ARCADIA, Calif. - Don't cross out Yankee Gentleman quite yet. Notwithstanding the horse's fourth-place finish Sunday in the Grade 1 Ancient Title Handicap, trainer John Shirreffs said Tuesday that Yankee Gentleman will train toward the Breeders' Cup Sprint. "He pulled up good, and if we can get some support for him, we're going," Shirreffs said.

Yankee Gentleman finished fourth as the 6-5 favorite in the Ancient Title, a race he needed to win to be assured a Breeders' Cup berth; Yankee Gentleman has never finished in the money in a graded stakes.

MIAMI - The prospective starting lineup for Saturday's $400,000 In Reality Stakes, final leg of the open division of the Florida Stallion Stakes, grew by one on Monday after trainer Ronny Werner confirmed he was planning to run Perpetual Peace.

CHICAGO - Sometimes it can take months to win a race. A horse may be talented enough, even healthy enough, to knock out a victory, but for long stretches no suitable spot will arise.

That is what has befallen Rufus the Glider, an Illinois-bred gelding who has not won in nearly five months. He had better have his mind on running Thursday in the eighth race at Hawthorne, because the long wait could finally come to an end.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Form cycle handicappers will be licking their chops at the chance to bet against Appas Tappas, the likely favorite in Thursday's Woodbine feature.

Appas Tappas ran a corker off a five-month layoff in a preliminary allowance Sept. 11, in which he attended the pace in the two path over an outside biased track and finished a close second to next-out allowance winner Sophia's Prince. He received a fat 92 Beyer Speed Figure for that all-out effort, and is certainly a candidate to bounce, or regress, in a similar race on Thursday.

A week after Oaklawn Park officials announced that a $5 million bonus would be tied to the Arkansas Derby for 2004, they are projecting that purses will average a record $250,000 per day for the upcoming meet, which will run 55 days from Jan. 23 to April 10.

Maiden special weight races have been set at $31,000, while open allowance races will be worth $40,000. Last meet, purses at Oaklawn averaged $240,000 a day, an increase over the season before, when they were $224,000.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - The pieces finally appear to be coming together for Arco's Gold, who runs in Monday's $150,000 Ontario Derby.

The Ontario Derby, a Grade 3 race for 3-year-olds, goes at 1 1/8 miles, the distance at which Arco's Gold became a stakes winner here in last fall's Coronation Futurity.

Making just his third start there, Arco's Gold actually dead-heated with Mobil for the top prize in the Coronation, but was awarded sole possession via a disqualification.

ELMONT, N.Y. - The connections of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Funny Cide are "leaning" toward bringing their gelding back to the races in the Grade 3, $100,000 Discovery Handicap at Aqueduct on Oct. 29.

Funny Cide has not raced since finishing third in the Aug. 3 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park. An illness forced him to miss the Travers 20 days later. Since returning to training one month ago, things have gone relatively smoothly for Funny Cide with the exception of one poor turf workout on Sept. 24.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - It was at the Breeders' Cup last year that trainer Donnie Von Hemel began thinking . . . well, Breeders' Cup, for the star of his barn, Bien Nicole.

"I felt like, last fall, when she won that stake the day before, that if she could get to that level, it'd be something we'd look into," recalled Von Hemel, referring to the Estrapade Handicap the afternoon before the BC at Arlington Park.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - In the spring at Keeneland, every program includes at least one stakes. In the fall, there are 19 stakes scattered over 17 days, but because some are grouped together on the same day, three fall programs are stakes-less.

Wednesday is one of those, but not to worry. Four straight allowance races, worth a Keeneland-esque total of $214,000, should provide sufficient high-end racing entertainment for an afternoon. The allowances have been saved as the proverbial best-for-last by being carded as the sixth through ninth on a nine-race program.

Voters in Orleans Parish, La., passed a referendum Saturday allowing Fair Grounds to open a slot machine parlor. The measure was supported by 58 percent of the vote.

At the earliest, the slots would open in fall of 2004. The referendum will have no direct effect on the upcoming Fair Grounds season. Although the number of machines Fair Grounds can operate is far fewer than other tracks in the state, the measure's passage breathes life into a struggling operation.

Fair Grounds still faces a licensing investigation by the Louisiana State Police.