Churchill Downs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - From a sixth-floor balcony above the finish line at Churchill Downs, Chadds Ford's Phyllis Wyeth strained to find her horse through her binoculars as the field of the 138th Kentucky Derby passed by the first time. Wyeth's view was partially obstructed, and maybe that was for the best. She asked her husband, where is he? "Way back there," Jamie Wyeth said when he finally spotted Union Rags. " Way back there. " His odds of winning had evaporated before Union Rags even got running.

Former Southern California football player Lonnie White says he took $14,000 in illegal payments during his 4-year career in the 1980s, mostly by selling game tickets allotted to scholarship players. White made the admission Wednesday in a first-person story for The Daily , an online publication. He was a sports writer at the Los Angeles Times from 1987 to 2008. White was a receiver and special-teams player at USC, where he played under John Robinson and Ted Tollner from 1982-86.

Pat Day, who rode Cherokee Run to a second-place finish in the Preakness three weeks ago, has given up his Belmont Stakes ride on the fast-improving colt for the most unusual of reasons - a guilty conscience. The 39-year-old Hall of Fame jockey was handed a five-day suspension by Churchill Downs stewards Sunday for "careless riding," a common infraction that would be appealed by virtually every other jockey in America, considering the circumstances. It's like asking Charles Barkley to sit out an NBA playoff game for driving 56 in a 55-m.

To Honor and Serve, considered among the nation's top Kentucky Derby prospects earlier this year, continued his climb toward the top of the current 3-year-old crop when he dominated eight opponents in the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby Saturday at Parx Racing. Ruler On Ice, this year's 24-1 upset winner of the Belmont Stakes, rallied powerfully to finish second, 21/4 lengths behind the winner and 31/2 lengths before Rattlesnake Bridge. Arthur's Tale, J W Blue, Norman Asbjornson, the pacesetting Rush Now, Pender Harbour, and Isn't He Perfect followed in that order.

Sunset officially was five minutes away, but, as the field in Saturday's $3 million Breeders' Cup Classic approached the historic far turn at Churchill Downs, any hint of light was only a memory. From the murky confines of the grandstand, lights, coming from a stadium across town where the University of Louisville was preparing for kickoff, illuminated the scene at the three-eighths pole for an instant. The flash was a flashback. Those blue-and-white-checked silks that came into the nation's consciousness on this same turn 18 months before were back, visible for a moment, descending on history.

The final round wasn't supposed to happen until the Breeders' Cup, three weeks and 1,000 miles down the road at Churchill Downs. Last Saturday's rain in New York changed Alysheba's plans and Round 9 in the Bet Twice-Alysheba rivalry is set for tonight in the $600,000 Meadowlands Cup (1 1/4 miles). The scenario figures to be much the same as it has been eight times before. Bet Twice will stalk the speed horse, Slew City Slew. Alysheba will stalk Bet Twice. Cryptoclearance will be running hard in the stretch.

IT WILL BE 6 years next spring when our string of Triple Crown race winners ended in the Preakness with Barbaro's devastating injury. From the 2004 Kentucky Derby through the 2006 Derby, local horses won five of the seven Triple Crown races and lost the other two by 1 length. That was two each of Derby and Preakness and one Belmont Stakes for Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex and Barbaro. It began with no warning and ended the same way. A bit after 5:15 tomorrow afternoon on the western tip of Long Island, the next colt that could get Philly to the Derby runs in the Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park.

The True North Handicap Belmont Park, Race 7 - Post 3:15 $400,000 (G II), 3 y.o. & up, 6 furlongs 1. Pacific Ocean. . . Joel Rosario. . . 5-1 2. Crossbow. . . Ramon Dominguez. . . 12-1 3. Smiling Tiger. . . Mike Smith. . . 5-2 4. Hamazing Destiny. . . Corey Nakatani. . . 8-1 5. Royal Currier. . . Rajiv Maragh. . . 12-1 6. Giant Ryan. . . Willie Martinez. . . 3-1 7. Caixa Eletronica. . . Javier Castellano. . . 4-1 8. Justin Phillip.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Court Vision pulled off a 64-1 upset Saturday at Churchill Downs in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Mile, nipping Turallure by a nose while three-time champion Goldikova finished third in her final race. Goldikova failed in her quest for an unprecedented fourth straight Breeders' Cup win. She battled her way to a brief lead in deep stretch but could not hold off the pair of late challengers. Court Vision paid $131.60, the second-highest payoff in the world championships after the $269.20 Arcangues paid in the 1993 Classic.