DEL MAR, Calif. - Cagney, a Group 1 winner in South America last year, won his first American stakes in the restricted $83,975 Escondido Handicap at Del Mar on Wednesday.

Ridden by Alex Solis, Cagney ($5.80) split horses in midstretch and won by a half-length, finishing 1 3/8 miles on turf in 2:14.19 before an on-track crowd of 11,014.

The Escondido, restricted to non-winners of a first-place purse of $50,000 at a mile or over this year, was Cagney's first win since scoring in a Group 1 at a mile on turf in Brazil in June 2000.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Mission accomplished.

Big Bambu recorded the first graded stakes of her career Wednesday, outdueling Dat You Miz Blue early and holding off Country Hideaway late to win the Grade 3 $103,000 Honorable Miss Stakes by one length at Saratoga.

Country Hideaway rallied from last to be second, one-half length ahead of even-money favorite Dat You Miz Blue. Precious Feather finished last while Shine Again was scratched.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - During the backstretch run of last year's Hopeful Stakes, trainer Linda Rice thought something was wrong with her 2-year-old City Zip. After pressing the pace for the first quarter mile, City Zip started dropping back entering the far turn.

"I thought we had a problem," Rice recalled.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Stakes-placed 3-year-olds Phone Dancer and Marjorie Daw are among the contenders in Friday's featured seventh race at Woodbine, a wide-open grass event for fillies and mares.

The one-mile preliminary allowance will be one of three races shown live on Sportsnet as part of "Woodbine Post Time."

Phone Dancer earned her black type by placing in two dirt stakes in 2000, the Shady Well and the Fanfreluche, but she remained a maiden after eight starts at year's end.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - If an effortless five-length allowance win here July 12 was any indication, Sams Tune is ready to win a stakes race. She will get that chance Friday at Arlington when she faces six other sprinting fillies in the Meafara, a $60,000-added overnight stakes that is the feature on a 10-race program.

DEL MAR, Calif. - The marathon grass division for fillies and mares may not be a glamorous collection in California, but there is ample opportunity for a stayer such as Keemoon to bang out a lucrative career.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - City Zip has been a new horse with the addition of blinkers. Now, his connections hope City Zip can return to his old Saratoga form when he runs in Friday's $125,000 Amsterdam Stakes for 3-year-olds at six furlongs.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - According to Bill Perry, North East Bound isn't what you would call a great work horse.

So North East Bound must be sitting on a monster race in this Sunday's Grade 3, $100,000 Oceanport Handicap, part of the Grade 1 Haskell undercard, as he has drilled two bullet workouts since finishing fourth in the Grade 1 United Nations July 1.

OCEANPORT, N.J. - At the Ocala Breeders' Sale two years ago, a bay colt by Rubiano out of While Rome Burns was just another hip number. At this year's sale, a picture of the colt is featured on the back cover of the catalog.

Horses running in the first half of the daily double are most often the cheapest and slowest on the grounds of any racetrack. Friday night's opener at Penn National, however, is reserved for the track's oldest and most prestigious stakes.