Susie Schramm got up one day three years ago to find a citation from local animal-control officials on her door saying that her dog had bitten someone. Horrified, she immediately drove to animal control, and it quickly became clear that there had been a mistake and her dog had not bitten anyone.

Animal-control officials, Schramm said, quickly got to the bottom of what had happened and corrected the mistake. She was so impressed with how they handled it that she told them to call her if she could ever help them.

Art Sherman leaned down and braced himself against the right front leg of California Chrome, lifted the colt’s foot, and peeled off the white bell boot protecting the hoof. California Chrome shifted his weight.

“Easy boy,” Sherman said.

California Chrome complied and allowed Sherman to take a good look at the back of the foot. The trainer ran his thumb over a barely visible scar line just above the coronet band.

“It’s gone,” Sherman said. “You can’t hardly see it at all.”

One of the best horses ever born in Pennsylvania will be running in Delaware this Saturday. One of the best horses ever born in Maryland will be running in Pennsylvania the same day.

The Pennsylvania-bred Princess of Sylmar and the Maryland-bred Ben’s Cat could not be much different in terms of style, history, or the types of races they run in. What they have in common is winning. What they also are likely to have in common by Saturday evening is more than $2 million in career earnings.

Those 5,702 patrons passing through the turnstiles at Los Alamitos Race Course on Thursday afternoon had no idea they were semi-willing participants in a grand experiment, one designed to gauge the chances of Thoroughbred racing in Southern California making it to 2015 and beyond.

What a disappointment. You call Jim Rome to talk about Shared Belief making his return to stakes competition Saturday in the $500,000 Los Alamitos Derby, and the least you hope for is a little taste of smack from the man who runs the jungle. A warning that the champ is back, descending on the Home of Chrome with all the ferocity of a Mike Tyson overhand right. A challenge to anyone with a 3-year-old within firing-squad range of his CBS Sports radio show or his “Jim Rome on Showtime” to step up in the second half of the year and prove they’ve got a better beast. Any doubters?

Whether or not you think that what American racing really needs is a pair of new seven-figure races for 3-year-olds on grass, Saturday’s inaugural Stars and Stripes Day card at Belmont Park has already succeeded in its mission: to create a stakes-rich, meaningful day of racing in New York during the six weeks between the Belmont Stakes and the opening of Saratoga.

As we head into the second half of the season, following a sensational Triple Crown season that once again had everything but a Triple Crown, the focus will be on Palace Malice, Untapable, the eventual return of California Chrome, Tonalist at Saratoga, and the re-emergence of Shared Belief.

When the year-end championship ballots are distributed, most of those horses will be given major consideration for various awards.

It is not likely that Get Happy Mister will be getting the same kind of consideration – unless you live in Colorado and the voting is for best in the state.

Brad McKinzie, point man for the brave new racing adventure at Los Alamitos, was cracking wise about the mini-meets his track will be presenting this season, beginning Thursday with the eight-day Summer Thoroughbred Festival that runs all the way to July 13, better known as a week from Sunday.

“Two weeks we can handle,” McKinzie said. “It’s that middle week we’ll be running in December that will present the real challenge. You just hope you can keep up the enthusiasm.”

Joe Besecker is the founder, chairman, president, and chief executive of Emerald Asset Management, which controls $3 billion in small- and mid-cap growth assets from its Lancaster, Pa., base. The 1979 Saint Joseph’s University graduate loves his school’s basketball team, has tailgated for years at Penn State football games, and supports all the Philadelphia professional sports teams.

He also has long been fascinated by horse racing, and his stable, which races mostly at Penn National, is having the best year it has ever had as we pass the midway point of 2014.

It’s the end of June already, and for those who put off going to Santa Anita Park until the very last minute ... welcome to the very last minute.

Southern California’s first taste of a marathon race meeting concludes Sunday with 10 races topped by the $200,000 San Juan Capistrano. Appropriately, it is the longest race of the meet at about 1 3/4 miles, which gives the San Juan the same kind of “sayonara” wave as the 15-furlong Hasta La Vista Handicap that closes out the Turf Paradise meet in Arizona each spring.