INGLEWOOD, Calif. - There is no reason not to believe the management of Hollywood Park when they say they will race again in 2008. Dates have been assigned for both the summer and fall meetings, and the track is scheduled to stay open during the off-season for training, as usual.

NEW YORK - If you didn't like the three new Friday Breeders' Cup races this year, you probably don't like the additional three that last week were added to next year's lineup. Personally, I'm looking forward to the Friday, Oct. 24, 2008 Santa Anita pick six consisting of the year-old BC Juvenile Turf, BC Filly Sprint, and BC Mile and the new BC Juvenile Fillies Turf, BC Turf Sprint, and BC Marathon. Sounds like a tough ticket but a lot of fun.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Upon entering the Santa Anita backstretch through the main stable gate, the first horse usually visible to the human eye is Nashoba's Key. The filly, soon to be a mare, lives in the first stall of the second barn on the right and spends most of her time at her webbing, ears twitching, scouting the landscape. Chances are, Nashoba's Key will spot you before you see her.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The comet named for Edmond Halley appears about every 75 years. Right now, it's out there somewhere in the far reaches of the solar system, rehearsing for its next sighting in 2061. Make a note.

The last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series of baseball was in 1908, a century ago. To their credit, they still show up to play the game, so anything could happen in 2008.

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, author and literary critic Louis Menand presented three possible justifications for the lonely act of keeping a diary.

The first "obliges you to believe that the stuff that happened to you is worth writing down because it happened to you." The second supposes that "people use diaries to record wishes and desires that they need to keep secret, and to list failures and disappointments that they cannot admit publicly have given them pain." And finally, diaries are "exercises in self-justification."

TUCSON, Ariz. - It will be 25 years, come February, that the Thoroughbred world was jolted by the kidnapping of Great Britain's "wonder horse," the 1981 English Derby winner and European Horse of the Year, Shergar.

Two masked and armed men broke into the home of James Fitzgerald, head groom at the Aga Khan's Ballymany stud in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, and - joined by four others - locked Fitzgerald's family in a downstairs room and forced Fitzgerald at gunpoint to release Shergar from his security barn.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The riders involved in the dead heat for the win Friday night in the $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot pretty much boiled down the 2007 North American jockey drama to its essentials. Calvin Borel got all the headlines, along with a free dinner at the White House, while no one matched Garrett Gomez for sucking up mountains of cash, probably enough by the end of the year to set the all-time mark.

ARCADIA, Calif. - First of all, let it be said that the turf course at Santa Anita Park looks marvelous. Just marvelous. The winter rye has emerged a vibrant emerald green, creating a heavenly lawn, more than ready for opening day, Dec. 26, when the first of 34 Santa Anita stakes events is scheduled for the grass.

NEW YORK - Of all the nutty ideas that have come up in connection with the future of the New York racing franchise - shutting down Aqueduct, designating a different operator for each of the state's tracks, turning the whole show over to Australian bookmakers - there's a serious new contender for the nuttiest of them all. Joe Bruno, the state senate majority leader who is holding up the process, now wants the tracks to turn over the sale of their simulcast signals to a new state agency staffed with political appointees.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The Native Diver Handicap at Hollywood Park on Saturday honors the memory of the near black gelding who won the Hollywood Gold Cup in 1965, 1966, and 1967. Native Diver is one of only two California-bred runners to be elected to the racing Hall of Fame - Swaps is the other - and his remains are buried beneath a marble memorial at the north end of the Hollywood Park walking ring.