No, life isn't that grand at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., where four-plus months of winter racing gets under way Sunday.

For the last several years, Turfway's business has been hurt by nearby Indiana riverboats and full-card simulcast competition in Ohio, with average ontrack attendance and handle having been cut nearly in half since 1995. This drastic turn of events has led track president Bob Elliston to spend much of his time recently traveling around the state, pleading for help from Kentucky state legislators.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Olympian began his 2001 campaign on a high note, breaking the five-furlong track record at Woodbine when he romped to victory in 56.07 seconds in just the second race of the meeting March 31.

"At that point, I thought he was going to have a great year," said trainer John Cardella, who owns Olympian in partnership with John Sullivan's Rexdale Stable.

NEW ORLEANS - Bonapaw's outstanding performance Thursday at Fair Grounds apparently left him no worse for wear, and trainer Tucker Alonzo deemed Bonapaw a likely participant in the next sprint stakes here, the F.W. Gaudin Memorial Handicap on Dec. 16.

"He came back good," Alonzo said Friday morning. "He ate everything up last night. We'll try to keep the same schedule as last year."

MIAMI - The first major stakes races of the Tropical at Calder meet will be run next weekend, the Mecke and its filly counterpart, the Hollywood Wildcat. Both races are for 2-year-olds going 1 1/16 miles on the turf and have drawn 30 and 32 nominations, a large majority from Northern-based outfits who have already arrived on the scene for the winter campaign.

Leading trainer Rex Brooks has three chances to win his fourth $75,000 Black Gold Futurity Championship at Blue Ribbon Downs in Sallisaw, Okla., on Sunday. The 400-yard race is the final leg of a restricted series of stakes for 2-year-olds that is run all year at Blue Ribbon.

ANDERSON, Ind. - Red's Honor guns for his fourth straight stakes win of the Hoosier Park meet Sunday in the $40,000-added To Much Coffee Stakes for 3-year-olds and up going 1 1/16 miles.

The To Much Coffee is the fourth on an 11-race program. The third race is the $40,000 Frances Slocum Stakes for fillies and mares going 1 1/16 miles.

Trained by Dale Romans for the McKee Stables, Red's Honor romped by 8 3/4 lengths in the Benjamin Harrison Stakes at 1 1/16 miles Oct. 27. He also won the Fort Wayne and Brickyard stakes, both at six furlongs for statebreds.

Bigboystoy, who suffered her only defeat last out in the Bam's Penny Stakes at Bay Meadows, should be a strong favorite in a field of nine juvenile fillies in Sunday's featured eighth race. The six-furlong first-level allowance race has a purse of $32,000.

Bigboystoy made her debut in September at the lowly $8,000 maiden level and overcame a slow start and a very wide trip. She edged clear late in that five-furlong race for a 1 1/2-length victory. In her second start, Bigboystoy won a $32,000 starter allowance by

3 1/2 lengths.

PORTLAND, Ore. - What a long, strange trip it has been for the 8-year-old gelding Live at the Half, who returned to the place where he first entered training last Friday and won the second race at Portland Meadows.

Then Live at the Half went back to trainer Dick Occhiuto's barn and bedded down in a stall next to a 2-year-old filly named Lady Annahalf, who is one of at least five of his daughters or sons currently in training here.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The tendon injury that kept Val Royal sidelined for more than a year is behind him, replaced with the memory of a flashy come-from-behind victory in the Breeders' Cup Mile last month at Belmont Park.

On a day of outstanding performances in the World Thoroughbred Championships, Val Royal's victory was among the finest, and it placed him among the world's top turf milers.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - It is becoming as much a Thanksgiving weekend tradition as leftover turkey and crowded malls: Affirmed Success, after disappointing in the Breeders' Cup, seeks redemption in the Cigar Mile.

Saturday, when Aqueduct hosts the 13th Cigar Mile - the last Grade 1 of the year in New York - Affirmed Success will be making his fourth consecutive appearance.

"I would have loved not to have run in the Cigar," trainer Richard Schosberg said. "Because it would mean we would have won the Breeders' Cup."