ARCADIA, Calif. - With a purse of a million bucks on the line this Saturday, there is plenty of big-game experience to go around. But unless one of the former winners - Alex Solis, David Flores, Victor Espinoza or Martin Pedroza - can get the job done, one of the other 10 jockeys in the mix will be collecting his first Santa Anita Handicap trophy.

ARCADIA, Calif. - If a track is going to name a major race for someone, that name had better stand the test of time. The last thing you want is a chorus of "Who was that?" when a running comes around.

And yet, as generations ensue, memories become highly selective, and even then they are rarely exercised with discipline. Most racing fans probably would guess, for instance, that the Derby was named for a hat and the Belmont was named for the track. The Withers? Easy, that's part of a horse.

ARCADIA, Calif. - It is both too early and unfair to pass judgment on the quality of the Santa Anita Handicap field before us, even though it's easy to complain.

After all, Saturday's 71st running of the million-dollar, 1 1/4-mile event will feature the winners of the Pacific Classic, the Strub, the San Fernando, the San Pasqual, the Sunshine Millions Classic, the Pacific Classic, the San Marcos, the Goodwood, the Native Diver, the Del Mar Derby, the Bay Meadows Derby, and the Robert Lewis, which makes for an encouraging and entertaining mix.

NEW YORK - The state motto of New York is "Excelsior," Latin for ever higher or upward. Perhaps it should be changed to "Aedificare Crisus," which would translate as "to create a crisis," the current modus operandi of state government, especially when it comes to racing.

By the time a Thoroughbred enters the ring at the livestock market in Chino, located only about 25 miles east of Santa Anita Park, that horse has become anonymous. It doesn't matter where it was bred, how many times it raced, or if it won or lost. Sharp buyers might know enough to check a tattoo, if they cared. But for the most part it's a matter of meat on the hoof.

TUCSON, Ariz. - As usual, the fifth annual joint meeting of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations and Harness Tracks of America, held last week in Florida, featured two general sessions of speakers interspersed with the business meetings of the two associations.

Typical of the quality was the opening pair of speakers, a fascinating daily double matching Maury Wolff, trained as an economist and one of horse racing's keenest minds, and youthful and articulate Nick Eaves, who made clear why David Willmot chose him to be president of Woodbine Entertainment Group.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Gary Tanaka, owner of such racing champions as Rakti, Gourmet Girl, and Golden Apples, can be forgiven if he has lost all faith in the American legal system, at least the part about speedy and public trials (see U.S. Constitution, Amendment Six).

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - I am a fairly resourceful gambler. I have traveled through blizzards to make a wager. I have sought betting outlets in places as remote as the Australian outback. But when I prepared to play Gulfstream Park this winter, I was daunted.

NEW YORK - Horseplayers like complimentary baseball caps and umbrellas as much as the next freeloading sports fan, but they showed again this past week that what they like even better is free money.

The Presidents Day holiday was a coast-to-coast orgy of pick-six carryovers, prompting six-digit pools at Aqueduct and Bay Meadows and a seven-digit whopper at Santa Anita. The three sequences turned out to be radically different, illustrating the broad range of ways the bet can turn out, but in all three cases the carryovers attracted serious action.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Friday the 22nd marks the 276th birthday of George Washington, father of our country and breeder of racehorses, although not necessarily in that order. Sure, Washington crossed the Delaware in the dead of winter and later made mincemeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown. But as far as horse racing history is concerned, his best runner Magnolia could not handle a roan colt owned by fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson in a 1790 match race at the Alexandria Race Course, founded by Washington himself. So much for being the house horse.