INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It takes a full set of blinkers to focus on the current Hollywood Park meeting strictly in terms of the sport being offered.

True, there will be good racing if the weather holds, especially during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, when such traditional events as the Matriarch, the Hollywood Derby, and the Citation Handicap promise to attract the best available runners.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The news that Garrett Gomez is about to replace Jerry Bailey in the history books by winning a couple of stakes races at the current Hollywood Park meet is hardly a shocker. Records like that were made to be manufactured.

When totals are accumulated from an ever-increasing pool - more stakes are run each year - the number described as the "all-time" leading total must be viewed as skewed by inflation. Cell phones used to be rare. Now everyone has them. Who has the most? Who cares?

ARCADIA, Calif. - A jockey did not need to be named Baze to get a slice of the generous California Cup prize money last Saturday at Santa Anita. It only seemed that way.

By the end of the day, after more than $1.3 million had been passed around to a bunch of happy owners, members of the Baze riding clan had won 5 of the 10 Cal Cup events. Richard Migliore, a hardcore New Yorker riding his first Cal Cup, managed to snag one of the Cal Cup starter stakes on longshot Lil Mitch for Bill Spawr, and he wasn't about to complain.

ARCADIA, Calif. - After nearly a year's absence from competition, Patrick Valenzuela was named to ride four horses on Saturday and four more on Sunday at Zia Park, in southeastern New Mexico, marking yet another comeback in his turbulent career.

Valenzuela suffered three fractured ribs when kicked by his mount in a grisly paddock accident at Hollywood Park on Nov. 26, 2006. After that, he said he underwent knee surgery and has spent most of 2007 recovering and rehabilitating the knee. Reached in New Mexico on Friday, Valenzuela said that he was ready to roll.

NEW YORK - Every few weeks you'll see one of those wacky news stories where some nice old granny on a fixed income gets a bill from the phone company for something like $4,325,000. The utility quickly admits that some addled clerk or software gremlin inadvertently moved the decimal point five places to the right on what should have been a $43.25 bill, the granny gets an apology and a fruit basket, and everyone has a good laugh and moves on.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Most of the attention will be lavished upon Lava Man on Saturday when he makes his California Cup debut in the $250,000 Cal Cup Classic at 1 1/8 miles, and rightfully so.

NEW YORK - While everyone was focusing on those fancy races by the Jersey Shore last week, Aqueduct opened up for the six-month stand that is the dark side of the moon for New York racing: 26 weeks at the same joint, with nearly five months between the first and second of only three Grade 1 races, not to mention the inevitable February afternoon when statebred maiden claimers will run a mile in 1:45 and there will still be 30 lengths stringing out a six-horse field.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Mike Pegram said that if Midnight Lute managed to win the Breeders' Cup Sprint, he promised to share the story behind the story of the naming of the horse. Mission accomplished, big time, so here goes:

Midnight Lute is a cool handle, generously loaned by Lute Olson, who for the last 25 years has been the head coach of the University of Arizona men's basketball team - the same men's team that has made the NCAA playoffs for 23 straight years and the Final Four four times during Olson's tenure. The U of A men were NCAA champions in 1997.

TUCSON, Ariz. - We have not reached the Promised Land just yet.

We have seen a truly exceptional horse in Curlin, and almost certainly have seen the last of him on the racetrack. The economics of breeding and the risks of racing are not bed partners.

We have seen an undefeated, soon-to-be-named juvenile champion in War Pass, trained by a champion human being in Nick Zito, and the two will provide constant winter hot stove chatter and media fodder for next spring's Kentucky Derby.

ARCADIA, Calif. - It was an awful sight, a young Thoroughbred in full bloom, floundering on three legs in the middle of the stretch after giving heart and soul just to try and win a pari-mutuel horse race. The injuries were so severe that nothing could be done to save him, so the order was given to administer a lethal dose of barbituates, mercifully ending his life.