NEW YORK - Plagues and pestilence aside, two usually reliable signs of the Apocalypse are a) common ground between the New York Racing Association and the state's offtrack betting corporations, and b) New York state government rolling back an ill-conceived tax increase.
The final days must be upon us: The first sign has appeared, and there may be a chance for the second.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Holding a warm memory for Best Pal is kind of like voting for motherhood and apple pie. Who's going to argue? A gelding bred in California, Best Pal was brilliant at 2, less than two lengths away from winning the Kentucky Derby at 3, one of the best older runners in the country at 4 and 5, and good enough to win a major West Coast handicap at the age of 7.
DEL MAR, Calif. - The last time the South American star Candy Ride was seen by the racing public, he was heading for the Del Mar postrace test barn on the afternoon of Aug. 24, 2003, after winning the Pacific Classic. At that point he was unbeaten in six lifetime starts, including all three of his Stateside appearances, and he had just defeated Whitney Handicap winner Medaglia d'Oro by 3 1/4 lengths. Witnesses were impressed.
"I finished third on Fleetstreet Dancer," Tyler Baze recalled. "Those other two were a long ways in front of me."
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - August is all about Del Mar and Saratoga when it comes to top-class American racing, except for the one Saturday when the suburbs of Chicago become the center of the racing world for a couple of hours. There are only three Grade 1 races left in Illinois, and they'll all be run in the space of 92 minutes Saturday, when Arlington presents the Secretariat, the Beverly D., and the Arlington Million.
On May 11 of this year, at the end of an otherwise unremarkable Sunday program, the employees of Bay Meadows Racetrack gathered in the winner's circle for cocktails and photographs.
"That was kind of our goodbye," said Richard Lewis, who has been the Bay Meadows director of racing since 2004. "We knew we'd be back for this meet at the fair. But it was pretty clear there would be no second chance."
TUCSON, Ariz. - Good news to calm our troubled seas, but a monster swimming up ahead.
* An emboldened Breeders' Cup said it is taking action to ban steroids in Cup events;
* A small group of racing leaders quietly met at Keeneland and reportedly discussed potential reforms to head off threatened federal legislation;
* The Ontario Racing Commission suspended Trevor Henry, the leading driver in Ontario Sire Stakes competition, for six months for cutting a horse with his whip in an act determined to be against the best interests of racing;
DEL MAR, Calif. - If we're lucky, Jerry Moss, owner of the undefeated Zenyatta, will announce later in this column where his 4-year-old filly sensation will be racing next.
The highly anticipated Moss announcement is coming just a few days after Zenyatta ran her record to a perfect 7 wins in 7 starts by taking the $300,000 Clement L. Hirsch Handicap at Del Mar.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The Parimutuel Conformity and Equality Act of 2008, introduced on the floor of the House of Representatives earlier this week, is the most economically important piece of racing legislation before Congress - and not just for the horseplayers whose cash flow woes would be ameliorated.
DEL MAR, Calif. - Big Brown will be dominating the racing debate again this weekend, reducing the sport to a one-horse show. Once his dust has cleared after Sunday's Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park, though, it will be time to turn what's left of the attention span to Saratoga Springs, where three Thoroughbreds will be honored on Monday with induction at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.
Three horses, by the way, who did more than Big Brown will ever be allowed to do.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Back through the mists of time in the days before Banana Republic, The Gap, and Starbucks came to Saratoga, the annual race meeting was four weeks long and the quartet of Saturdays was known simply as Whitney Day, Alabama Day, Travers Day, and Hopeful Day. Nowadays, it's a sextet that starts with Breeders' Cup Challenge Day and ends with Woodward Day. There's still an Alabama and a Travers Day as the fourth and fifth Saturdays, but I've got a friendly sawbuck that says you can't name the other two.