The weather has impacted every track in the Mid-Atlantic this winter. Parx Racing got a double dose of weather and illness that has had the track playing catch-up for months.

Parx had a case of equine herpesvirus that caused a barn-area shutdown late in 2013. They are in the midst of another quarantine that will end March 17.

According to Sal Sinatra, Parx’s director of racing, a horse recently came in from an Ocala sale and while cooling out after training one morning, “the horse was showing signs of being in a drunken stupor.”

Blood was drawn.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – When a bettor was disqualified out of a $1.66 million win in the final race at Gulfstream Park on Saturday, horseplayers across the country felt his pain – and his anger.

Of all the loose ends left by the closure of Hollywood Park, none has generated more attention than the remains of the great Native Diver. A California-bred winner of three Hollywood Gold Cups in the mid-1960s and member of Thoroughbred racing’s Hall of Fame, Native Diver was buried in what eventually became the walking ring behind the grandstand, beneath an imposing monument.

It’s not like the place wasn’t already on the map. San Luis Rey Downs was built in 1969. But the cluster of runners that vanned up to win at Santa Anita Park last weekend helped poke a hole in the idea that the newly invigorated training center is located somewhere near the ends of the earth. It’s not, although you can see it from there.

While battling the flu last week (it happens every year after the Super Bowl as my body shuts down after going non-stop all football season), I received a cryptic text message from a friend.

“What are the odds for Bayern?”

The announcement last week that Del Mar will replace its Polytrack racing surface with natural dirt for the 2015 racing season may well signal the end of the synthetic-track era in American racing after less than a decade.

Now that Del Mar’s management has decided to return to a main track made of dirt, and before the era of synthetic surfaces in Southern California is buried once and for all beneath a mound of chopped tires, sticky wax, and carpet fibers, it might help to take one last glance in the rearview mirror just to make sure the sport never goes through the same ordeal again.

It is the winter that will not end in the Mid-Atlantic. It has been a steady supply of snow, ice, rain, brutal cold, and really brutal cold, a nightmare for track superintendents, trainers trying to keep horses in shape and find races to run them in, and owners trying to pay bills with far less income.

From Dec. 6 to Feb. 16, Parx Racing had to cancel 17 cards and stop two more in the middle due to track conditions. It was the freeze/thaw disaster in early December that makes it just about impossible to maintain a track surface. Then, it was the unrelenting cold and snow in 2014.

Things are starting to get a little dizzy around the Lee and Susan Searing household, what with Candy Boy winning the Robert B. Lewis Stakes last weekend and Kobe’s Back primed for the San Vicente Stakes at Santa Anita on Sunday. Good 3-year-olds in February will do that to you.

In the $200,000 Santa Maria Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday, key contenders will be ridden by Mike Smith, age 48; Alex Solis, 49; Corey Nakatani, 43; and Kent Desormeaux, who will be 44 in two weeks.

Among the regulars missing from the mix will be Martin Pedroza, 48, who suffered a fractured right leg last week, and Gary Stevens, 50, who will be riding in the $200,000 El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate Fields.