Are there too many races at Saratoga?

This week, there were 11 on Thursday, 10 carded for Friday, 12 for Saturday, and 11 for Sunday. Back in the days of the classic 24-day Saratoga meeting, there were nine every day, even on Travers Day. You knew going into the meeting that Saratoga would consist of precisely 216 races, a number that has now grown to more than 400, not only because of the extension to 40 days but also with a nine-race card being the exception rather than the rule.

You can argue the question both ways, but it’s an argument worth having.

Of course it makes no sense that the Arlington Million and the Sword Dancer Six Hundred Thousand are being run an hour and a half apart on the same day for the same group of horses at racetracks only a short hop from each other by plane. It doesn’t have to. Both Saturday features – one in Chicago, the other in Saratoga Springs – attracted full and deeply competitive fields. The entertainment will last two minutes in one, two and a half in the other. The winners may not improve the breed, but they certainly decorate the landscape.

I’ve covered horse handicapping tournaments for Daily Racing Form since 2000. I’ve probably interviewed a hundred different winners and talked with thousands of contestants.

Whenever I see standings, I scan to look for familiar names. It’s always amazed me how consistent the top players are as I see a lot of the same names in contention time after time. (Note: It’s also a fact that if you go to the bottom of the standings and see all the people with $0, those are often very good players who just happened to blank while going for the gusto with big longshots.)

The saga of Gary Stevens and his resurrection as an active Hall of Fame rider takes an operatic turn Saturday when he goes postward in the Arlington Million at Arlington Park aboard Indy Point.

The fact that Stevens has a serious chance to add a race like the Million to his growing list of achievements this season is remarkable enough. At the age of 50, and a grandfather to boot, Stevens pretty much has made everyone forget that he had spent seven years in retirement before getting back in the irons last January.

The reputation of great stallions as sires of sires ultimately is dependent on the accomplishments of a very few sons. Only the greatest sires of sires produce more than a few sons who make a lasting impact and establish enduring branches of their male lines.

Danehill and Green Desert already have established thriving branches of the Danzig branch of Northern Dancer, and other sons of Danzig such as Anabaa, Boundary, and Lure have important sons at stud who may yet extend their branches of Danzig’s line.

Even in these jaded, media-saturated times, the appearance of a reigning Horse of the Year is a big deal. Or at least it should be.

There are fans both old enough and young enough to remember that day in May 1977 when New York’s pari-mutuel clerks were on strike and the races were run anyway, since the OTB shops were happy to take the action. More than 7,000 fans showed up at the track to watch – just watch! – reigning Horse of the Year Forego make his season debut in an allowance race.

In his day job, Adam McNeill of Saratoga Springs dispenses investment advice as a financial planner with a local firm. On Saturday at Saratoga Race Course, where he won a drawing to make a free $15,000 win bet on the Fourstardave Handicap, he may want to consider some investment advice from more seasoned horseplayers: Hedge your bet.

What’s a horse have to do to get into the Hall of Fame?

How about if he runs 22 times in 24 months and wins 15 races, 14 of those wins in stakes races and 12 of those graded.

What if his record includes a streak during which he came within a neck of winning 12 straight stakes? Or maybe if the three times he finished second the three horses that beat him were a Kentucky Derby winner and two Horses of the Year?

The race remains one of those "Where were you when … ?" moments. A bookmark in the pages of the sport. When Onion, owned by Jack Dreyfus, beat Secretariat in the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga on Aug. 4, 1973, the wind shifted and the story changed, and everything you thought you knew suddenly was turned upside down.

LAS VEGAS – Football season is here. Well, as I’ve written several times over the spring and summer, football hardly has an offseason anymore, with sports books posting their futures, over/under season win totals, and even “Games of the Year” point spreads earlier every year to keep up with the Joneses.

But for those Jonesing to bet on actual games that they can watch right away, we finally have action with the Hall of Fame Game this Sunday, with the Miami Dolphins a 2.5-point favorite over the Dallas Cowboys and a full NFL preseason slate next weekend.