ALBANY, Calif. - Timing is an important factor in all sports, including in the development of young horses.

The timing of Sunday's $60,000-added Golden State Mile works out perfectly - well, almost perfectly - for trainer Neil Drysdale, who will send Ministers Wild Cat north to meet seven rivals.

"It's obviously not an ideal spot to have to ship a young horse to San Francisco for his third race," Drysdale said.

But other than that, everything is perfectly aligned for the half-brother to 2000 Breeders' Cup Mile winner War Chant.

Stately Jack Flash is the one to beat in Sunday's $10,000 Flying Lark Stakes at Portland Meadows in Portland, Ore.

Not only is he the only stakes winner in the field, but only one of his six rivals, Lacenter Flash, has even appeared in a stakes race.

Stately Jack Flash, who has a pair of seconds in stakes, had never finished worse than second before his sixth-place finish in a one-mile allowance race here on Jan. 25.

That finish sets up one of the subplots in the six-furlong Flying Lark.

OLDSMAR, Fla. - Florida-breds will be the focus on April 6 at Tampa Bay Downs. The track will stage six $75,000 stakes, with statebreds preferred in the entries. Funding of $40,000 per race from the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners Association and the local Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association will help make Florida-breds eligible for approximately $500,000 in purse money.

Purses at Delta Downs in Vinton, La., will increase 40 percent to an average of $230,000 a day beginning with the card Friday. The dramatic boost, made possible in part by an increase in handle and the revenue from slot machines, will put Delta's distribution close to, or on par with, some of the other top meets in the region.

Fair Grounds in New Orleans pays out about $270,000 a day in purses, while the Oaklawn Park meet in Hot Springs, Ark., has budgeted $240,000. Last year, Lone Star in Dallas paid out $228,000.

Michael Gill, the owner of Casual Conflict, the gelding who was euthanized Monday after a breakdown at Gulfstream Park and subsequently had his right leg amputated by a veterinarian, said on Friday that the veterinarian had taken the leg to do his own examination into the fatal injury.

The amputation has sparked an investigation by state regulators, who said the veterinarian did not have authorization to remove the leg. The limb has been confiscated and sent to the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine for pathological testing.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Sure Shot Biscuit, who ranks as the all-time richest Iowa-bred with earnings of $1,002,019, returned to training Friday at Oaklawn Park. He is expected to make a comeback in May, said trainer Kelly Von Hemel.

Sure Shot Biscuit, 7, gets time off each winter, and this season is returning to training a little later than usual. He last raced in September, when he finished second, beaten a neck, in an optional claimer at Prairie Meadows.

"Now that he's a little older, we gave him more time," said Von Hemel.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Trainer Ben Feliciano Jr. wasn't totally surprised when Sassy Hound came up empty as the 3-5 favorite in last month's Hoover Stakes at Laurel Park.

Sassy Hound was coming off a two-month layoff - during which he had been entered and scratched four times - and typically has not fired well off the bench. But Feliciano believes with the Hoover and some solid training under his belt, Sassy Hound will be more like his old self Sunday when he heads a seven-horse field entered in a classified allowance race at Aqueduct.

NEW ORLEANS - First it was Empire Maker, then it was Peace Rules. But now it seems Bobby Frankel won't be sending a 3-year-old to Fair Grounds after all.

In the fall, Frankel expressed interest in sending the highly regarded Empire Maker to New Orleans for stakes races for the winter. Instead, he chose to keep the colt home in California, and Empire Maker was to run in Friday's Sham Stakes at Santa Anita.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer D. Wayne Lukas confirmed Friday that he will be sending two of his top 3-year-old prospects, Ozzie Cat and Scrimshaw, to Gulfstream Park to compete on Feb. 15 in the Grade 1 Fountain of Youth and Grade 2 Hutcheson Stakes.

Lukas will run Ozzie Cat in the 1 1/16-mile Fountain of Youth and Scrimshaw in the seven-furlong Hutcheson. Ozzie Cat was beaten a neck in the Grade 3 Golden Gate Derby in his 2003 debut, and Scrimshaw has lost only once. Both horses are stabled with Lukas at Santa Anita.

SUNLAND PARK, N. M. - Sunday's six-furlong, $50,000-added Czaria Handicap at Sunland Park pits Devious Ways, the top local older female sprinter, against two tough invaders from Fair Grounds.

They are Cielo Girl, trained by Steve Asmussen, and Calma Prado, who has been here for two weeks with trainer Clifford Lambert Sr.

Devious Ways rose to the top of the division in her first start as a 4-year-old, impressively winning last month's Bold Ego Handicap here. She came into her own last summer, winning the Ruidoso Oaks.