Eddie Truman is loaded with 2-year-olds. Loaded. Not Bob Baffert loaded, mind you. Or loaded like Todd Pletcher. But Truman is blessed with a couple of genuine young runners, and if a few things fall their way, they could make some real noise before the Del Mar meet comes to an end.

When Arrogate declined to perform in the San Diego Handicap two weeks ago, I suspect the connections of more than just a few second-tier handicap horses suddenly entertained hopes of having a much bigger fall than they might have originally been expecting.

Gary Stevens was asked to characterize the impact Leonard Lavin had on his career. The Hall of Famer smiled and shook his head, wondering where to begin.

“Put it this way,” Stevens said. “When I first came down here in 1980 as an apprentice, I won some races for him, and he offered me a contract. I was 17. I’m 54 now and rode another winner for him just the other day. So, yeah, you might say he’s been a big part of my life.”

His van was always fueled and the motor running, next stop who knows where, the consummate Road Warrior before Mad Max borrowed the name. Never mind that he was rated no better than the fifth-best 3-year-old of his generation. Smarten, a horse for all zip codes, had his people crying all the way to the bank.

On Friday morning in Saratoga Springs, for the first time in nearly 60 years, three riders of contemporary vintage will be welcomed at the same ceremony into the Hall of Fame of the National Museum of Racing.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – As this is written the evening before Sunday’s Haskell at Monmouth, you might be hearing some of the things I’m hearing, like: “Graveyard of favorites,” or, “3-year-old picture is mud,” or, “Bill Mott’s birthday.”

Okay, let’s tackle them. Saratoga is not the graveyard of favorites. It just isn’t. But it has upsets like any other track, like Good Samaritan’s upset of Saturday’s Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes.

There is every chance that the racing game could have survived without the influence of Amory Lawrence Haskell or Clement Lang Hirsch. Good thing, though, the game didn’t have to try.

Born a generation apart, their spheres of immediate influence never really intersected, except as towering patrons of the sport who applied their position and wealth toward fundamental shifts in the racing universe.

Hide the children and bolt the doors. The wild things are being let loose both East and West on Saturday, when Saratoga presents the Alfred G. Vanderbilt and Del Mar offers the Bing Crosby, both at three-quarters of a mile.

In the wake of Gun Runner’s seven-length victory in the Stephen Foster Handicap last month at Churchill Downs, among the comments that bubbled forth was an enthusiastic, “Wow! That makes Arrogate look even better.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Obviously, it will take more time than an immediate post race analysis such as this to determine what exactly happened to Arrogate in his shocking no show in Saturday’s San Diego Handicap at Del Mar.

That said, it was clear very, very early in the San Diego that something was up with Arrogate.