NEW YORK - The power of pick six carryovers to drive racetrack handle was on stunning display last Wednesday at Aqueduct and Santa Anita.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Everybody and his fat, lazy brother-in-law has been stepping up to take a shot at the new format announced this week for the Breeders' Cup World Championships. So why should we (actually, there's just me and my dachshund) be any different?

Adding a second day to the Breeders' Cup festivities was always a good idea. The trick was finding a television partner to go along for the ride, and racing found it in ESPN.

ARCADIA, Calif. - One of the leading owners of the current Santa Anita meet could try to win his third stakes since New Year's Eve with a French colt named Hello Sunday in the $200,000 San Fernando on Saturday.

NEW YORK - There's a lot to like about the three additional Breeders' Cup races announced earlier this week, but even more to scratch your head over in puzzlement.

ARCADIA, Calif. - It was on Jan. 12, 1997, that Larry Weber made the short drive from his winter home in Scottsdale to Turf Paradise racetrack with the intention of claiming a horse. An owner and breeder with runners on both coasts, Weber was not, however, licensed in Arizona. After meeting with the general manager, the racing secretary, a trainer, and the stewards, Weber was given the okay to drop in a $7,500 claim in that day's third race for an 8-year-old gelding with lifetime earnings of barely $6,000.

TUCSON, Ariz. - Before Andy Beyer, there was Tom Ainslie.

Actually there was no Tom Ainslie. His real name was Richard Carter, but he was the Andy Beyer of his day, and as Beyer was ducking literature classes at Harvard to bet on horses, he learned the trade from Carter's masterpiece of 1966, "The Compleat Horseplayer." It was the largest selling handicapping book of all time, and Carter quickly followed it with another betting blockbuster, "Ainslie's Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing."

ARCADIA, Calif. - David Flores, who is only 38, was having trouble with his short-term memory. Try as he might, he couldn't recall the last time he lost a stakes race.

Scientists can now cite at least three definitive signs that global warming is the real deal: holes in the ozone layer, increased melting of the polar ice caps, and the appearance of a Belmont Stakes winner on the Aqueduct inner track.

NEW YORK - If there's a familiar sound to New York's OTB players getting shut out of playing opening day at Gulfstream Park over a simulcasting rate dispute, that's because we've heard this song before.

ARCADIA, Calif. - By now it has been pretty well established that if you want to stick a fork in the promising career of a 2-year-old Thoroughbred, make him a champion.

Once upon a time, the idea was absurd. Chances were, a champion 2-year-old was good enough to become a major player at age 3 and even 4, and he did not need to be Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Affirmed, or Spectacular Bid. He also could be Foolish Pleasure, Deputy Minister, Chief's Crown, Forty Niner, Lord Avie, or Rockhill Native, all 2-year-old champs who continued to hold their heads high as they matured.