SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – You can say the powerful storm that hit right before the originally scheduled post time for Saturday’s Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga changed almost everything.

It certainly changed the racing surface. The storm turned it from a fast track that appeared to be somewhat dead near the inside, and thus favoring outside closers since speed horses naturally gravitate toward the rail, to a sloppy sealed track that who knows how it played, but which some horses might well not have been able to handle.

Only a fool would walk around believing that all is bright and rosy these days in the world of Thoroughbred racing. The darkest purveyors of critical commentary insist the game is dead and doesn’t know it. Those clinging to a dash of hope still think some lesser version of the game can be saved. Somewhere in between live the people who have decided to cast their lot with a business that more often than not resembles a steam train riding a rickety track through beautiful countryside.

Hey, Jimmy Jerkens. It’s the end of June. You’re coming off the best year of your training career. The star filly in the barn is already having a good season, you’ve just collected a nice pot by an up-and-coming turf horse, and the Saratoga meet lies ahead, brimming with all its anticipatory joys. So what’s next?

Heart surgery!

Look out below. It’s raining Halls of Fame.

Last Saturday in Cooperstown, N.Y., major league baseball rolled out the red carpet for first-ballot Hall of Famers Chipper Jones and Jim Thome, along with Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Alan Trammell and Jack Morris.

This Saturday in Canton, Ohio, the pro football Hall of Fame will be in the limelight as it welcomes Robert Brazile, Ray Lewis, Jerry Kramer, Brian Urlacher, Terrell Owens, Brian Dawkins, Randy Moss, and front-office guy Bobby Beathard.

It has been a busy few days in the 3-year-old male division, and that’s true without even knowing what happened in Sunday afternoon’s Haskell Invitational at Monmouth as this column is a Sunday morning thing.

Another jockey, another hospital room. Wounded warriors in a ridiculous war. Daredevils who never use a net.

There was Gary Stevens with his right shoulder and knee mangled in a morning horror show. Eddie Delahoussaye numbed to the awful pain of a shattered pelvis. Tyler Baze fighting back the dread of facial fractures. Laffit Pincay dealing with yet another damaged clavicle. Julie Krone with a broken back.

Stuff to be depressed about on this fine summer’s day:

◗ The impending death of the New York Daily News.

◗ Another movie littered with “songs” by ABBA.

Stuff that shouldn’t trouble anyone at all:

◗ The retirement of a racehorse after only six starts.

So what kind of weekend did you have?

If you were lucky, you had a weekend like John Sadler and young Drayden Van Dyke, who together seized both Saturday and Sunday at Del Mar with victories in the San Diego Handicap and Eddie Read Stakes, both Grade 2 events of some consequence.

If what most folks anticipate does indeed come to pass and Justify retires to stud without having raced again after his sweep of the Triple Crown, many will hold him up as an example of what’s wrong with the sport today.

I understand the complaint. In a career that would have spanned only six starts over a four-month period from Feb. 18 to June 9, Justify would be an extreme example of an equine star leaving the game far too soon.

It’s never too early for backers of American grass horses to be thinking about the Breeders’ Cup Mile. It wasn’t too early last year in the immediate wake of World Approval’s victory at Del Mar, when he became the sixth U.S. runner in the last seven years to win the race that the Europeans are supposed to own. Might as well plan ahead.