BOSSIER CITY, La. - It's not every day that a Louisiana Downs rider is in a position to turn down a mount on one of the favorites for the $500,000 Super Derby in order to ride in a Grade 1 race in New York the same day. And things are definitely going that rider's way when he then wins the Vosburgh as impressively as Gerard Melancon did upon Bonapaw on Saturday.

Life got even sweeter for the 35-year-old Melancon on Monday when the connections of Bonapaw said they intend to supplement the gelding to the $1 million Breeders' Cup Sprint at Arlington Park on Oct. 26.

CHICAGO - The effect of having the World Thoroughbred Championships is rippling backward into the Arlington meet, just as Arlington officials had hoped. For surely it's the fact that Arlington has the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies that has induced the connections of so many promising young horses to consider Arlington's pair of 2-year-old graded stakes Saturday.

ELMONT, N.Y. - Upon learning that it would cost only $90,000 and not $200,000 to supplement Bonapaw to next month's Breeders' Cup Sprint, part-owner Dennis Richard said Monday that Vosburgh winner Bonapaw would run in the $1 million race.

"We're kicking it around with our bookkeeper, but it looks like all systems are go," Dennis Richard, who owns Bonapaw along with his twin brother, James, said Monday from New Orleans.

BOSSIER CITY, La. - Essence of Dubai, dominant winner of the Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs on Saturday, will not race again this year, and is scheduled to return to Dubai as early as next month, according to Tom Albertrani, the New York-based assistant trainer for Godolphin Racing.

"We have no plans for the rest of the year," said Albertrani. "He's going to go into quarantine and return to Dubai and winter there. We'll see how he matures, and bring him back to the States next year."

ELMONT, N.Y. - A turn back in distance, a switch to Belmont Park, and experience in Group 1 competition rate Born Something a slight advantage in Wednesday's entry-level allowance race at a mile over Belmont Park's Widener turf course.

Born Something, a 4-year-old Irish-bred daughter of Caerleon, has not won since taking a maiden race at Chantilly two years ago. Following that effort, she ran exclusively in Group stakes races in France, competing against the likes of champion Banks Hill, and Group 1 stakes winners Amonita and Choc Ice, winner of the 2001 E.P. Taylor.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Cruising Kat pulled off a shocking upset in the $222,386 Grade 2 British Columbia Derby at Hastings Park Saturday afternoon. Sent off at 40-1, Cruising Kat came from well back to score a three-quarter-length victory over another longshot, 57-1 Blowin in the Wind. Cruising Kat paid $82.80 for the win and helped key a $1,293.20 exacta and a $9,994.10 superfecta that required only the first three horses.

EDMONTON, Alberta - Of the many story lines during the Alberta Fall Classic at Northlands Park Saturday, none was more noteworthy than the performance of jockey Quincy Welch.

He rode three winners in the seven stakes on the card and had two second-place finishes to end the day with close to $100,000 in purse winnings.

Welch rode his first winner in the third race, on favored Jiffyjimmygee in the $40,000 Alberta Premier's Futurity for 2-year-olds.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Trainer Dennis Hopkins can thank a mule for the presence of Green Team in his barn.

Green Team, a stakes-placed Harris Farms homebred, figures to be one of the favorites in Wednesday's Bay Meadows feature, a six-furlong $40,000 optional claimer.

Green Team is one of the first Thoroughbreds Hopkins has trained for Harris Farms, one of California's top breeding and racing operations.

"I started with Harris three years ago," Hopkins said. "I started with a mule, Southern Preacher."

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Mulligan the Great, Praise from Dixie, Jab, and Estonia, all nominated to Sunday's Grade 3 Highlander Handicap, have shown up in Wednesday's $72,200 Woodbine feature for 3-year-olds and up.

Lakefield rounds out the five-horse field in the $80,000 optional claimer, which will be run at six furlongs.

FRANKLIN, Ky. - Although none of the 37 horses who competed Saturday in the four-race Kentucky Cup Turf Festival at Kentucky Downs appears headed for the Oct. 26 Breeders' Cup, the event was a success, horsemen said, because it filled several key niches on the racing calendar.

Even before Cetewayo finished fourth as the favorite in the richest race of the day, the $300,000 Turf, trainer Michael Dickinson said the race fit his horse perfectly, considering the lack of other high-dollar, lower-level graded races at a marathon distance at this time of year in North America.