EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Julian Pimentel's huge autumn at the Meadowlands should give Eclipse Award voters pause before rubber-stamping favored Jeremy Rose for the top apprentice award.

If they decided the Eclipse based on the toughest commute, these two men would still be the front-runners. Both riders have been pulling double duty riding day and night. While Rose has had the longer of the two commutes, coming to The Meadowlands from Delaware after their races, Pimentel has had to brave grueling New York rush hours to get to New Jersey from Belmont.

MIAMI, Fla. - To turf or not to turf. That will be the question when 2-year-olds, the majority of whom have never raced on the grass, square off in Saturday's co-featured Lulu's Ransom and Fabulous Frolic Stakes at a mile on the turf. Both races carry a purse of $60,000 with registered Florida-breds preferred in both events.

Saturday's $55,000-added Star Ball Handicap, the first of 30 stakes on the 2001-2002 Golden Gate Fields schedule, is a rematch of the top finishers from $50,000 Hillsborough Handicap, run at Bay Meadows on Oct. 13. In the 1 1/16-mile Hillsborough run over the Longden turf course, Slow Down rallied far wide in the stretch run to outnod Aviate for her first stakes victory.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - In what may be the final chance to impress Eclipse Award voters, Val Royal, the winner of the Breeders' Cup Mile at Belmont Park last month, may start in the $500,000 Citation Handicap at Hollywood Park on Nov. 24.

On Thursday at Santa Anita, Val Royal worked three furlongs in 36 seconds to the delight of trainer Julio Canani.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - Richard Migliore and Robbie Davis, two jockeys who have made Gulfstream Park their winter home the last several years, will stay in New York and ride at Aqueduct this winter.

Both riders cited family matters as the primary reason for their decision.

Migliore's wife, Carmela, recently gave birth to the couple's fourth child and first daughter. Migliore said he also wanted to spend more time with his three growing sons.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Include, seventh as the 10-1 fifth choice in the Breeders' Cup Classic, has joined the prospective field for the Nov. 23 Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs and will have Pat Day aboard.

Trainer Bud Delp said Thursday from Maryland that Include came out of the Classic in good shape and that the colt "looked like he wanted to do something. I'm sure that if he'd won, we'd have put him away for the year. But we looked around and thought the Clark would be the right spot."

Chicago Six, the reformed claimer who turned into a graded stakes winner this year, will seek his second consecutive win in the $75,000 Illinois Coronet Handicap at Hawthorne on Saturday. The race, at 1 1/16 miles, is the highlight of a card that features four stakes exclusively for Illinois-breds.

Whosleavingwho should be the odds-on favorite to post his second Grade 1 derby win at Los Alamitos when he starts in the $250,000 Los Alamitos Derby on Saturday night.

Whosleavingwho, owned by Jim Geiler and Kim Kessinger, won the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Winter Derby on Feb. 24 as the 4-5 favorite.

Whosleavingwho's success has not been limited to Los Alamitos. He campaigned at Ruidoso Downs last summer with a second-place finish to Feature Mr Jess in the Grade 1 Rainbow Derby and a fourth behind Stoli in the Grade 1 All American Derby.

Chauffe Au Rouge, a $20,000 claim whose status as an accredited Texas-bred has been under investigation since he won the restricted $100,000 Texas Hall of Fame Stakes in course-record time Oct. 6, takes on open-company stakes rivals Saturday night in the $25,000 Buffalo Bayou at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston.

Front Nine, a 2-year-old colt who has won two of his last three starts by a combined 33 lengths, looks for his second career stakes win Saturday in the colts and geldings division of the Friendship Stakes at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La.

The six-furlong race is restricted to Texas-breds nominated to the Friendship series, and if all seven horses entered start, the purse for the race will be $72,274.