LAS VEGAS - The ninth annual edition of the National Handicapping Championship being conducted here this weekend is not only the richest one yet, with a $1 million purse and a $500,000 payoff to the winner, but also the strangest, on several counts.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Dan Ward reached into a crowded corner of his tack room office at Santa Anita and pulled out a pasteboard sign with black lettering on white that read, without frills, "Jerry Hollendorfer 5,000 wins."

Why this particular sign was not on display in Northern California was cause for brief confusion. After all, Hollendorfer practically owns the past 20 years of training history at Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields, and the overwhelming number of those 5,000 winners were nailed down within shouting distance of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

NEW YORK - The first race replay shown at the Eclipse Awards on Monday night was last year's Belmont Stakes, which fans had overwhelmingly and understandably voted as the "2007 Moment of the Year" - the first victory by a filly in the Belmont in 102 years, and a photo finish between the top two finishers in the Horse of the Year voting.

ARCADIA, Calif. - As famous couples go, the names George and Martha rank high on any list. There were the Washingtons, of course, and more recently those lovable, animated hippos - best friends, they say, and never to be confused with the embittered George and Martha of the snarling Edward Albee play. Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Everyone.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Steve Asmussen will tell you what he thinks, but usually only when he's asked. And since no one shoved a microphone in his face during the public ceremonies announcing the Eclipse Awards here Monday evening, he was content to be part of the giddy bunch celebrating the announcement that 3-year-old champion Curlin will be known forevermore as 2007 Horse of the Year.

TUCSON, Ariz. - Not too many racing ideas emanate from Wall Street, but one caught the eye of Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York last week, and he slipped it into his budget message.

The sharp minds of New York's financial district, a high-IQ area that in recent years has produced some very sophisticated and savvy big bettors in the sport, noted what track operators know painfully but have done little about.

They pointed out that the New York state lottery is underperforming, largely because it has not widened its base of patronage.

ARCADIA, Calif. - There will be a host of new faces in the room Monday night in Beverly Hills, when the Eclipse Awards are passed out at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and that's a good thing. The more the merrier, even though only a handful can win. It's just an honor to be nominated, and all that jazz.

NEW YORK - It's tough to hit a pick six with only a $12 investment, but that's probably all it would take to lock up the pick 17 being contested at BwB (Beverly Wilshire Ballroom) Monday night, when the 17 official champions of Thoroughbred racing in 2007 will be announced.

You could probably get home with a single $2 cold punch, but my conservative hypothetical ticket would have a mere 15 singles, one double, and one push of the "all" button.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Neil French can be forgiven if he did not join his fellow horsemen last Tuesday morning after training hours, when a large posse combed Santa Anita's main racing surface in search of rocks dislodged from the asphalt base. They found enough to make the effort worthwhile, but French, after all, was still at home recovering from a heart attack and two procedures.

French was back on the scene Wednesday, though, pleasantly surprising his friends and inspiring trainer John Sadler to proclaim, "Now there is a real racetracker."

Russ Harris is working on his memoirs, only he refuses to use that word even though, after half a century as a racing writer and public handicapper, he's got a right to call them anything he wants.