John Velazquez was feeling almost human again.

“I finally got to take a shower,” he said, as he walked across the room and settled gingerly into his hospital bed with the help of his wife, Leona. Mike Smith, John’s pal, was of no help at all.

“The nurses were beginning to talk about how bad you smelled,” Smith said.

Velazquez winced. Usually he’d have a snappy comeback. Right now he was ready for a Tylenol.

“That’s all I want, just to take the edge off,” Velazquez said. “The stronger stuff just makes me feel worse.”

Secretariat. Forego. Affirmed. John Henry. Cigar. Curlin. Wise Dan?

Come January, the question mark will be gone and Wise Dan will join those six as the only horses to win more than one Horse of the Year title since the Eclipse Awards began in 1972.

(If you want to travel back to the pre-Eclipse days of Horse of the Year polls that began in 1936, you can add Challedon [1939-40], Whirlaway [1941-42], Native Dancer [1952 and 1954], and Kelso [1960-64] to the list.)

When Parx Racing management moved the Pennsylvania Derby from Labor Day to the third Saturday in September, they really had three goals. One was to attract the Travers winner. Second, they wanted to give stakes-caliber 3-year-olds a last chance to run against their own age. Third, they wanted their race to be six weeks from the Breeders’ Cup so it could act as a final prep.

Well, they hit the trifecta this year and nearly got the Pennsylvania Derby winner home in the Classic.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Owning racehorses is an expensive and risky enterprise, and at the Breeders’ Cup it can be especially daunting.

Just ask Paul Viscovich of Los Angeles or Ed Stanco of Malvern, Pa., who operate modest-sized racing stables that rarely get a chance to compete in the sport’s year-end championships. Both have worthy horses this year, but both needed to pay a six-figure supplementary entry to run.

ARCADIA, Calif. – One year ago, the choice for Horse of the Year was settled in the final hour of the Breeders’ Cup. Wise Dan defeated high-class international competition to capture the Mile and establish his supremacy as a grass specialist. When Game On Dude, regarded as the country’s best dirt runner, flopped in the Classic, he handed the sport’s top honor to Wise Dan.

I miss a couple of things about the Breeders’ Cup. I miss when it used to be just a one-day event. I also miss when there were just seven or eight races as I personally found it easier to find live longshots.

What I don’t miss is going to the live event. In fact, I have never been to a Breeders’ Cup (though I guess I should add it to my bucket list) even though this will be the fifth time it’s being run just about 250 miles away at Santa Anita Park since I moved here in 1998.

With the Breeders’ Cup returning to the same stage as 2012, the sights and sounds of last year’s competition linger. None is more vivid than the victory of Fort Larned in the Breeders’ Cup Classic and the stories that trailed in his wake.

As much as any time in its 30-year history, this year’s Saturday Breeders’ Cup races will determine almost every one of racing’s divisional champions.

ARCADIA, Cal. – Owner Ken Ramsey will be a prominent presence at the Breeders’ Cup Friday and Saturday, with seven starters in turf races, six of them offspring of his stallion Kitten’s Joy. This will be no surprise to racing fans because Ramsey has seemed ubiquitous all year.

The Friday portion of this year’s Breeders’ Cup lacks any unifying theme and consists of five disparate races, four of which have no championship implications, much less the “world championship” label the event hangs on them. Those four races, however, are a horseplayer’s delight of wide-open betting propositions, and the fifth and final Friday Cup race, the Distaff, is a true clash of champions that should satisfy the purest of purists.