TUCSON, Ariz. - This city is ringed by mountains on all four sides, none as noisy this week as the foothills of the Catalinas.

The chiefs of American racing are gathered high on the Catalina slopes for their annual get-together in one big fancy hotel - Loews Ventana Canyon - and the chattering is loud and incessant in its halls, meeting rooms, and watering holes.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - There had been many important victories over the years, enough to gain him a place in racing's Hall of Fame in Saratoga. But this one was special and Tom Kelly couldn't have been more pleased. Evening Attire, at 10-1, upset Saturday's $100,000 Queens County Handicap at Aqueduct, and Kelly was the breeder of both the winner, a 3-year-old gelding by Black Tie Affair, and the winning trainer, his son, Pat Kelly.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The annual symposium sponsored by the University of Arizona's Racetrack Industry Program was scheduled to begin Tuesday morning with a panel of veterinarians holding forth on the theme of "Separating Fact from Fiction." On Wednesday, the two-part morning session will address "The Reality of Perception."

Then, on Thursday night, the farewell banquet will be entertained by cowboy poet Baxter Black, who calls his weekly column in the Amarillo Globe-News "On the Edge of Common Sense."

There seems to be a pattern.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - Like a final salute for a job well done, statistics for the French racing season of 2001 honor the late Daniel Wildenstein as that country's leading owner, the ninth time he earned that distinction.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Let's at least agree on this. Horse racing is saddled with a strange vocabulary that does not always translate well into the modern vernacular.

Races are measured in furlongs, for instance, which comes from the ancient Anglo-Saxon "furh" - a furrow - and "lang" - meaning long, a furrow in those days being the eighth part of a mile, or 40 rods.

JAMAICA, N.Y. - This is one of those goes-around, comes-around stories. Almost 50 years ago, a young horseman named Allen Jerkens claimed Admiral Vee for $7,500 on behalf of Ed Seinfeld. Eventually, Jerkens saddled that son of War Admiral, known more for his speed than his stamina, to win the Gallant Fox Handicap at Jamaica over a mile and five furlongs. The Jerkens legend was under way.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Poor Charlie Whittingham. For nearly two solid years, from January 1979 through November 1981, he banged his bald head against the solid brick wall named John Henry and never made a dent.

WASHINGTON - More than two years ago, Joe De Francis unveiled his "Racing Plan for the 21st Century." At a much-publicized news conference, the president of Laurel and Pimlico described an ambitious program of renovations for the Maryland tracks. He displayed drawings of the coming improvements, which included terraces overlooking a beautiful new paddock at Pimlico. De Francis also had a vision of how to pay for this project: His customers should do it.

NEW YORK - Obscured by the smashing victory in the $350,000 Cigar Mile and some of the other results of last weekend's Holidayfest, the strong performance of Iron Deputy in Aqueduct's $82,500 Huntington Stakes for 2-year-olds was greeted with indifference. But the Silver Deputy colt, accelerating smoothly through the stretch, won by four authoritative lengths and may have a future.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Leigh Ann Howard hopped out of her well-worn golf cart and waved her arm eastward, over an expanse of gently undulating ground laced with wide trails freshly covered with cedar bark.