In an age of popular hybrids – from fairways to country roads – the Gold Cup at Santa Anita fits right in. It is not the Santa Anita Handicap, still the West’s most famous horse race, nor is it the Hollywood Gold Cup, now deceased. It is a brand-new 1 1/4-mile, main-track dirt race for ages 3 and up weighted on allowances and offered beneath the cloudless blue skies of a San Gabriel Valley summer afternoon. All comers from points east were welcome. None of them showed.

If nothing else, the presence of Game On Dude in Saturday’s $500,000 Gold Cup at Santa Anita eases the disorientation of watching the West’s premier early-summer race for the older division run somewhere other than Hollywood Park.

There may be no such thing as a sure thing at the track. Chad Brown’s starters at Parx Racing in 2014, however, are about as close as you will ever get to certainty in an uncertain sport.

From March 17 through June 16, Brown started 10 horses at Parx. Nine won, and the other was second. Few were secrets, but 90 percent winners is going to equal a solid return on investment regardless of the prices. The Brown ROI at Parx this year is $4.65, according to DRF ’s Formulator.

“No one ever committed suicide with a good 2-year-old in the barn” is how the hoary racetrack saying goes. Woody Stephens gets credit for trotting it out more often than most, even though its origins remain obscure.

The sights along Interstate 5 in California’s Central Valley near Fresno include almond orchards, cow pastures, and acres upon acres of barren agricultural ground, rendered fallow by the West’s terrible drought. There are hidden treasures, to be sure – a reservoir here, a winery there – but for the next month and a half, travelers on that stretch of highway will be oblivious to the real main attraction, with America’s most famous race horse living the life of Riley just a few miles off the main road.

Dick and Jane go to the racetrack. Each makes a $2,000 wager that pays off $5,200, for a profit of $3,200. Well done, Dick and Jane – but why does Dick get to keep his whole $5,200, while Jane has $1,300 of her $3,200 profit withheld by the Internal Revenue Service?

The difference is that Dick made a $2,000 win bet on a winning 8-5 shot who paid $5.20. Jane, on the other hand, bought a $2,000 pick six ticket (5 x 5 x 5 x 4 x 2 x 1, let’s say) that won and paid $5,200. Why should this make a difference? It shouldn’t, but it does.

The rest of the Thoroughbred world is forgiven if it views the current state of the California racing and training landscape as an elaborate game of pick-up sticks, in which all the pieces are gathered together, then tossed on the table, to be played wherever they lay.

The Belmont Park main track was playing extremely fast the day before the great Belmont Stakes card. On Belmont Day, it was as fast until the seventh race. It slowed down a bit before another Palace Malice tour de force in the Metropolitan Handicap. The surface slowed down more for the Belmont itself and the 13th race, an optional claimer.

That is why Norumbega’s winning time (2:27.13) in the 1 1/2-mile Brooklyn Handicap was assigned a Beyer Speed Figure (101) just one point higher than Tonalist’s figure (100) in the Belmont Stakes, when he ran the same distance in 2:28.52.

Charles Town has always fallen hard for its local stars, from Jiva Coolit, Cortan, Onion Juice, and Confucius Say to Researcher, Russell Road, and Lucy’s Bob Boy. Give Down Town Allen a prominent place on the list.

Soon after California Chrome finished fourth in the Belmont Stakes, my sister fired off a private Facebook message likening the Triple Crown to the Hunger Games – a hyperbolic tantrum I chalked up to frustration and disappointment.