ARCADIA, Calif. - Charles Cella dined Wednesday night with Ann and Jerry Moss, enjoying the fine Arkansas cuisine, but no doubt spending time at some point in the meal chewing on the nagging question, "What might have been?"

ARCADIA, Calif. - Since this is the week of the Masters, and the return of Tiger Woods, references to the process of rehabilitation will be filling the air. For a road map, I went to a reliable expert on the subject.

Garrett Gomez enjoys a good round of golf. He will be tuned in this week, between mounts at Santa Anita, watching the action from Augusta. Gomez also will be appreciating the pressure under which Woods is performing in his first tournament since the colorful abundance of his extramarital activities was revealed in a frenzied wave of tabloid glee.

TUCSON, Ariz. - My kid Al e-mailed the other day, and in the course of his message he casually mentioned that he was taking advanced mandolin lessons from one of the world's great players, Dudu Maia.

Knowing that Maia was an outstanding band leader of choro music and a very cool professor of music theory at the state university in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, I asked Al how he was taking lessons from him.

The journey of Randy Romero is a tale so horrifying that it might not even qualify as cautionary. It is just plain horrifying.

ARCADIA, Calif. - He has got more moves than Bekins. His trainer calls him John Stockton. He has dropped one of the toughest hands on the backstretch and keeps heads spinning around the barn, trying to figure out what he'll do next. His name means "scarface" in Spanish, and if he runs well on Saturday in the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby, they had better get ready in Louisville. Caracortado could be coming to town.

NEW YORK - Lookin At Lucky and Eskendereya, who to date have separated themselves from the rest of the 3-year-old classic candidates, will have their final preps for the Triple Crown on Saturday. While both are odds-on morning-line favorites - Lookin At Lucky is 4-5 in a 10-horse Santa Anita Derby, Eskendereya 4-5 in a six-horse Wood - the expectations surrounding them are as different as the two colts are.

Just because he's an Indiana boy, don't expect Mike Pegram to go all nuts for Butler University when the hometown Cinderella team of the NCAA men's basketball tournament takes on Michigan State for a shot at the finals in Indianapolis on Saturday.

Anyway, Pegram was raised down in Baja Indiana, in the town of Princeton, where he led the Princeton Tigers to a sectional prep championship some 40 years ago.

"Meet the new boss: Same as the old boss."

The cynical refrain from The Who's 1971 classic "Won't Get Fooled Again" sums up the latest development in Maryland horse racing. When the bankrupt Magna Entertainment Corp. canceled an auction of Laurel and Pimlico and instead transferred the tracks to MI Developments, the deal meant that they moved from one company controlled by Frank Stronach to another controlled by Frank Stronach.

TUCSON, Ariz. - All racetracks are not historic. One that is, however, is Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H.

Since its first Thoroughbred race in 1906, Rockingham has highlighted the best runners, trotters, pacers, motorcyclists, human marathoners, and even pilots.

Seabiscuit, Dr. Fager, and Roman Brother ran there.

Greyhound trotted there and won his first race there as a 2-year-old in 1934.

Bill Shoemaker, Pat Day, and Chris McCarron rode there, and Hall of Famers Stanley Dancer, John Chapman, and Jim Doherty drove there.

NEW YORK - Change is coming to the Breeders' Cup, and necessarily so. The organization paid out more in purses for its 14 races last year than it took in via fees and handle commissions, and the contraction in the bloodstock market will further reduce revenue from foal and stallion nominations.