PREAKNESS POSTS

ON YOUR MARKS, SET, GO!

STREET SENSE, the sensation Kentucky Derby winner, and rival HARD SPUN, who led late in the Derby after setting tough fractions, will line up beside each in the gate for the Preakness Stakes on Saturday at Pimlico.

Hard Spun does not figure to get the lead from FLYING FIRST CLASS, the entrant sent out by D. Wayne Lukas, but the colt can go forever and if he gets the jump again on the Derby winner, maybe it will be his day.

A field of nine will race in the 1 3/16 mile Preakness and five of them did not race in the Derby.

The last Preakness winner that did not race in the Derby was RED BULLET (Stronach Stables) in 2000 and there have been dozens of starters since then.

Here is the field, with odds, sire, trainer and jockey.

1 Mint Slewlep 30-1

Slew City Slew

Robert Bailes

Alan Garcia

2 Xchanger

15-1

Exchange Rate

Mark Shuman

Ramon Dominguez

3 Circular Quay

8-1

Thunder Gulch

Todd Pletcher

John Velazquez

4 Curlin

7-2

Smart Strike

Steve Asmussen

Robby Albarado

5 King of the Roxy

12-1

Littleexpectations

Todd Pletcher

Garrett Gomez

6 Flying First Class

20-1

Perfect Mandate

D. Wayne Lukas

Mark Guidry

7 Hard Spun

5-2

Danzig

Larry Jones

Mario Pino

8 Street Sense

7-5

Street Cry

Carl Nafzger

Calvin Borel

9 CP West

20-1

Came Home

Nick Zito

Edgar Prado

MOM AND SONS RACES AT PIMLICO

Has good post to battle other speed

Undefeated Woodbine-based colt LIKE MOM LIKE SONS (Carson City) is headed to Pimlico for the Hirsch Jacob Stakes on Saturday for 3-year-olds at 6 furlongs. Owned by Howard Walton and trained by Sid Attard, the speedy colt will be ridden by Garret Gomez.

It is the 6^th race on the card and ‘Mom’ drew post 8 in the 8 horse field although SPORTS TOWN just won the Ogygian Stakes 3 days ago, so he could be scratched.

The field is a tough one as there is a fast runner, Southwestern Heat, on the rail who will ensure that the Woodbine colt will not get an easy lead like he did when he won the Woodstock Stakes last time out.

Also, the highest last-race Beyer Figure horse is FINALLYMADEIT (97) who was 3^rd in the Ponche Stakes last time out at Calder, and Aventura Stakes winner STREET MAGICIAN, who will turn back from a 5^th place finish in the 1 mile Withers Stakes.

Like Mom Like Sons has a tough task ahead but could land a top three placing.

EUGENE MELNYK FEATURE

Eugene Melnyk’s OTTAWA SENATORS are edging closer to Stanley Cup glory, his MARCHFIELD is a favourite for the Queen’s Plate and SEALY HILL and BELLEPLAINE are contenders for the Woodbine Oaks. Now he's stepping down from his company.

Courtesy GLOBE AND MAIL TODAY

Eugene Melnyk - horseman, hockey man and entrepreneur - is stepping down as chairman of Biovail. His retirement may not be a restful one

LEONARD ZEHR AND BOYD ERMAN

May 17, 2007

TORONTO -- Eugene Melnyk is the first to admit that he's made more money than he'll ever be able to spend. So his willingness to pack it in at Biovail Corp. may be more personal than business, notwithstanding that securities regulators in Canada and the United States are bearing down on him.

Last December, Mr. Melnyk's older brother Zenon died after a year-long struggle with cancer.

They were close and spoke regularly, and his death hit the Biovail chairman hard, especially because he was away on business when his brother lapsed into coma.

Two weeks later, Mr. Melnyk's first cousin passed away, and now one of his best friends in Toronto is also battling cancer.

"I can point to a dozen successful business deals in the last dozen years, but I have a hard time remembering a dozen quality days at home in the last six months," the 47-year-old told shareholders at Biovail's annual meeting in Toronto yesterday. He said he will leave the company and board effective at the end of June, 20 years after it went public.

"I have 20 more years before a traditional retirement, but I came to the realization last December and over the last few months that it's time I take my retirement from my current day job."

He plans to spend more time with his wife and two daughters, volunteer at his daughters' school, watch a lot of hockey, race his horses and breed new winners.

Mr. Melnyk explained his decision in an emotional address, during which he fought back tears, just hours after Biovail announced Tuesday night that he had received a so-called Wells Notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which is often a prelude to charges being laid.

He dismissed the timing as coincidence.

"It would have been nice if these things, these issues didn't exist or they were behind me," he said later yesterday in an interview in a downtown Toronto hotel. "But you can't continue trying to set a date and move that date based on events that you don't control."

He said he'll continue to be a significant shareholder -- he is currently the largest, with 12.6 per cent of the company's stock -- and has no expectation that the company will be sold.

"You just never know what can happen over the next six months, 12, year, two years," he said. "I do know that where I sit right now, the company is positioned for great growth ...."

Biovail is a pharmaceutical company whose specialty is "drug-delivery technologies" that improve a drug's effectiveness. For example, its antidepressant Wellbutrin XL took an existing drug and improved the pace at which it's released into a patient's system.

Fabulously wealthy, Mr. Melnyk has a palatial home in Barbados, a personal jet, a thoroughbred racing stable in Florida, and ownership of the Ottawa Senators, one of the hottest teams in hockey.

Mr. Melnyk's Biovail shares have a market value of more than $500-million (U.S.). He will also collect up to $40-million this year in dividends from the company.

He became a full-time resident of sunny Barbados in the late-1990s, where Biovail is headquartered for tax reasons. In 2001 and 2002, he was Canada's highest paid executive, cashing stock options valued at more than $100-million, which he parlayed into his sports empire, making his meteoric rise an easy target for Biovail detractors.

"Personally, I think this is a good decision for him," said one person who has known Mr. Melnyk for the past seven years. "A lot of people have taken too much pleasure at taking cheap shots at him. He's a tough businessman and doesn't shy away from controversy. But he's done a lot for the community."

He has given more than $5-million to Toronto's St. Joseph's Health Centre to sponsor a new wing in honour of father, Ferdinand Melnyk, who was a physician there for more than 20 years before he died in the 1970s. And he has poured millions into his alma mater, St. Michael's College School in Toronto, as well as bailing out the St. Michael's Majors OHL hockey club.

A $5 bettor along the back stretch at Toronto's Woodbine racetrack when he was a teenager, Mr. Melnyk now raises eyebrows at major yearling sales in the U.S., where in the early 2000s he forked out $50-million to purchase some six dozen horses.

But he has spent much of the past three years fending off securities regulators and stepped down as Biovail's chief executive officer two years ago.

"Eugene has been diversifying away from Biovail as his day-to-day role diminished, and he's a good entrepreneur with early-stage companies," another person familiar with the company said. "That's where he'll make some noise."

Earlier this year, he failed in a bid to acquire insolvent drug developer Hemosol Corp. of Mississauga, but he purchased a controlling interest in Fusion Beauty Inc., a skin care and beauty products firm in Ottawa, for about $85-million.

He said yesterday: "My road trips now instead of going to New York and visiting a lawyer's office or an investment banker's office are going to be going to [racetrack] Gulfstream Park for the afternoon and catching the plane and get up to Tampa to watch the Sens in the afternoon."

***

The three sides of Eugene

The entrepreneur

Eugene Melnyk founded a Biovail predecessor 20 years ago with a $20,000 loan

Trimel Corp. became Biovail Corp., Canada's biggest publicly traded drug company with 2006 revenue of $1.07-billion (U.S.)

The sportsman

owns the Ottawa Senators of the NHL and St. Michael's Majors of the Ontario Hockey League

owns Melnyk Racing Stables and Winding Oaks Farm in Ocala, Fla.

racing and horse breeding operations include some 200 thoroughbreds

The regulatory woes

OSC has accused Mr. Melnyk of breaching the securities law by failing to file insider trading reports for trades in Biovail shares conducted by four trust accounts set up in the Cayman Islands.

SEC is preparing to accuse Mr. Melnyk for alleged violations of trading and reporting ownership positions in Biovail shares

SEC is also investigating accounting and disclosure practices of Biovail

-Leonard Zehr

WAXY WEDNESDAY NIGHT

PICK 7 carryover now $36K

The first installation of the new and more wax on the Polytrack surface began this week and last night was the first card of racing since the work started (it is supposed to continue next week).

Times were slow, a product in part to the lower classifications of horses racing last night, and the inside started to play favourably again while speed and stretch runners won their share.

A wide variety of trainers won races last night including NORM DESOUZA, who added to his lofty win total (now 7) with front running JONKANOO in the 2nd race and SCOTT FAIRLIE took another, with UNCANNY JUDITH, to get to 8.

Jockey MICHELLE RAINFORD won twice on the 8-race card.

RED RAFFLES won the featured race of the night, an Ontario-sired allowance for non-winners of 2. It was the second consecutive win for the Kingfield Racing Stable, Catherine Day Phillips gelding by Bold N’ Flashy-Vintage Red, Explosive Red.

The gelding rallied up the inside after a hot pace was set. Chantal Sutherland rode the favourite who had the highest last-race Beyer Figure in the field.

Another Bold N’ Flashy gelding, Naked Nues, finished second.

AAAH PLATE MEMORIES

It’s the most prestigious race in Canada, the oldest continually run stakes race in North America, but hey, it’s not perfect.

In fact, some of the recent runnings have yielded anything but stars.

KING OF JAZZ, second in the Plate to WILD DESERT two years ago, races for $25,000 claiming in the first race at Belmont today.

And hey, whatever happened to Wild Desert?

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

Readers asked some questions in recent days.

As for the CORNELL COLLAR, this was being used at Woodbine two years ago and horses were winning with it but there was no real control over the use of it and some people would not even know how to put it on properly.

Perhaps other readers can enlighten us more on the use of this equipment but I sure don’t want a horse I bet on being choked to death as he runs.

The A and B maiden allowance race difference is essentially simply. The A maiden race offers a $60,000 purse and is used to attract a tougher field as opposed to the B maiden allowance, which offers a $30,000 purse.