wayne Lukas for most Futurity victories by a trainer.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - Xtra Heat, who would have been the odds-on favorite in Saturday's $75,000 Garland of Roses Handicap, was scratched from that race on Friday because of a cough.

Trainer John Salzman said Xtra Heat coughed a couple of times before she was to train Friday morning at Laurel Park.

"She also left a handful of feed which she never does,' Salzman said.

Since she did not have a high temperature, Xtra Heat did train Friday morning, but was heard to cough eight times while galloping, according to Salzman. Xtra Heat was also coughing while she cooled out.

MIAMI - The steeplechase set will be out in force Sunday at Calder with a pair of races carded over the fences, including the third running of the Grade 3, $50,000 Tropical Park Steeplechase Handicap.

The Tropical Park Steeplechase has been the final race on the National Steeplechase Association's stakes schedule since its inception in 1999. Sunday will be the first time that Calder will present a second jump race on its program, a conditioned allowance with a $25,000 purse. Both steeple-chase races will be decided at 2 1/4 miles.

NEW ORLEANS - It's not exactly as trainer Neil Howard planned, but a race on turf will have to do. Rock Slide, a late-blooming 3-year-old colt that Howard hopes will become a force in the handicap ranks next year, makes his Fair Grounds debut Sunday in a third-level turf allowance.