DEL MAR, Calif. - It has been a long time since Laffit Pincay Jr. thought of himself as a potential big league player, and it is a long way from the neighborhood diamond where as a teenager he played second base for the team from El Barrio del San Felipe, a coastal suburb of Panama City.

"They told me I was too small to be a ballplayer," Pincay said. "Okay, so I decided to become a jockey instead."

OCEANPORT, N.J. - Now that the silly season of the Triple Crown has mercifully passed, it is time to find out which of the nation's best 3-year-olds are in for the long haul, and which ones were nothing but bright flashes in a very hot pan.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The next time the New York racing franchise is put up for bid, in the year 2027 or so, whatever blue-ribbon panel is formed to decide what's best for the game should simply look at a time-capsule record of the first week and a half of Saratoga 2007. This has been New York racing as it was meant to be, and should have been before now.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - The Claiming Crown is one of racing's most entertaining and worthwhile summer events, but one that has yet to transcend its local success at Canterbury Park to become a nationally compelling event. Will moving it from July to August and from Canterbury to Ellis Park this year make the difference?

DEL MAR, Calif. - Okay, that's it. Pack up the history books and tuck those memories away for good. Flashy names like Viking Spirit, Kissin' George, Crazy Kid, and Kona Gold, dripping with sprinter's speed, have been tossed on the dinosaur bone pile, then buried in what used to be called racetrack dirt. Save those tales for bonfires at the beach.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - When the opening-day cards at Del Mar on July 18 and Saratoga on July 25 featured plenty of difficult longshot winners but there was a single winner of the pick six both days, eyebrows shot skyward from San Diego to Saratoga Springs. Horseplayers, paranoid by nature and experience, wondered whether the old Drexel gang that tried to fix the 2002 Breeders' Cup was back and hacking again.

DEL MAR, Calif. - He almost made it. It was a little before 1 a.m. early last Monday morning, and Noe Garcia was getting close to the Via de la Valle exit off southbound Interstate 5 that would take him safely to his summer season living quarters on the backstretch of Del Mar. He would have time for a quick nap, then begin his chores well before dawn, tending to the five Thoroughbreds under his care in the racing stable of trainer Doug O'Neill.

NEW YORK - "Win And You're In" is the punchy name for the new Breeders' Cup Challenge program of 24 races whose winners will automatically earn a Breeders' Cup starting berth this year. It's a generally harmless if somewhat redundant idea, since the winners of major preps don't usually have trouble getting into the Cup races, but in its haste to implement the program this year with stakes and television schedules already in place, the Breeders' Cup is compromising the integrity of the selection process.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Get out the dartboard and the blindfold for Saturday's $150,000 San Clemente Stakes at Del Mar. To describe it as wide open is gross understatement. Cocktails and a moonlight drive with Lindsay Lohan would be more predictable.

DEL MAR, Calif. - Contrary to any reasonable expectations, Greg's Gold will appear in all his gray-coated glory on Sunday at Del Mar in defense of his title in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Handicap.

Okay, so technically it's not a literal defense, since Greg's Gold actually won the 2005 running of the six-furlong Crosby in a thriller over Battle Won and Taste of Paradise. But give him a break. Greg's Gold didn't even have a chance to answer the bell last summer for the 2006 version of the race.