LAS VEGAS – March Madness has long had the slogan of “survive and advance,” and that’s the challenge that faces local college basketball contest players during the upcoming tournament.

No one said there would be this much arithmetic in horse racing beyond odds, fractions, Beyer Figures, and beer prices. But here we are, on the brink of the final push to the Kentucky Derby, obsessively consulting point charts and point totals and projecting like crazed math majors on an all-night binge. My colleagues have picked up on the madness.

Old school was in session last weekend at Santa Anita Park and Aqueduct, where Game On Dude and Comma to the Top delivered PowerPoint presentations on the comprehensive subject of what a really good Thoroughbred can do when correctly prepared and politely asked.

When a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s there to hear it, well, that’s just tough luck for the tree. But when a marquee athlete disappears from the playing field for an extended period of time with nary a headline explaining why, that’s journalistic malpractice.

Which is an overly elaborate way of apologizing for just now finding out that Alex Solis, one of the sport’s finest practitioners, underwent serious shoulder surgery last November in California and is just now getting back up to physical speed in Florida.

Can the New York Racing Association secure the right person as its next chief executive at a discounted price and with no job security beyond the next two years?

That was the most interesting question to emerge from the latest meeting of the new state-controlled NYRA Reorganization Board, which held its third meeting last Wednesday.

Somehow, perhaps by sheer force of will, or maybe some miracle adhesive, the Santa Anita Handicap clings to national relevance.

This in spite of the fact that its purse of $750,000 is hardly unique, its handicap conditions have become archaic, and its position on the calendar places it squarely in the teeth of the planet’s richest horse race, the $10 million Dubai World Cup. All things considered, it very easily could have fallen off the radar by now, suffering the same fate as treasured races that once were every bit as significant to both players and fans.

There were no shadows. I remember that. The homestretch seemed shrouded in grays and dark tans as Kennedy Road, his wide blaze a welcome beacon under threatening skies, separated himself from the pack and made for home. To his outside, Kennedy Road was quickly joined by his favored stablemate, Cougar II, and for the last hundred yards they ran as one, heads bobbing to the screams of nearly 60,000 people in the stands until, at the wire, Cougar’s nose dipped at the perfect moment.

My favorite disclaimer at the beginning of a movie is from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” to wit:

“Most of what follows is true.”

There followed an hour and 50 minutes of tongue-in-cheeky, anachronistic, Wild West mythmaking of the highest order, plus an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay of 1969.

When the Breeders’ Cup board of directors met Friday, its two most significant agenda items were whether to proceed with a planned ban on Lasix in all 15 of its races this year – and whether it would in fact present all 15 races this year. Were these separate or related issues?

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. — When the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park and the Risen Star Stakes at the Fair Grounds are run on Saturday, people who follow thoroughbred racing will watch intently, even if they don’t have a financial stake in the outcome. The prep races that lead to the Kentucky Derby annually engage the attention of fans trying to spot the future winner of America’s most famous race.