OZONE PARK, N.Y. - With the Bobby Frankel-trained stars Sightseek and Wild Spirit back in California, stakes races run in the filly and mare division in New York are more appealing wagering ventures.

Although only six fillies and mares were entered in Saturday's Grade 3, $100,000 Turnback the Alarm at Aqueduct, simply identifying the favorite is difficult. Misty Sixes may be in the best form, having won four of her last six starts, but she has not been facing tough company. Nor is she proven at the Turnback the Alarm distance of 1 1/8 miles.

CHICAGO - Burning Roma has shipped from his base at Monmouth Park to start Saturday in the Grade 3 Robert F. Carey Handicap at Hawthorne Race Course.

"So what?" the horse would respond.

He may never have raced in the shadow of stacked shipping containers and an abandoned 70,000-seat auto-racing grandstand, but Burning Roma has been around. Hawthorne is Burning Roma's 13th racing venue, and his $1.3 million bankroll dwarfs the earnings of his 10 Carey opponents.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Patrick Valenzuela, the leading rider in California this year, had his suspensions for riding infractions reduced by six days after successfully appealing the cases to the California Horse Racing Board.

The CHRB, meeting in an executive session last week, set aside a three-day suspension given to Valenzuela on May 31 and reduced a five-day suspension from June 19 to two days.

Even with the reduction, Valenzuela's suspensions may last up to 20 days, but five of the days are on appeal.

Hollywood Park has made some significant changes to the Turf Festival, the annual centerpiece of the track's fall meeting that will run six weeks, from Nov. 11 to Dec. 21.

The Turf Festival comprises six races to be held over three days, Nov. 29 through Dec. 1.

The distances have been altered on the two Grade 1 stakes that anchor the Dec. 1 program. The Hollywood Derby has been extended a furlong to 1 1/4 miles, and its purse has been increased by $100,000, to $600,000. The $500,000 Matriarch Stakes has been shortened from 1 1/8 miles to a mile.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Badge of Silver, the speedy colt who was scratched from the Blue Grass Stakes in April because of a cannon bone fracture, has returned to training at Fair Grounds in New Orleans and will be ready to breeze in several more weeks, said trainer Ronny Werner.

"He's doing just great," said Werner, who trains Badge of Silver for Ken and Sarah Ramsey. "He had a screw inserted into the leg, and it's healed perfectly. I sent him to New Orleans a couple of weeks ago from the Ramseys' farm, and he was already pretty fit from the prep work they had gotten done with him."

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Trainer David Vance has been using Pat Day aboard his horses for nearly a quarter of a century, but he cannot recall a more troubled trip for Day than the one the Hall of Fame jockey encountered aboard In Rome in the Oct. 3 Alcibiades Stakes at Keeneland.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - With the exception of the timing of the $200,000 Gotham, the 2004 Aqueduct winter-spring stakes program mirrors the 2003 schedule.

A total of 34 stakes worth $4.4 million will be offered during the 87 racing days from Jan. 1 through May 2. The only Grade 1 events offered during that period will be the $750,000 Wood Memorial, a major prep for the Kentucky Derby, and the $350,000 Carter Handicap for older male sprinters. Both races are scheduled for April 10.

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. - Catchme-inyourdreams will try to take a major step toward becoming the 2003 world champion Quarter Horse when he starts in the Grade 1, $300,000 MBNA America Challenge Championship at Los Alamitos on Saturday night.

The 440-yard Challenge Champion-ship for older sprinters headlines the five Grade 1 races that make up the MBNA America Challenge Championships. Horses qualified for these five Grade 1 races through regional races.

Patton's Victory is ahead of schedule in his training, and as a result will make his comeback from a summer layoff earlier than expected in the $30,000 Woodlands Handicap at the Woodlands in Kansas City, Kan., on Saturday.

The 1 1/16-mile race is one of five stakes on the closing day card, with three of the races for Quarter Horses.

Trainer Wilson Brown almost always comes up with a good 2-year-old during the Remington Park meet. His latest "discovery" is Aspen Gal, who will be shooting for her third straight stakes win Saturday night in the $35,000 Cimarron.

Brown won the race last year with the filly Tulupai, who, along with Mister Deville and It'sallinthechase, are among the top young horses the trainer has raced at Remington.