Opening day at Del Mar is not for everyone. It only seems that way, especially if you’re trying to park, or find yourself waiting in line for a beer, a bet, or a bathroom.

Hollywood Park management should have saved the Sunset Handicap for Dec. 22. That’s when the lights go out for good and lingering fans hopefully will be encouraged to grab a hunk of the turf course for posterity. The Sunset has been the traditional closing-day highlight of the Hollywood Park meet since its inauguration in 1938, only then it bid farewell as the Aloha Handicap, which must have been confusing since “aloha” also means “hello.” Two years later the name was changed.

The Belmont spring/summer meeting, which ends Sunday after an 11 1/2-week run that began April 26, had its moments of very good racing but settled little in the way of establishing clear front-runners for the heart of the racing season ahead. This is not entirely a bad thing, as it set the stage for an even more competitive than usual Saratoga with leadership of every division there for the taking.

Saratoga, which opens July 19, spends a fairly peaceful off-season, befitting its status as the dowager queen of American race courses. Horses train there from April through October. The weathered, beloved grandstand must be diligently maintained. Off-season visitors passing by can look in their guidebooks and point, “That’s Saratoga. They race Thoroughbreds there,” without fear of contradiction.

When I climb the ancient, rickety wooden stairs to the ancient, rickety Saratoga press box next week it will – contrary to the impression of some readers – be for only the 35th year in a row, not the 150th. It is possible, however, that more has changed in how a racing writer has covered Saratoga in those 3 1/2 decades than either the racing or Saratoga itself has changed in more than a century.

Russell Baze would have won the 12,000th race of his remarkable career last Sunday at the Alameda County Fair without Frank Mirahmadi’s call, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.

The Queen’s Plate, to be run for the 154th time Sunday at Woodbine, can be fairly described as the world’s most famous restricted Thoroughbred race, limited as it is to foals of Canada.

To put the talent pool for the Plate in some kind of perspective, there were 2,073 Canadian foals of 2010 registered with The Jockey Club, a figure that was slightly more than hit the ground in California and slightly less than Louisiana. This may say more about Louisiana and California than it does about Canada, but that’s for another day.

In Los Angeles, the year 1949 began with three days of snow. Billy Graham came to town to launch his first big tent revival. And, on the night of May 5, the Hollywood Park grandstand burned down.

LAS VEGAS – Since I moved here in November 1998, there had been 34 no-hitters thrown in Major League Baseball heading into this past Tuesday.

There were a whopping eight of them last year, including three perfect games, so I felt justified in the fact I’ve become blas é about them . No-hitters don’t feel as special as they used to.

Now that all the overnight ratings are in regarding Wise Dan’s performance in last weekend’s Firecracker Handicap – ranging from "big deal look who he beat" to "how dare they run him under such conditions" – it is time to turn the case over to the judgment of history and let the verdict settle to its natural level.