Well, that was pretty ugly. You don’t mind the relatives coming to town for the holidays, but you would just as soon they not go home with the big screen and the silverware.

The three biggest races of Hollywood Park’s Thanksgiving weekend Turf Festival fell like dominoes to shippers from New York when Data Link took the $250,000 Citation Handicap, Better Lucky won the $250,000 Matriarch, and Unbridled Command powered home in the $250,000 Hollywood Derby.

They keep this up and they will finally get even for Swaps beating Nashua in the ’55 Kentucky Derby.

The Matriarch, a stakes event on the grass for fillies and mares, has been run at Hollywood Park since 1981. It has been won by broad representation of noteworthy trainers, including Robert Wheeler, Ron McAnally, Steve Rieser, Dermot Weld, Ben Cecil, Steve DiMauro, Bill Mott, John Gosden, Graham Motion, Henry Moreno, and Bill Spawr.

They can’t run a Cigar Mile in New York without wondering how the real thing is doing down there in Lexington.

“Knock on wood, he’s been real healthy,” said Wes Lanter, the man in charge of the Hall of Champions at the Kentucky Horse Park, where Cigar makes his home in the same high rent neighborhood as Funny Cide, Da Hoss, and Go for Gin.

LAS VEGAS – Who’s No. 1?

In college football, that would be Notre Dame in the BCS rankings, which determine the national title game, as well as the AP writers’ poll and the USA Today Coaches Poll. Notre Dame ascended to the top after Kansas State and Oregon both lost last Saturday after having the inside track for the national title game.

It was one of those whiplash moments from which nightmares take their nourishment. John Johny Jak, the pride and joy of the Rustin Kretz racing stable, had just won the Robert Kerlan Memorial Handicap on the turf at Betfair Hollywood Park. This was a big deal for Kretz and trainer Kristin Mulhall, since John Johny Jak had the look of a runner who might be the stuff dreams are made of.

Then, pulling up, John Johny Jak fractured a shoulder so badly that euthanization was the only humane choice.

The guinea pig, as every schoolchild knows, is not really a pig. It’s a rodent, and like many rodents throughout history the guinea pig has ended up on the wrong end of scientific experiments. No one is sure where the “guinea” in guinea pig came from, since they seem to be native to South America, but that didn’t keep them out of the lab.

Let’s play pretend. Let’s pretend there is a weekly commercial network program offering a package of interesting stakes events, complete with compelling storylines and reason to care about the players down the road.

Let’s pretend there is such a show Saturday. Kick it off with the $150,000 Discovery Handicap from Aqueduct, at 1 1/8 miles on the main track for 3-year-olds. This puts the viewer in New York, never a bad thing when it comes to validation of a sporting event, and flags the fact that no matter what time of year, there is usually a race there worth watching.

All signs point to it being a festive holiday season at the Yurik house.

John Yurik, 54, of Las Vegas and the owner of Signs West Outdoor, won the $10,000 first-place prize in the William Hill College Pick’em handicapping contest in which players paid $100 per entry and made seven picks against the spread each Saturday. The 10-week contest ended last Saturday with Yurik finishing with an impressive record of 50-20 (71 percent) ATS.

At one point during the Breeders’ Cup program of Friday, Nov. 2, the 8-year-old gray gelding known as California Flag pranced from the Santa Anita saddling barn after a schooling session geared to his appearance the following day in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. Upon reaching the end of the path leading to the walking ring, California Flag planted his feet and jitterbugged backwards, then gave a great leap and bounded into the ring, dragging his nattily dressed trainer Brian Koriner along for the ride. The gathered crowd squealed with delight.

The Paul Reddam roller coaster of 2012 officially began on Feb. 4, when I’ll Have Another won the Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita at 43-1. The ride continued through victories in the Santa Anita Derby, Kentucky Derby, and Preakness before coming to a screeching halt the day before the Belmont Stakes, when I’ll Have Another’s injured tendon was deemed too dicey to continue.