Mark Hopkins was ready to give up. After A Huevo developed another in a long line of physical problems last year, Hopkins was resigned that he would never find out if the gelding was as good as he thought when he bought him in the summer of 1999.

But, last year, when Michael Dickinson offered to train A Huevo for free, Hopkins naturally agreed to let Dickinson try to bring the horse back. On Saturday, in the Grade 1, $300,000 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash at Laurel Park, Hopkins will find out if it was all worth it.

Trainer Nick Zito has already had a tremendous fall with his 2-year-old colts, winning graded events such as the Champagne with Birdstone, Lane's End Breeders' Futurity with Eurosilver, and Iroquois with The Cliff's Edge.

Saturday, Zito will seek another juvenile graded stakes when he sends out Ghost Mountain in the Grade 3, $100,000 Laurel Futurity at Laurel Park. The Laurel Futurity is one of five supporting stakes on a 10-race card that features the Grade 1 Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Five of the last seven runnings of the Mrs. Revere Stakes at Churchill Downs have been decided by a neck. That is nothing more than a statistical aberration, but it can be partly explained by the fact that the Mrs. Revere tends to draw closely matched fields that result in heated competition.

MIAMI - Defending champion Best of the Rest is the horse to beat in Saturday's $200,000 Carl G. Rose Classic. The race gained meaning for Best of the Rest's trainer, Eddie Plesa Jr., when Best of the Rest's owner-breeder, Bernie Oxenberg, died just two weeks ago.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Smoocher and A Bit O'Gold, possibly the top two juveniles at Woodbine, will clash in Saturday's $135,625 Display Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile race, which will help determine the Sovereign Award for Canadian champion 2-year-old.

Smoocher has won 2 of his 3 starts, all under trainer David Bell. A Florida-bred, Smoocher graduated his second time out, in a quick maiden special weight race, and then captured the Grade 2 Grey Breeders' Cup Stakes with an inside rally over the best part of the track Oct. 5.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Lion Heart is on the fast track. He was a fast winner of his debut last month at Santa Anita's Oak Tree meeting, and he is fast becoming one of the leading prospects for next month's Hollywood Futurity.

The stepping-stone between the maiden win and the Grade 1 Futurity is Saturday's Grade 3, $100,000 Hollywood Prevue. The seven-furlong race will test Lion Heart's raw ability, and lack of experience, against the more experienced but less brilliant likes of Consecrate and Cooperation.

HOUSTON - Questions concerning either distance or surface surround each of the top contenders in Saturday night's $150,000 Sam Houston Texas Juvenile, making the 1 1/16-mile stakes one of the most attractive betting races on the $550,000 Texas Champions Day card.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Houston Shuffle and Tom Won will square off for the second time in Saturday's $13,950 Bill Wineberg Stakes, which has attracted a field of 11 Oregon-bred juveniles.

Houston Shuffle was a seven-length winner over Tom Won when both made their debuts here in a five-furlong maiden special weight race on opening day, Oct. 18, but Tom Won broke slowly and raced wide that day.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - In her last start, Vegas Folly easily won a race for 3-year-old fillies that hadn't won a stakes of $20,000 in 2003. She gets to run back at the same condition Saturday, only this time she will face older fillies and mares, including multiple stakes winner Catahoula Rose. The 1 1/16-mile feature drew nine horses and goes as the fifth race.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Saturday's Grade 2 Long Island Handicap at Aqueduct ought to be renamed for a different location. Eight of the fillies and mares in the 12-horse field aren't even from the United States, let alone New York's Long Island.