For all its cheery bluster and summertime sizzle, the racing at Del Mar must take a backseat opening week to the wild things down the road in San Diego at Comic-Con International, an epic cross-breeding of costumed fanatics and studio ghouls feasting on the lucrative world of make-believe.

Were I so inclined, I’d don my Vision outfit hanging in the back of the closet and attend one of the prime Comic-Con panel sessions, hard-pressed to choose from among “Thirty Years of Dark Horse Manga,” “Badass Female Scientists,” and “Let’s Get Real About Fantasy.”

One week before the July 18 Del Mar opener, Ron McAnally was on the phone declaring himself fit and ready for the meet, having finally recovered sufficiently from the surgery required for a broken ankle suffered in a spill at home. There was an inquiry, but no disqualification.

It was also his birthday – No. 86 for anyone counting, a number that lined up properly with what he said next.

“If you can believe it, 1948 was my first Del Mar meet,” McAnally said. “Working for Uncle Reggie. What’s that . . . 70 years?”

“Tis but a scratch.” – The Black Knight, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”

Okay, so it’s more than a scratch. The reported filling in the left-front ankle of Triple Crown winner and Maxim cover boy Justify is a long way from his heart, but it is enough to tap the brakes on any excitement for possible heroics through the remainder of the year.

Consider the Los Alamitos Derby – a race of proud heritage, modest reward, and a low national profile that gives lie to its brief, muscular history.

Five 3-year-olds will go postward in Saturday’s version of the race, with its nine furlongs strung out around the unique Los Alamitos layout. The runners can get up a full head of steam before they take the clubhouse hairpin turn and then negotiate the odd kink right down the backstretch before the final bend and the 1,400-foot stretch, an eternity rivaled only by Churchill Downs and Fair Grounds among the nation’s one-mile tracks.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard. There is no good way to say goodbye.

Kurt Vonnegut called it the “emptiest and yet the fullest of all human messages,” and like everything else he said, he was right. In its smallest moments, “goodbye” feels like a selfish wave of dismissal. Next case. At its most consequential, “goodbye” is a surrender to an inevitability no one wants to contemplate.

In recent versions of the Watchmaker Watch, my weekly divisional rankings for DRF, my comment for Monomoy Girl atop the 3-year-old filly division has read, “Close to clinching this title if she hasn’t already.”

Well, it looks like I jumped the gun a bit there, and I will be changing that comment first thing Monday morning.

Before the tide of history rises to wash away stories of late June that failed to grab the imagination, indulge this reporter in turning briefly to the case of Charles Fipke and his appeal of a ruling made by the Del Mar stewards last year during the week of the Breeders’ Cup.

The events of 50 years ago have been spent a lot of time in recent headlines, and with good reason. The 12 memorable months of 1968 were an emotionally draining roller-coaster ride of giddy highs and tragic lows.

Thoroughbred racing had its share as well, led by the surgical precision of Dr. Fager, the persistence of classy Damascus, and the upheaval of a disqualified Kentucky Derby winner.

There are tough, unforgiving jobs that no one notices until something goes wrong. Prison guard. Sewer maintenance. Circus roustabout.

Last Saturday, during the final day of the royal meeting at England’s posh Ascot, the gate crew drew unintentional attention when the favorite for the marquee Diamond Jubilee Stakes left the barrier on his knees. Harry Angel, Britain’s top-rated sprinter, ended up beating one horse and emerged with what trainer Clive Cox described as a puncture wound in a hind leg.

We get letters, emails, troubling texts, and messages in empty bourbon bottles. Sometimes it’s best to let them float away. But then there are the questions worth answering.

“Dear Mr. Know-It-All – I’m watching this Royal Ascot deal and it looks pretty cool. Why can’t we have something like this in America where all the best horses run at the same time and we all get to dress up like extras in ‘My Fair Lady,’ which if you don’t know is a movie where Audrey Hepburn didn’t do her own singing?” – R. Starkey, Liverpool, N.Y.