News and notes from around the Thoroughbred racing world, compiled by Thoroughbred Racing Communications, Inc. (TRC) (212.371.5911..)

BREEDERS' CUP PRE-ENTRIES CLOSED; PANEL DECIDES WHO WILL RUN

A panel of ten racing secretaries from the United States, Ireland, France, and England started meeting Tuesday at Hollywood Park, Inglewood, Calif., at 9:00 a.m. PST to determine which runners will make the starting fields for the seven Breeders' Cup Championship races Nov. 8. According to Breeders' Cup guidelines, the top eight Breeders' Cup points earners will be automatically eligible for their respective races. The final six berths will be determined using a subjective handicap system to rank the entries primarily on their past performances.

Breeders' Cup will announce the final pre-entry rankings on Wednesday during a conference call hosted by Thoroughbred Racing Communications, Inc. at 3:30 p.m. (ET). The call will feature trainers and owners. Members of the media are invited to participate in the call and can contact TRC at (212) 371-5910 for details.

NTRA NAMES ADVERTISING AGENCY

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) has named the Merkley Newman Harty advertising agency to work closely with the organization's interim management team to develop its national marketing and advertising strategy. The NTRA is in the final stages of completing its business plan for a central national office designed to coordinate and market Thoroughbred racing in North America.

The announcement was made following a meeting of the NTRA Oversight Committee in Lexington, Ky., last week, when the recommendations of the NTRA Advertising Search Committee were submitted.

'We are really excited about having such talent, experience and strategic planning expertise on board as we close in on completion of our business plan,' said D.G. Van Clief Jr., NTRA interim president and CEO. 'In Merkley Newman Harty we not only have a brilliant creative team but we also have one of the leaders in the business of advertising account planning. Their input is an integral part of our planning process in many areas like cooperative advertising and sponsorship as well as national media strategy,' he continued. 'Once the business plan has been finalized and approved, they'll move into the second stage of implementing that strategy.'

Merkley Newman Harty is a New York-based agency with a current list of clients which includes BellSouth, 'Forbes' magazine, Oxford Health Plans and Vanguard Mutual Funds. The group is owned by Omnicom, the world's second-largest global agency network.

Marty Cooke, partner and creative director of the agency called the NTRA, 'a wonderful opportunity to create a focal point for fan interest in the sport of Thoroughbred racing. Sports leagues have become powerful brands that intensify rooting interests and create real value around the sport and the televised viewing of that sport. Thoroughbred racing is a sleeping giant,' he continued. 'It has a large existing fan base which we believe can be built substantially.'

CHURCHILL DOWNS NAMED AMONG FORBES BEST SMALL COMPANIES

Churchill Downs, Inc., has been named one of Forbes Magazine's 200 Best Small Companies in America, 1997. The annual listing is published in the magazine's Nov. 3 issue.

Forbes restricts its annual list to publicly traded, U.S.-based companies with latest 12-month sales between $5 million and $350 million. Approximately 6,000 companies fell into those ranges of sales, so several other factors were used to pare the number down to 200. Among the other criteria for eligibility: earnings of at least $1 million for the 12-month period; average daily trading volume of at least 1,000 shares; and five-year average sales and earnings growth per share of at least 15 percent and eight percent, respectively.

Forbes' top 200 small companies are ranked in four separate categories -- sales growth, profit growth, market value and five-year average return on equity. Churchill ranked 108th in sales ($115 million), 118th in profits ($9.2 million), 150th in market value ($161 million) and 175th in five-year return on equity (15.4 percent).

FOR THESE WRITERS, 'TALE' TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Tom Pedulla, a sportswriter for USA Today, insists that he is 'a very conservative person by nature' and that it 'was completely out of character' for him when he decided to invest a good deal of his savings from some profitable stock investments to purchase a 'small interest' in a Thoroughbred ownership partnership assembled by trainer John Forbes in 1995. 'I'm so conservative I like to bet show parlays when I go to the track,' he says. 'But when John offered me the chance to be part of this ownership group, I had this incredibly strong feeling that it was something I should do.'

With Pedulla and 11 other larger investors, Forbes raised over $1 million, named the group Phantom House Farm and purchased six yearlings at the Keeneland September yearling sale in 1995. One of them, a Storm Cat-Yarn colt purchased for $375,000, was subsequently named Tale of the Cat and when the gates are loaded for the $1 million Breeders' Cup Sprint at Hollywood Park on Nov. 8, he could very well be the betting favorite.

His meteoric rise to prominence has amazed and delighted not only Pedulla but his longtime friend and fellow sportswriter Bob Ehalt, to whom he sold a small portion of his share.

Making the first start of his career, the three-year-old Tale of the Cat won a maiden race by 11 and a half lengths May 26 at Monmouth Park and in the five months and four starts since then, he continues to generate excitement throughout the racing world, in victory and defeat.

Pedulla, who lives in Tarrytown, N.Y., and Ehalt, who lives in Shelton, Conn., have been best friends since they met on the first day of high school at Fordham Prep in the Bronx more than 25 years ago.