ARCADIA, Calif. - A healthy pick six pool on Thursday was not hit, so there is a large carryover of $156,198 to Friday's card. The eight-race card begins at 1 pm Pacific time. The pick six is on races three through eight.

Here is a quick overview of the pick six races:

Third - Trainer Bob Hess Jr. has two of the leading contenders in this bottom-level claimer in Clever Miss Caper and Urgent Start. Urgent Start has won her last two starts, and has the better win percentage, so she gets a slight nod.

MIAMI - If opening day is any indication, the 2004 Gulfstream Park meeting should be something special.

Led by the return of Breeders' Cup Sprint champion in the six-furlong Mr. Prospector Handicap, Saturday's 11-race opening day program includes three Grade 3 stakes. There will also be a guaranteed minimum pool of $100,000 on a special pick three wager consisting of the Mr. Prospector, the Hal's Hope, and the Honey Fox handicaps. All three stakes carry a purse of $100,000.

MIAMI - Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens will have the upper hand when he sends out against eight other older handicap horses in Saturday's $100,000 Hal's Hope Handicap at Gulfstream Park. The Hal's Hope, at 1 1/16 miles, serves as a prep for the Grade 1 Donn Handicap on Feb. 7.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Every year, it seems, Jerry Bailey sets the bar higher for himself. Coming off a blockbuster year in which he not only broke the North American record for stakes wins (70) and total earnings (over $23.3 million) but also seemingly clinched a record seventh Eclipse Award for top jockey, Bailey is back at Gulfstream Park to begin yet another assault on the record books.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Trainer Jonathan Nance looms large in Saturday's $10,000 OTBA Stallion Stakes, a restricted six-furlong test for Oregon-bred 3-year-olds.

Nance will saddle three of the five horses entered, including probable favorite, Kya Jo. All three of the Nance-trained entrants are fillies.

NEW ORLEANS - It took Sister Swank some time to get out of her trainer's second string, and Steady Course needed five tries to win a maiden race, but these are the fillies to be reckoned with Saturday in the $60,000 Thelma Stakes at Fair Grounds.

They join Movant, Turn to Lass, Speedy Sonata, and Cryptos Best in a six-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies that lacks a single stakes winner. On established class, it is difficult to throw out any of them, but the perception is Sister Swank and Steady Course could be a cut above.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Lion Heart and Salty Romance made their debuts Oct. 24, the day before the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita. Patrick Biancone, who trains both horses, thought Salty Romance had the better chance of the two that day. But it was Lion Heart who won; Salty Romance finished only third.

Neither has lost since.

Since his debut, Lion Heart has won two stakes races, including the Grade 1 Hollywood Futurity. Salty Romance, compromised by a slow start in her debut, beat maidens in her second start, then went to Delta Downs and captured last month's Delta Princess.

The new year at Calder started pretty much the same as the old. Jockey Jerry Bailey won the 2003 Tropical Park Derby on New Year's Day for owner Ken and Sarah Ramsey aboard Nothing to Lose, and on Thursday Bailey did it for the Ramseys again, guiding Kitten's Joy to an easy 4 1/2-length victory over Broadway View in the Grade 3 event.

Jockey Julian Pimentel got 2004 off to a rousing start by winning four races on Thursday's card at Aqueduct, capped by a 6 1/4-length victory aboard Fit Performer in the $81,600 Interborough Handicap.

Richard Dutrow Jr., trainer of Fit Performer, continued his roll Thursday as he won two races at Aqueduct as well as the Tropical Park Oaks at Calder. Dutrow is now 17 for 40 with three stakes wins in New York since Aqueduct's inner track opened on Dec. 3.

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. - When Magna Entertainment Corp. first proposed building the Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach several years ago, its goal was to provide a first-class training facility that would attract the highest caliber of horses.

But even Frank Stronach, Magna's chairman of the board and the driving force behind the construction of Palm Meadows, probably never dreamed the state-of-the-art training facility would become such an instant hit with horsemen or have such a positive impact on the 2004 Gulfstream Park meeting.