Saratoga

Saratoga Friends Stable's Saratoga Games and jockey Mario Pino won the $60,000 Humphrey S. Finney Stakes for 3-year-old Maryland-bred colts and geldings on the main track at Pimlico yesterday. Ramon Dominguez and his mount, Ronnie's Hot Rod, carried Saratoga Games wide into the first turn and wider still entering the stretch, but neither move could halt the advance of the ultimate winner, who drove past to win by 2 1/2 lengths in 1 minute, 51.81 seconds for the 1 1/8 miles. The Finney victory ($3)

STANTON, Del. -- Edgar Prado has decided to ride the next month and a half at Saratoga, a move that could mean the end of his illustrious career in Maryland.Between races yesterday at Delaware Park, Prado said he will begin riding at Saratoga on Wednesday, opening day. He is slated to ride three horses that day for John Kimmel, one of New York's leading trainers."After that, we'll play it day by day and see what happens," Prado said.Asked whether he might remain in New York after Saratoga's 36-day meet ends in September, Prado said: "If we're doing super, we'll maybe think about it. If we're not, we can always come back."

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Marylanders scored a nifty daily double on Travers day at Saratoga.Two races before the Travers Stakes, won by Stuart S. Janney III's Coronado's Quest, the Maryland-owned, -trained and -ridden Secret Firm captured the King's Bishop Stakes.One of the casualties of the King's Bishop, a Grade II seven-furlong stakes worth $200,000, was Favorite Trick, the 1997 Horse of the Year. As the 6-5 favorite in the field of eight, he finished fifth after being blocked down the stretch.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The sun finally broke through at Saratoga, ending a dismal stretch of rain and grayness upon one of the nation's premier race meets. But yesterday, as racing fans prepared in sunlight for today's Whitney Handicap, they confronted the grim news that perhaps the best horse in the world, Dubai Millennium, had broken a leg in England. "It put a gray cloud over an otherwise sunny day," said Joe Hirsch, executive columnist for the Daily Racing Form. According to a statement by the Dubai-based Godolphin Racing, owner of the 4-year-old colt: "Dubai Millennium sustained a lateral condylar fracture of his right hind leg when working on the Limekilns at Newmarket.

A month ago, a horse rolled over jockey John Velazquez during a race at Keeneland, breaking his collarbone and collapsing his lung. The injuries aren't life-threatening, but they are a reminder of how close jockeys are to devastating, life- and career-threatening injuries. With the accident fresh in his memory, Velazquez yesterday joined with Don Amos, Magna Entertainment Corp.'s chief operating officer, to announce the launch of the Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund, a charity established to provide aid to permanently disabled jockeys and their families in North America.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Throw the name Unshaded into the hat. After a stirring stretch battle with Albert the Great, the late-bloomer Unshaded captured the $1 million Travers Stakes yesterday at Saratoga and entered the lottery for an Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old male. Unshaded and Albert the Great, two horses who had flashed brilliance, but also disappointment, engaged in another classic Travers duel down the long and historic Saratoga stretch. With jockey Jorge Chavez slashing Albert the Great with his whip left-handed, and Shane Sellers slapping Unbridled, also left-handed, the horses drove through the late-afternoon sunlight toward the finish of the country's oldest stakes for 3-year-olds.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Maybe it's the cabdriver who, transporting you a half-hour upstate from the airport at Albany, flicks on his radio for the live call of the third race from Saratoga.Insisting he doesn't bet anymore, you understand, he steers with one hand while clinging to the marked-up racing page of his local newspaper with the other.Or maybe it's the chilled Saratoga Sunrise with next morning's breakfast during workouts at the track. The fruity vodka elixir ensures a smooth transition from the humdrum into this enchanting galaxy known since the Civil War as summer racing at Saratoga.

The horse stamps his hoof. The jockey stretches in his saddle. The woman with the Coast- of-Somewhere tan pouts with fire-red lips. A bugle sounds. Gates drop. Hoofs pound. They're off -- horse, rider and aristocrat -- for yet another season of thoroughbred racing in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., a fast-paced, prestige-soaked ritual that's been performed for almost 140 years. Every summer, the unassuming little upstate New York town bursts forth in equine splendor. The shops are crammed with race-related baubles, the restaurants swell with patrons flashing Gold Cards, the hotels teem with cigar-smoking old chaps buying rounds of overpriced drinks.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Valora Testerman was a tall girl. At 11, she could sneak into Timonium and persuade people she was 15. She got a job walking horses. Thirty-two years later, Testerman, now a trainer of 20 horses at Pimlico, finds herself at the center of the nation's horse universe at Saratoga. Today, in the $100,000 Amsterdam Stakes, she will saddle Disco Rico, her first horse in 19 years of training capable of winning at the national level. Yesterday, relishing her first trip to Saratoga - as trainer or fan - Testerman beamed and said, "I'm overwhelmed by the horse enthusiasm.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Julie Krone will become the first female inducted into thoroughbred racing's Hall of Fame in ceremonies today at the Humphrey S. Finney Sales Pavilion across Union Avenue from Saratoga, the oldest racetrack in the country. By far the most successful female jockey, Krone will join the trainer Neil Drysdale and the horses A.P. Indy, Needles and Winning Colors as the 2000 inductees into racing's shrine. Krone, 37, will become the 79th jockey, Drysdale the 73th trainer.