It takes a heavy lift these days for any 3-year-old race not named the Kentucky Derby to stand out from the crowd. Two of them will try this weekend – three if you count the one taking place in a Middle Eastern principality governed by a hereditary emir – followed by two more next weekend and two more the weekend after that.

The last time Dennis Cardoza found himself anywhere near Sunland Park was on Dec. 22, 1984, when the Terrapins of his University of Maryland alma mater were staging the greatest comeback in the history of the Sun Bowl in El Paso. Down 21-zip to Tennessee at the half, the Terps scored 22 unanswered points, gave up a 100-yard touchdown runback, then clawed out another TD in the waning minutes to win the game, 28-27.

The movement to ban Lasix from American racing, which looked like an odds-on favorite only a year ago, seems to have pulled up at the top of the stretch with the announcement last week that the Breeders’ Cup has scrapped its plan to enforce a ban in this year’s races.

There was a time – at least this is the way it looked to someone fairly new to the game – when training horses seemed like working for the CIA, or organized crime. Once you were in, you could never get out.

There had to be some explanation for all the guys in their 70s and 80s still showing up for work every day, dishing out their living history to anyone smart enough to listen. Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons trained for 70 years. Henry Clark held a license into his 90s. Noble Threewitt officially retired when he turned 96.

LAS VEGAS – As I’m writing this early Thursday morning, the world is full of optimism.

I’m in my home office, but I know from experience that the sports books all over town are filling up and have been for several hours as March Madness fans claim their seats (or spaces on the floor) like prospectors staking a claim in the Old West. Everyone is dreaming of riches from betting the NCAA tournament games this weekend or from the brackets filled out back home or online. Everyone is undefeated and every bracket is a clean slate.

So it’s once again into the breach, with federal legislation that would effectively ban the horse slaughter business in the United States introduced this week in Washington, D.C., by a collection of senators and representatives who would give the effort a gloss of bipartisan suport, if there still is such a thing.

A mile and a half grass race at Santa Anita offers both spectators and competitors a fanciful change of pace, starting as it does about three-quarters of the way up the hillside turf course, with the gate set in a notch that points the field at a sloping left-hand turn before they gallop across the dirt strip and onto the flat of the grass course proper.

As Starrer rounded the wide final turn into the Belmont stretch, reins flapping and riderless, David Hofmans stood near the finish line watching his filly with a sickening mixture of frustration and fear. A few moments later she flashed past Hofmans, alone in front of the field at the end of the Coaching Club American Oaks just as her trainer had envisioned. Only not.

Two months into his return, Gary Stevens has pretty much dismissed all suspicions that his comeback was an ego-driven publicity stunt designed to revive his flagging self-esteem and prove that he is still more than the sum of the parts he has played in movies and on TV.

The kid can ride.

Not even the biggest proponents of the occasional handicap race believe that racing’s most important events, such as the Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup, should be run at anything except equal weights. So it is increasingly unclear why the key preps for those events continue to be run at unequal weights – especially now that the results of those preps are used to guarantee or deny berths in the main events.