Breeders’ Cup Week officially gets under way here every year with the Pick the Ponies handicapping tournament at the Las Vegas Hilton. It runs Wednesday through Friday, so the final day now lands on the first day of the BC. The entry fee is $500, but it’s just $450 for those signing up by the early-bird deadline, which has been extended to 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 31. Players make 10 mythical $100 across-the-board wagers each day.

The roll call for Saturday’s California Cup races at Santa Anita Park will come up a few names short.

First off, the co-founding Oak Tree Racing Association is no longer a co-sponsor, in league with the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association. This is not a surprise, since Oak Tree does not currently exist as a racing association with a racing meet after being unceremoniously ushered to the sidelines earlier this year, while Santa Anita itself now operates the dates occupied by Cal Cup.

Well, those revolutionary whip rules in England didn’t even last as long as New Coke. The British Horse Racing Authority’s attempt to quiet public outrage over perceived abuse by instituting strict whip counts and Draconian fines blew up in the face of practical application. The rules have been tweaked – jockeys still must be able to count as high as seven or eight – but the financial blow for transgressions will not be as great, effectively shifting the incentive for compliance from financial to altruistic. Let’s see how that works.

LAS VEGAS – This city is known for big gambling tournaments, and this fall is enhancing that reputation.

The Hilton SuperContest drew a record 517 entries this NFL season and is going strong. The entrant going by the name Sans Souci (French for “without worry” and borrowed by a group of four friends from an old story about Jerry Garcia) is off to a 23-5-3 record against the spread and holds a 1 1/2-game lead.

Ian Jory, best known these days as the California-based representative of International Racehorse Transport of Britain, awoke to a summer morning last August in his L.A home, groggy from sleep and still a little disoriented after a recent stretch in the hospital. He was on his side of the bed he shared with his wife, Jo, and in turning to rise he led as usual with his right leg, in search of the bedroom floor.

“I’d forgotten it was gone,” Jory said. “Down I went, tumbling to the floor.”

Horse racing’s desperate, ongoing stumble toward acceptance in the modern age took another pratfall last week with the issuance of new whipping rules in England.

For those who missed the news, please note that riders in British flat races now are allowed seven whacks with the crop during a race but only five in the final furlong. Jump jockeys get an extra hit somewhere along the way, but must adhere to the rule of five from the final barrier to the wire.

At the very top it needs to be pointed out that the Canadian International, sponsored by Pattison Outdoor Advertising and presented at Woodbine on Sunday, is worth more than two of the three American Triple Crown races and seven of the 15 races on the Breeders’ Cup program, as well as every other Thoroughbred stakes race of significance run this year in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

When New York City OTB suddenly shut down last Dec. 8, it was reasonable to think there might be dire repercussions for New York racing. While many believed the so-called “public benefit corporation” had done as much harm as benefit to racing during four decades of existence, it nonetheless was the nation’s largest bet-taker, handling over $800 million of a national $13 billion handle just two years ago, most of it on in-state racing at Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga.

Charles Fager was not exactly comfortable at first when John Nerud named a horse in honor of the good doctor. This was 1965, and in those days physicians kept a low profile, discouraged by custom to avoid the beating of their own drum.

“It seemed a little like advertising to me,” Dr. Fager said a few years ago. “I was certainly grateful John would honor me like that, but I was just doing my job.”

For most of us, nothing tastes worse than getting your mouth washed out with soap when you were a kid.

For bookmakers here (and everywhere), they might have found the equivalent last weekend as they got their mouths full of chalk.