INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Garrett Gomez can be forgiven if he thinks of his life in terms of yearly increments. After all, he was born on Jan.o1, 1972.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Gary Stute will be attempting to apply his 38 years of intense exposure to the racetrack on Saturday when he saddles Roman Commander for the $250,000 Hollywood Futurity. If he wins, clear the area.

Stute, known for his effervescence, is the son of Mel Stute and nephew of Warren Stute, both of them California training legends. Gary was 12 when he went to work for his dad, just a tad shy of the age for a bona fide backstretch license.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Joe Steiner was introduced to Dr. David Seftel in the usual manner. That is to say, Steiner was flat on his back, on the clubhouse turn of the Bay Meadows turf course, dazed and gasping for breath.

"I was there to ride the stake, and I picked one up in the last race," Steiner said not long ago. "The horse fell after the wire. Next thing I know, I'm lying on the ground, the wind knocked out of me, and there he is, standing over me. I asked him how he got there. He said, 'I ran.' "

TUCSON, Ariz. - An uncomfortable cold wind, highly unusual for Tucson, blew for a week before last week's Racing Symposium here. Then, as if by intent or design, it stopped, giving way so the hot air of banter could be heard in the land, or at least in the spacious halls and meeting rooms of the Westin La Paloma, the Symposium's new home.

The usual buzz words of imminent danger were recited, like incantations, in full chorus. They included, not surprisingly, slots, medication, wagering integrity, marketing, new technology, and television commercials.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - For decades, jockeys have been flying blind when it comes to the consequences of their own health habits, and the racing game has gone along for the ride. Commencing Wednesday, the days of widespread denial hopefully will be numbered.

NEW YORK - The 2007 stakes schedule released last week by the New York Racing Association was most notable for reminding everyone of a development that got little attention when it was first announced in the middle of Breeders' Cup Week: Next summer and fall, 24 races at six tracks will be nationally televised on ESPN and the race winners will receive automatic starting berths in corresponding Breeders' Cup races at Monmouth on Oct. 27.

WASHINGTON - When voters cast their ballots for the 2006 Eclipse Awards, they will confront one decision that might come down to a choice between sentiment and logic. Who should be the champion 3-year-old - Barbaro or Bernardini?

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Be careful what you wish for, goes the warning. You just might get it.

It has been more than three years since Richard Mandella began preaching the gospel of synthetic surfaces to anyone in California who would listen. His personal research into synthetics took him to training yards in Europe and eventually to the Keeneland training track, where an experimental Polytrack surface was installed in the autumn of 2004. For Mandella, it was an epiphany, and in his view the only way modern horse racing could survive.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Before devoting the weekend to a careful reading of the report submitted to the President this week by the Iraq Study Group, concerned citizens of the Thoroughbred world might want to take a look at another recently released set of recommendations designed to extricate horse racing from a quagmire of its own.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Those who have problems with early Thoroughbred retirements and the lack of continuity in the ranks of racing's better animals should have no quarrel with Meteor Storm. At the age of 7 and soon to be 8, he's coming back for more.

Back to California, that is, where his fortunes first soared in the spring of 2004. That's when he was in the kind of form it takes to win the San Luis Rey and San Juan Capistrano at Santa Anita Park, then repeat the process in the Manhattan Handicap at Belmont Park.