ANDERSON, Ind. - As the fall harvest begins in the grain fields surrounding Hoosier Park, Saturday's $300,000 Indiana Derby has drawn a bumper crop of its own.

A crack field of 12 3-year-olds, including graded stakes performers from the East Coast, Midwest, and South, will hook up at 1 1/16 miles in the seventh, and deepest, edition of the Indiana Derby, this track's richest race.

Trainer Anthony Dutrow holds the strongest hand as he sends out the coupled entry of Saratoga Games and Burning Roma, who is rapidly approaching millionaire status.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - In the final sixteenth of a mile, the Arlington Matron could become a war of attrition. Saturday's Grade 3 handicap drew a field of seven fillies and mares when entries were taken Thursday: They have combined to go 1-for-17 in races at nine furlongs, the Matron's distance. The question is who will be finishing at the wire.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Dick Lundy has taken a job as the private trainer for owner Ernie Paragallo, the latest step in Lundy's return to national prominence. Lundy will oversee a string of 40 to 50 horses that will be split this winter between Aqueduct and Fair Grounds, Lundy has based at Arlington the last two summers and wintered in Florida last year. In the 1980's he trained for the Payson stable before becoming the private trainer for Alan Paulson, overseeing 125 regally-bred horses.

Few horses have raced at as many different venues as Mystic Lady. Over the past 12 months, she has run near the Atlantic Ocean in Miami and New Jersey, in the mountains of upstate New York, and in cities as big as New Orleans and as small as Hot Springs, Ark.

To be precise, trainer Mark Hennig has taken Mystic Lady on a tour of 10 different racetracks since last November. She adds Philadelphia Park to her long list of travel destinations Saturday when she heads a field of seven 3-year-old fillies for the $250,000 Cotillion.

Stormy Pick, a two-time stakes winner at Monmouth Park during the summer, holds a class advantage over seven 3-year-old filly sprinters she will face in the $100,000 Stormy Blues Breeders' Cup Handicap at Pimlico.

Stormy Pick has familiar foes. A winner of six races in 13 lifetime starts for trainer Ben Perkins Jr., Stormy Pick displayed the ability to stay close to the pace and then draw clear when asked in both the Dearly Precious and the Miss

Woodford, both at six furlongs.

Vitrina Cat, a wire-to-wire winner in her North American stakes debut, tries to make it two in a row in the $75,000 Open Fire Stakes at Delaware Park.

Vitrina Cat, a 4-year-old Argentine-bred filly, won three consecutive group stakes in her native country to close out her 2000 season. Now trained by Alan Goldberg, Vitrina Cat needed three races to acclimate herself to the United States.

Gold Nugget and Lights on Broadway, considered two of the best older Texas-breds in training, are expected to meet for the first time Saturday night in the $100,000 Texas Hall of Fame Stakes at Retama Park. The 1 1/16-mile turf race is one of seven statebred stakes that will make up the meet's richest card, a $300,000 program designed to celebrate inductions into the Texas Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

Cinderella Story, who has won four of her last five starts, will attempt to keep trainer Cole Norman's stakes streak alive in the $25,000 Majorette Handicap at Louisiana Downs.

Norman swept last weekend's stakes at the track, and to date has won a third of the stakes program at Louisiana Downs.

War General, who pulled off an upset in defeating statebreds in the Iowa Cradle Stakes in his last start, looks to duplicate the feat against open company when he heads a field of six, including a Glynn Bernis-trained entry, in the six-furlong $50,000 Prairie Freshman Stakes at Prairie Meadows.

War General entered the $65,000 Iowa Cradle Stakes on Sept. 1 a maiden and exited it a stakes winner after leading throughout and drawing off to a five-length score while covering the six furlongs in 1:11.36 under jockey Cindy Noll.

Albert the Great drew post six Thursday in a field of seven as he bids for back-to-back wins in Belmont Park's $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup.

The 1 1/4-mile Gold Cup heads an outstanding Saturday program at Belmont which features four Grade 1 stakes and one Grade 2, all with Breeders' Cup implications.

Albert the Great, trained by Nick Zito, was pegged an even money favorite in the New York Racing Association morning line.

Aptitude, trained by Bobby Frankel, landed post two and was priced as the 8-5 second-choice.