There is a big red circle around Saturday, Sept. 27, on the calendar hanging over this desk, and not just because it happens to be the third birthday of the pint-sized princess who runs this household. I certainly don't need any help remembering the date, which comes out a very moist "Theptember twenny-theventh" when you ask her.

TUCSON, Ariz. - With chaos on Wall Street and around the world, and with the nonstop blare and clatter of talking heads on television, whipping of horses gets a low-priority call.

That is, unless you're in the business of horse racing - particularly if you're a horse - or one of the thinning crowd that used to go to tracks to bet on them but now prefers the comfort of other quarters to do it, including in front of your home computer.

NEW YORK - Almost a year to the day that the results of the race for the New York racing franchise were posted, the "Official" light was finally lit Friday. The New York Racing Association has signed over Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga to the state of New York, in exchange for the right to operate those tracks for the next 25 years and $105 million that will allow it to emerge from bankruptcy.

NEW YORK - Almost everything about Big Brown's career has been slightly surreal, from winning his debut on the grass by 11 1/4 lengths, to winning the Kentucky Derby in just his fourth career start, to being eased in the Belmont Stakes with a Triple Crown on the line. Even so, his eighth and next-to-last career start Saturday could be the strangest chapter yet: Big Brown, primarily owned by IEAH Stables, is running in - no kidding -the $500,000 "Monmouth Stakes Presented by IEAH Stables."

As the legend goes, the great Castillian general known as El Cid was mortally wounded in defense of Valencia at the end of the 11th century. Fearing their troops would be demoralized by the news, El Cid's resolute wife strapped the fallen warrior upright aboard his white Andalusian stallion and sent them racing into battle. The enemy saw this and fled, terrified at the sight of the apparently indestructible El Cid.

At least, that's the way Charlton Heston played it in the movie.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Rafael Bejarano, you've just won your third straight Southern California riding title in your first full season on the circuit. What are you going to do do now?

"I'm going to Machu Picchu."

NEW YORK - More than a dozen Saratogas ago, when Gerry McKeon was the president of the New York Racing Association, he became slightly exasperated by the umpteenth question at a meet-ending press conference about the factors responsible for year-over-year attendance and handle variations.

"Don't forget," he said in a deadpan, "it rained in Peru last Thursday."

The 38 days of racing that began at Belmont Park on Friday used to be called the Fall Championship meeting, two months with series of ancient fixtures in every division that decided many if not most of the sport's championships.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Fans of the Big Deal had a full plate Wednesday afternoon when the racing titans of Stonerside Farm and Darley Stud commingled to produce a thrilling version of the Del Mar Futurity that mixed equal portions of shrewd economics and entertaining coincidence.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Mike Smith had just nailed another precision strike on what must be the most efficient Del Mar season a jockey has enjoyed for years.