VANCOUVER, British Columbia - After closing out his 2-year-old season last year with an impressive win in the Ascot Graduation and the title of champion 2-year-old in British Columbia, Diglett faced great expectations heading into his 3-year-old year. While he has won two stakes and has earned more than $100,000, his trainer, Gary Demorest, considers Diglett's 2001 season "a little disappointing."

ARCADIA, Calif. - The racing career of Lazy Slusan, who won two Grade 1 races this year, appears to be over.

On Friday, owner-trainer John Dolan said he was leaning toward not pre-entering Lazy Slusan on Monday for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Distaff at Belmont Park on Oct. 27. Regardless of whether she runs in that race, she is scheduled to be sold at the Keeneland November breeding stock sale on Nov. 5.

On Oct. 7, Lazy Slusan finished ninth of 10 in the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes at Keeneland, a key prep to the Breeders' Cup Distaff. "She threw in a clunker," Dolan said.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Balto Star, who has won on both dirt and turf this year, will be pointed to the Breeders' Cup Mile on grass, trainer Todd Pletcher said Friday. The 3-year-old gelding will also be pre-entered for the $2 million Turf, but the Mile will be made first preference.

Balto Star has raced only once on turf, winning a money allowance race at a mile last month at Saratoga.

SAN MATEO, Calif. ? Quiet Heart, second in similar conditions last out Sept. 23, may rate a slight edge in a wide-open feature at Bay Meadows Sunday.

Quiet Heart was close up throughout that mile turf race and wound up second best behind Miss Ng In Action. She was also second in a similar spot here during the San Mateo Fair when she lacked room in the late stages and was beaten only a neck.

Sunday's featured eighth race is run at 1 1/16 miles on turf for first-level allowance runners. It carries a purse of $32,000.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. ? There was a time when the 4-year-old colt E Z Glory had his mind on just about everything but horse racing. E Z Glory went through the terrible twos, driving his trainer, Carl Bowman, and the stable help crazy with nonstop antics.

"Oh, as a 2-year-old he was incorrigible," Bowman said. "He had no focus on anything at all. He'd much rather have picked up a tennis shoe in his mouth and carry it around the barn ? which he actually did two days in a row."

LEXINGTON, Ky. ? After watching Connected's first 19 races, trainer David Carroll believed the gelding was a poor shipper.

So several days before Connected drove to victory Friday in the $80,425 Warfield Stakes at Keeneland, Carroll had him moved from his Churchill Downs home base to Keeneland to acclimate.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Exciting Story, who wrote the finest chapter of his career when winning the Grade 1 Met Mile at Belmont this May, is unlikely to see action again this season.

A Florida-bred 4-year-old owned and bred by Harry T. Mangurian Jr. and trained by Mark Casse, Exciting Story has been off since Sept. 1, when he was upset by Praise From Dixie in a seven-furlong money allowance here.

"After his last race, he got pretty sick," said Casse, "and it just kind of knocked him out. He's just now really getting back to himself.

Sarah Lane's Oates, who is approaching $1 million in earnings, and Midge Too, who in her last start upset Hallowed Dreams, are the standouts in their races Sunday during the second half of the fourth annual Breeders' Festival at Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, La. The festival is a two-day series of eight statebred stakes worth a cumulative $360,000.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Two weeks before the World Thoroughbred Championships is not what most horsemen would call perfect timing for a prep race.

But then, Keeneland officials realize that the $500,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup is not a perennial producer of contenders for the Breeders' Cup, even after the Filly and Mare Turf became part of the championships two years ago. After all, the QEII is restricted to 3-year-old fillies, some of whom are probably not quite ready to step up against their elders.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - John T. Ward Jr. has saddled the winners of Grade 1 races at Gulfstream, Woodbine, Belmont, and Churchill Downs. The most recent win came in May at Churchill, where Monarchos gave Ward his greatest career thrill by winning the 127th Kentucky Derby.

But Ward has never won a Grade 1 at Keeneland, even though he has lived just outside the back gate virtually his entire 56-plus years. "Never gotten one of those gold julep cups" that signifies a Grade 1 win at Keeneland, he said.