Da Hoss

The $200,000-added Baltimore Breeders' Cup, a 1 1/8 -mile Grade III handicap Saturday for 3-year-olds and upward, highlights this week's featured races at Laurel Park.The high weight at 122 pounds is Pyramid Peak, a 4-year-old colt who, after finishing 17th in last year's Kentucky Derby, ran second to Serena's Song in the Haskell Invitational Handicap at Monmouth Park and second to Thunder Gulch in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga.Trained by John T. Ward Jr., Pyramid Peak has earned $500,613 in 11 starts, winning five and finishing second three times.

Omar Klinger and Word O'Ransom have been an unbeatable coupling.Klinger rode Virginia breeder Sam Rogers' filly for the sixth time yesterday in the $36,750 Contrary Rose Stakes at Laurel and the result was their sixth victory, all in front-running fashion.The speedy Word O'Ransom shot to the front immediately and led at every post to complete the six furlongs in 1 minute, 10 seconds and defeat closer I'll Get Along by 7 1/2 lengths."I felt very confident with this filly," said Klinger, whose shortest margin with her has been three lengths.

ELMONT, N.Y. -- The turf course at Belmont Park has flunked the Michael Dickinson "high heel" test.Yesterday, when Dickinson and his assistant, Joan Wakefield, walked the grassy inner strip, Wakefield stopped, changed shoes at about the seven-eighths pole and put on heels.She had gone only a couple of feet when her heels sank so deep, she walked out of her shoes.The result: Dickinson, who bases his stable at the Fair Hill Training Center near Elkton, is likely to scratch his star runner, Da Hoss, from Saturday's Breeders' Cup Mile and run him instead on the dirt in the Sprint.

When preliminary entries for the Oct. 28 Breeders' Cup are released today, at least one surprise entry with a Maryland connection will be on the list.The state's top sprinter, 6-year-old gelding Goldminer's Dream, who is based at Pimlico Race Course with trainer Ann Merryman, has been entered to run in the $1 million Sprint."Some people might think we're crazy, but you know the old saying: 'You gotta play to win,' " said David Hayden, the Baltimore County horseman who owns Goldminer's Dream in partnership with his wife, Joanne; her uncle, Charles Major of Towson; and Jim Stankovic of Baltimore.

Preakness runner-up Oliver's Twist got a break yesterday when Da Hoss, the highly regarded second choice in today's $300,000 Ohio Derby in Cleveland, was scratched.Michael Dickinson, who trains the Jersey Derby winner at the Fair Hill Training Center in Cecil County, said some mucus showed up after Da Hoss worked three-eighths of a mile at Fair Hill yesterday."He's not sick. He has no fever," said Dickinson, who decided after the workout to withdraw the Gone West gelding. "But when mucus shows up, he's not likely to run well."