ARCADIA, Calif. - There is a feeling abroad in the land that any horse who hasn't spent time vanning back and forth across the Delaware River need not bother showing up for the spring classics. The recent exploits of Afleet Alex, Smarty Jones, and Funny Cide make the Mid-Atlantic look like the cradle of Triple Crown civilization, and who's to argue? Once is a fluke and twice can be called a geographic coincidence. But let it happen three times and you've got yourself a disturbing popular trend.

NEW YORK - One down, four to go.

ARCADIA, Calif. - It is probably not much of a public service to target a piece of writing for only 186 readers, which just happens to be the number of voters who received their ballots for the 2006 Hall of Fame selection process this week.

Those 186, however, hold in their hands the everlasting legacies of 12 Hall of Fame candidates - horses, trainers, and jockeys - whose names rattle around the history of racing like diamonds in a mason jar.

TUCSON, Ariz. - The best of intentions sometimes are warped by the worst of ideas.

The Association of Racing Commissioners International, heady with recent unification, a strong new leader, and support from the richest group in racing, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, has decided to use its latent muscles. Meek for years, it has decided to make itself a presence, not with grace but by becoming the neighborhood bully.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Brother Derek worked five furlongs last Sunday morning at Santa Anita Park in a tick or two more than a minute flat. So goes the Cliffs Notes version, and, truth be told, it was no big deal, since Brother Derek is a healthy, talented young colt on a three-stakes win streak with proven measures of speed, class, and stamina who will be firmly favored win this Saturday's Santa Anita Derby without much fuss or bother. As trainer Dan Hendricks points out:

"At this point, he should be able to work five-eighths pretty much however you want him to."

NEW YORK - Horseplayers took a combined 1.0 steps forward but potentially 1.1 steps backward over the last two weeks.

The forward motion was the overdue approval of a customer-rewards program that will rebate a minimum of 1.0 percent of handle to some account-holders who wager $2,000 or more a month on New York races. The retreats were a 1.0 percent increase in takeout on win, place, and show bets in New York, and a proposed 0.1 percent increase in takeout on all bets in Kentucky to fund insurance payments for jockeys.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - When Giacomo crossed the wire first at last year's Kentucky Derby, two things became inevitable: Most bettors would be tearing up their tickets in bewilderment, and it would be a long time before we saw a Kentucky Derby with less than a full field.

TOKYO - Less than a decade ago, Japanese horses were almost a laughingstock on the international racing scene. Although they earned gigantic purse money at home, they were routinely trounced when they faced their counterparts from the United States and Europe.

But when the world's richest day of racing was held Saturday in Dubai, drawing horses from all parts of the globe, the tally of winners by other nations: Japan 2, United States 1, England 1. It was yet another manifestation of the dramatic improvement of horses from the Far East.

ARCADIA, Calif. - This reporter is going to disappear from these pages for a week. You in the back - thanks for caring. But things are piling up, and at the very least it's time to fertilize the back forty, flush the rain gutters, and de-tick the hound.

ARCADIA, Calif. - These are strange and passionate times for Burt Bacharach, the self-described "nice guy who's written love songs all his life," now turned virulent antiwar activist.

Bacharach has been crisscrossing the country, performing a series of concerts highlighted by selections from his latest album, "At This Time," a dramatic departure that brews anger, sadness, and fear for his children's future with quiet strains of hope. Bacharach fans who show up to savor "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "Alfie" certainly get their money's worth, and then some.