NEW ORLEANS - There was an oddity on the Fair Grounds backstretch Thursday morning - ice.

A rare hard freeze in New Orleans on Wednesday night canceled training at Fair Grounds on Thursday morning, and with similar temperatures forecast for Thursday night, training could be lost on Friday, as well. Nobody's panicking yet, but a long cold snap would compromise the schedules trainers have set for their horses.

"I think everybody's been pretty understanding," said Fair Grounds director of racing Mervin Muniz. "I haven't heard any complaints."

ALBANY, Calif. - Lil Sister Stich was a bit of a disappointment in Southern California early in her career. But time, a move to northern California, and, perhaps most importantly, a switch to the turf have her fulfilling her potential.

As a result, the 5-year-old Lil Sister Stich will be the likely favorite in Saturday's $100,000 Work the Crowd Handicap at Golden Gate Fields. The race, for Cal-bred fillies and mares, will be run at one mile on the turf course.

EAST BOSTON, Mass. - The New Year brought the first of the purse increases at Suffolk Downs mandated by the racing legislation passed late last year.

Aloha Bold, who is perfect in four career starts, will get a class test Saturday night when he steps into stakes company for the first time in the $50,000 Sam Houston Sprint Handicap at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston.

The seven-furlong race has drawn an accomplished field of 12, including Captain Countdown, the defending champ and starting highweight; Boots on Sunday, who is looking to rebound from a seventh-place finish in the Grade 1 De Francis Memorial Dash; and Louisiana stakes winners Oak Hall and Two Punch Sonny.

While Murray Johnson plans to spend another cold winter at the Trackside training complex in Louisville, he still might make it to one of the warmer racing outposts in the next couple of months.

It all depends on how a highly promising 3-year-old named Perfect Drift progresses.

"He's the real deal, no doubt about it," said Johnson, a native of Australia who has been a Kentucky regular for the last decade or so. "He just doesn't have the seasoning right now, so it didn't make sense to take him anywhere."

PHOENIX - As he read down the entries for Saturday's $30,000 Kokopelli Handicap, trainer Kevin Lewis had to like what he saw. It seemed he had a stranglehold on the Kokopelli, a one-mile turf race for 4-year-olds and up, with his strong entry of Eagleton and Bristolville.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Phaenna may have earned herself another year of racing by virtue of her front-running victory in Wednesday's $112,500 Survive Stakes for California-bred female sprinters.

The 7-year-old mare had not raced for more than 3 1/2 months because of a sore foot, and her future was predicated on how she performed Wednesday. "We decided that if she's running good, she'll keep racing. And she ran good," her trainer, Ed Moger Jr., said following the race.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - With heavy rain falling Wednesday afternoon and thunderstorms in the forecast for Thursday, Friday's $100,000 Honey Fox Handicap, the first scheduled turf stakes of the Gulfstream Park meeting, could be moved to the main track.

John Clear, Gulfstream's turf course superintendent, said the turf absorbed an inch of rain on Monday, and he was leery of more rain falling before Friday. "If we get any kind of substantial rain, it's questionable," Clear said of using the turf on Friday.

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.