NEW YORK - If the Rachel Alexandra-Zenyatta matchup in a $5 million Apple Blossom Stakes at Oaklawn April 9 really happens, it will be an epic showdown and a great day for the sport and its fans. What it won't be is a profitable afternoon for Oaklawn or any kind of a sound economic model for promoting the sport.

TUCSON, Ariz. - There have been some curious developments in racing in the last week or so.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - It is disconcerting to watch someone have a severe panic attack. It is frightening when the one panicking is a half-ton Thoroughbred whose usual controlled demeanor turns suddenly into wild agitation.

NEW YORK - Next Saturday is the two-year anniversary of the passage of legislation extending the New York Racing Association's franchise to operate Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Saratoga for another 25 years. After a bitter five-year battle for the franchise and nearly a decade of state and federal investigations regarding NYRA, the franchise renewal seemed to indicate that racing in New York had finally turned a corner.

NEW YORK - With Nad Al Sheba gone with the wind, replaced by the glittery new Meydan, has Godolphin been forced into an untenable situation vis-a-vis the burning issue in racing today, stuck as we are between the rock that is dirt and the hard place that is synthetics?

ARCADIA, Calif. - The news that Oaklawn Park will put up $5 million to see Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta square off in the Apple Blossom on April 3 has been received with the usual schizophrenia by the racing world and its camp followers.

At one extreme, there is grateful genuflection in the direction of Hot Springs and track owner Charles Cella. If there was another track exec with such an idea on the boil, he was keeping it a precious secret.

Santa Anita's Strub Stakes and Gulfstream's Donn Handicap honor the founding families of those racetracks, and both have histories to burn as significant events for older runners. At one time or another, one or the other was won by Round Table, Forego, Affirmed, Spectacular Bid, Alysheba, Cigar, Skip Away, and Silver Charm, and Gun Bow and Medaglia d'Oro stand as the only horses to win both, over successive seasons.

A male child born in the United States in 1913 - for the sake of argument let's say it was in a ranch house near the western Nebraska town of Minatare and his name was John Nerud - was not expected to live more than 50 years.

HIALEAH, Fla. - People who remember the glory days of Hialeah Park surely feel a sense of trepidation as they walk into the racetrack this winter. Out of business since 2001, Hialeah reopened in November as a Quarter Horse track. Instead of being a showcase for the greatest Thoroughbreds in the United States, Hialeah offers dashes for cheap horses that are known for their sprinting ability but that generate little interest and minuscule betting totals. A visitor might feel the way he would if he was about to meet an old flame after decades have passed.

Kirk Ziadie's success as a Thoroughbred trainer in Florida generated more suspicions than accolades. He won races at an astonishing rate, and horses improved phenomenally under his care, but skeptics of his achievements could point to the fact that he had 13 medication violations on his record from 2004 through 2009. By last summer, Calder Race Course had had enough of its four-time leading trainer. The Miami track took the most drastic punitive action available to it, telling Ziadie on Aug. 20 that he was barred from its grounds and that he had 72 hours to clear out.