Alan Shuback

Racing's greatest spectacle, the Grand National Handicap Chase, presents its monumental self at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool on Saturday for the 172nd time (the 173rd time if you count the void running of 1993). With 40 horses jumping 30 of the jumping world's most daunting fences over a distance of 4 1/2 miles, it is not surprising that many bettors, even in England, defer to the blind man's bluff sytem of finding a winner. In reality, while handicapping the race is fraught with difficulty, it is not the impossible task it appears to be.

Opening day at Longchamp on Monday was dulled by cloudy skies but still produced a pair of French Guineas candidates in Modern History and Glorious Sight. Temperatures in the upper 50's made sipping wine at the outdoor backyard bars a little uncomfortable, but those wise enough to use bloodlines as a handicapping tool had their hearts warmed by these two as yet untested types.

April 1, 2011. In a move claculated to send shockwaves through the American racing industry, European horsemen met in Brussels on Friday to announce a boycott of American racing, one that will prevent all European-trained horses form running in the United States from this day forward. The burning issue is America's lenient raceday medication rules. In Europe, raceday medication is not allowed.

Barocci was first out of the gate in the race to the Poule d'Essai des Poulains, or French 2000 Guineas, when he prevailed in the listed Prix Omnium II at Saint-Cloud on Thursday. The race, made famous in 1992 when it was won by Arazi, was run on heavy ground which induced a time of just 1:48.90 for the mile. That is .9 of a second slower than Arazi's Omnium time and 1.4 seconds slower than the time recorded a half-hour earlier when Nova Hawk won the listed Prix La Camargo, a prep for the French 1000 Guineas.

The o-fer pulled by the 12 American-trained horses at Meydan on Saturday night marked the first time since 2003 that the U.S. has failed to produce at least one winner on Dubai World Cup Night, and only the second time in the 15-year history of the event. Was this merely an aberration, or is it a sign of the times reflective of the quality of the American Thoroughbred? Or shall we blame it on the failure of American horses to adapt to the synthetic surface at Meydan?