COLUMBUS, Neb. - High Dice comes into Sunday's $15,000-added Amadevil Stakes in search of his fourth stakes victory this year, but he will have to carry 123 pounds, giving at least four pounds to five Nebraska-bred rivals.

High Dice has won three of his last four starts: the Big Red Mile and State Fair Breeders' handicaps at Lincoln and the Who Doctor Who Handicap at Horsemen's Park. He turns back in distance to six furlongs for Sunday's race, but the longer stretch of this five-eighths-mile oval should help him.

Two weeks after a gutsy allowance win in his seasonal debut, Count on My Word seeks his first career stakes victory in the $40,000 Buckeye Native Stakes at River Downs.

The Buckeye Native, for Ohio-sired and -bred 3-year-olds and up, is scheduled for 1 1/16 miles on the turf.

CHICAGO - In trainer Neil Drysdale's shed row lives Storming Home, the horse many consider the best turf runner in the United States. Storming Home paid 30 cents on the dollar when he won the Grade 1 Whittingham on June 14 at Hollywood Park. Drysdale has aimed him for the Arlington Million ever since.

Thursday, Drysdale had this perspective on Storming Home's push toward next Saturday's Million: "You need to talk to Saeed bin Suroor."

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Roscoe Pito displayed tremendous courage in winning the B.C. Cup Stallion Stakes at 1 1/16 miles Monday. He battled through quick fractions and then was game in holding off a determined Illusive Force. It wasn't the type of race that his trainer John Snow was looking for though.

Snow has his eyes on a bigger prize, the $250,000 B.C. Derby at 1 1/8 miles on Sept. 21, and he has been working on getting Roscoe Pito to relax.

AUBURN, Wash. - Most of the attention in Sunday's 1 1/16-mile Seattle Slew Breeders' Cup Handicap, the final prep for the $125,000 Emerald Breeders' Cup Derby on Sept. 1, will be focused on the three highweights.

Condotierri, 122 pounds, will be a deserving favorite off his 5 3/4-length victory in last month's 1 1/16-mile Tacoma Handicap, which seemed to fulfill the promise he showed in winning last season's Gottstein Futurity at the same distance.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Williams News, a high-profile visitor in the past, has quietly taken up residence here in the barn of trainer Steve Owens.

"I've had him here for about two weeks," said Owens, who took delivery of Williams News after being contacted by the gelding's owners, On Target Racing Stable. "They're trying to put his life back together, to try and get him past the $1 million mark."

SAN MATEO, Calif. - The stakes schedule for the Bay Meadows fall meet contains only minor changes from 2002.

The most significant change is that one stakes race, the Mae De Vol, a six-furlong sprint for fillies and mares, has been eliminated.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - For the third time in 15 days, a stakes race on the northern California fair circuit failed to fill.

Sunday's $50,000-added Mid-Peninsula Stakes drew only four entries. The 5 1/2-furlong stakes for 2-year-old Cal-bred fillies will be rescheduled for next weekend, racing secretary Greg Brent said.

On July 26, the Ernest Finley, an open six-furlong sprint, failed to fill at Santa Rosa. It was brought back five days later and run with five entrants.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Slightlymorelikely, coming off a runaway maiden victory, will likely be favored in Sunday's $136,250 Ontario Debutante Stakes, a six-furlong dash for 2-year-old fillies at Woodbine

Slightlymorelikely, a Florida-bred by speed sire Rizzi, was claimed from both of her starts. She finished second in her debut for trainer Mark Casse on June 7, taken for $40,000 by trainer Vito Armata.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Though next Saturday's Arlington Million offers twice the purse and arguably better ground, Saturday's Grade 1, $500,000 Sword Dancer Invitational offers an extra two furlongs that supersede money.

For the California-based trainer Laura de Seroux, those furlongs meant shipping Ballingarry to Saratoga rather than back to Arlington Park where Ballingarry won last month's Stars and Stripes Handicap, the traditional prep for the 1 1/4-mile Arlington Million.

Ballingarry will break from post 9 under John Velazquez in the Sword Dancer.