The 47-date summer Quarter Horse season begins Friday night at Sam Houston Race Park with War Colors and Victory Defined running in the trials to the Grade 1 $80,000 MBNA America Texas Challenge Championship.

War Colors comes into the 440-yard trials off a win in the Grade 2 $65,555 East Challenge Championship at Delta Downs on June 9.

Victory Defined is the defending champion in the Texas Challenge Championship, one of five stakes races he won in 2000.

The 10 fastest qualifiers return for the finals on July 14.

MIAMI - After finishing off the board for the eighth consecutive time when beaten 17 lengths by Callie and Jake in the Ponche Handicap, it appeared B L's Appeal would be destined for the claiming ranks, a van ride to Rockingham Park to find softer allowance competition, or perhaps even the breeding shed.

AUBURN, Wash. - Leading rider Ben Russell and trainer Dan Kenney, who trails Howard Belvoir in the trainer standings by only one win, will team up again in Thursday's featured seventh race at Emerald Downs, a mile race for older $12,500 runners that has lured a field of eight.

Kenney will send out Aldorado, a 4-year-old son of Altastarr who races for Russ Moore and Martin Kenney, with Russell named to ride at 119 pounds. Trainer and rider have already teamed for

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Bobby Frankel already has the horse to catch in the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup on Sunday. But if his front-runner, Skimming, does not stay

1 1/4 miles, Frankel hopes the good luck he and jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. are having together translates into victory for Skimming's entrymate, Aptitude.

ALTOONA, Iowa - Prairie Meadows has announced it will lower takeouts on certain wagers during its upcoming mixed meet, which will begin July 21.

ELMONT, N.Y. - In his last four starts, Jarf has more than held his own with the likes of Traditionally, Postponed, and Gander, who were using allowance races as a stepping-stone to bigger and better things.

After a brief freshening, Jarf returns to action Thursday at Belmont Park in a classified allowance race that may propel him to bigger and better things. Jarf takes on the stakes-winning Liberty Gold and three others in a 1 1/16-mile race that serves as Belmont's feature.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Kentucky Oaks winner Flute popped an abscess in her right front foot over the weekend, forcing her out of Saturday's Grade 1 Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park, trainer Bobby Frankel said from California on Tuesday.

Frankel said Flute was scheduled to go back to the track on Wednesday after walking the shed for three days, but the abscess forced her to miss a Monday workout. Flute, who is based Hollywood Park, was scheduled to ship to New York on Tuesday.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The proposed Del Mar match race with Kona Gold has been called off, but Caller One will have no easy time of it in the near future.

In the Grade 2, seven-furlong Triple Bend Handicap on Sunday at Hollywood Park, Caller One will face serious heat from 3-year-old speedball Squirtle Squirt. Regardless, trainer Jim Chapman assured that 126-pound highweight Caller One would start.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Ten months and six starts after a wonderful debut here at Arlington Park, the filly Applesolutely continues her slow evolution into a turf stakes horse.

Inconsistency and immaturity have marred her development, but Applesolutely remains an unusually talented filly who still can become something special. An authoritative win in Thursday's seventh race would bring her closer to stakes competition.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - There in the national trainer standings through June 24, right above a guy named Bill Mott, is Ralph Martinez, 24, who trains at tiny Fairmount Park and has already amassed 69 wins this season. Martinez leads the Fairmount standings by 23 winners and has plundered Chicago purses all year, often driving his own stock the four-plus hours between Collinsville, Ill., and Chicago.

At Sportsman's Park this spring, Martinez did so well - winning nine races from 27 starters - that the lone owner for whom he trains, Lou O'Brien, won the owner's title.