INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Had he not been stricken by a recurrence of the cancer that he had fought for the better part of a year - a condition that ended his life on May 15 - it would have been Dr. Steve Buttgenbach supervising the grim events of last Monday on the Hollywood Park turf course, when the 5-year-old mare Three Degrees ruptured the suspensory ligaments and fractured both sesamoids while suffering a complete dislocation of her left front ankle joint at the end of the Gamely Handicap.

P

NEW YORK - The announcement Thursday that Street Sense is passing the Belmont Stakes next Saturday will be widely viewed as a sign of much of what is wrong with racing today: Shorter campaigns and careers, fewer marquee showdowns, the decline of the Triple Crown as a cohesive series for more than one horse, and the undue influence of the commercial stallion market on racing decisions.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It is a fact of life in the manic-depressive world of Thoroughbred ownership that huge investments - both emotional and financial - can disappear in the snap of a fetlock.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Let there be no misunderstanding. The jockey, trainer, and two horses elected this week to the racing Hall of Fame were not the only qualified candidates on the ballots. They were elected to the Hall of Fame because the other jockeys, trainers, and horses on the ballot got fewer votes. It's as simple as that.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - There have been more than 1.2 million Americans killed in combat, counting the latest 10 slaughtered in Iraq on Monday - the very day, as it happens, Americans paused to remember those killed in battles ranging from Bunker Hill to Belleau Wood to Fallujah. As holidays go, Memorial Day is far from festive.

TUCSON, Ariz. - The media loves to cover racing, as long as there is a shred of scandal or the faintest sniff of drugs in the air. It loves to cover it, that is, as long as facts don't clutter up the story.

A prime example was a May 14 mishmash on HBO's "Real Sports, with Bryant Gumbel." The gist of the segment, called "Faster Horses," was the use of performance-enhancing substances. The contention was that since many major horse trainers, such as Steve Asmussen, Doug O'Neill, and Todd Pletcher, have had positive tests, the whole sport is tainted.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Believe it or not, with all the time and treasure spent on synthetic main track surfaces in California lately, there is still a small corner of the racing universe dedicated to the proposition that there are both horseplayers and animals who enjoy the idea of competition on good old-fashioned grass.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Consorting with animals half his age, The Tin Man returns to high-stakes competition on Monday at Hollywood Park in the $300,000 Shoemaker Mile.

This should be good news to anyone who thinks of age as a barrier, beyond the ability to legally drink or drive. The Tin Man has now made more comebacks than Sinatra. In a world of shifting alliances and disposable culture, he offers horse racing a familiar face. A gift that keeps on giving.

NEW YORK - There have been hundreds of meetings of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board since it was formed in 1973, but the monthly session held last Thursday was the first that any citizen could watch from home in his pajamas. Gov. Eliot Spitzer has ordered that most state regulatory agencies broadcast their meetings on the Internet beginning July 1, and the board actually got up and running early, with a webcast of Thursday's 63-minute meeting.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - If nothing else, Calvin Borel can be consoled by the fact that his ride in the Preakness Stakes aboard Street Sense already has become part of the study program at the North American Racing Academy.

Chris McCarron, Hall of Fame jockey and hands-on director of the racing academy program, plans to use the 2007 Preakness, as he does almost every major event, to enlighten his class of aspiring young riders assembling daily at the Kentucky Horse Park, near Lexington.