Hotdoggin, a 2-year-old Quarter Horse who established a track record for 350 yards while winning his trial for the $263,438 TQHA Sales Futurity last month at Sam Houston Race Park, is clearly the one to beat in the finale. The 350-yard race drew eight others, including the Heath Taylor-trained entry of Secluded and Allkindacats.

Taylor also trains Hotdoggin, who set the fastest qualifying time for the Sales Futurity when he won his trial by 2 3/4 lengths in a time of 17.36 seconds. The old track record for 350 yards was 17.54 seconds, set by Streakin O Toole in 1997.

FERNDALE - Hello Senor, who has climbed up the claiming ranks using front-running tactics, will bid for his stakes diploma in Saturday's third edition of the $7,500 Eel River Sprint.

Six speedsters will line up for the the Eel River, the five-furlong headliner that crowns the Humboldt County Fair's sprint king.

If he maintains his usual style of racing, Hello Senor will play catch me if you can.

DEL MAR, Calif. - More than eight months after his last start, a victory in the Cigar Mile at Aqueduct, El Corredor is ready for his 2001 debut, Sunday's $150,000 Pat O'Brien Handicap at Del Mar. El Corredor, the 119-pound starting highweight in the Grade 2 Pat O'Brien, comes into the seven-furlong race with a stellar record of 5 wins in 7 starts.

Even so, El Corredor has yet to impress trainer Bob Baffert this summer.

Fair Grounds Race Course released its 2001-2002 stakes schedule Thursday with little change in the track's traditional structure of races.

Most notably, Fair Grounds increased the purse of three stakes races, boosting the March 24 Explosive Bid, a nine-furlong turf handicap, by $100,000 to a $700,000. At $600,000 last year, the Grade 2 Explosive Bid already was one of the richest turf races run in this country.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Proud Man, the most accomplished 3-year-old turf horse in the country, is unlikely to start in the Grade 1 Secretariat at Arlington next weekend.

Proud Man had a light breeze at Belmont Park Thursday morning and will work again in a few days. There is still a slight chance he could wind up in Chicago, but Jimmy Iselin, the head of a syndicate that owns the colt, deemed his status "extremely questionable."

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - The race has had more incarnations than a Hindu deity. On Saturday, it will be known as the Singapore Plate, and it is the next stop on what has been a not-so-magical countrywide tour for last year's champion 2-year-old filly, Caressing.

The Blitz is on. But it will be more like a delayed Blitz in Saturday's West Virginia Derby.

Thunder Blitz will not be going all out early. After having him run close to the pace in last month's Long Branch Stakes at Monmouth, trainer Joe Orseno and jockey Jorge Chavez have decided to let the colt revert to his preferred off-the-pace tactics.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - With the absence of Queen's Plate winner Dancethruthedawn and Prince of Wales Stakes winner Win City, the third leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, Saturday's $500,000 Breeders' Stakes at Woodbine, is a competitive event lacking in quality.

Fillies have won two of the last three runnings of the 1 1/2-mile turf marathon, and are represented again Saturday by Sweetest Thing and Asia.

Roger Attfield, who trains Sweetest Thing, won two consecutive Breeders', with Pinafore Park and Free Vacation in 1998 and 1999.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Maresha, trained by John Servis, will add some additional Jersey flavor to Monday's Grade 2 Adirondack at Saratoga when she joins Lost Expectations as the two Monmouth representatives in the stakes for 2-year-old fillies.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Sparkling Number wasn't supposed to run in the five-furlong Anderson Fowler against 3-year-old colts on the turf July 22, but when her planned allowance race came off the turf, she did. Although she finished third, the race showed how tough she will be when she faces fillies in Saturday's $50,000 Candy Eclair Stakes, run at five furlongs on the turf for 3-year-old fillies.