They are running the California Cup at Santa Anita again on Saturday, an entertaining subsidy of a West Coast breeding industry that was crashed by real estate and the recession and has settled into a fairly steady production of between 1,600 and 1,700 foals a year.

Anything for a party.

When the Cal Cup was introduced in 1991, California foals represented 13 percent of the national crop. Now, the number has dipped below 8 percent, which is still good enough to sit just behind No. 2 Florida. Kentucky’s crop is as large as the next five states combined.

Even those readers who have been the most loyal, thanklessly suffering followers of this column will have forgotten that the potential of a filly named Lost Bus was touted here long ago. So long ago, in fact, that your reporter thought it was some other filly named Lost Bus entered in the Santa Monica Stakes last weekend instead of the one who made such an impressive maiden splash during the summer of 2014.

The 17^thDaily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship begins Thursday at Treasure Island on the Las Vegas Strip. And I wish every horseplayer could have the experience of just being at the NHC if not actually participating in it, because it really is an event with electricity quite unlike anything else.

When The Jockey Club was looking for a keynote speaker for the OwnerView Conference, it found a perfect match in Jim Rome, who definitely likes to talk and now actually likes to talk about horses. Sometimes it seems like you can’t get him to stop talking about horses, at least in front of racing people.

The Santa Monica Stakes is one of those regional jewels that rarely makes a national impact but usually leaves an impression. If there are good older fillies and mares around, chances are they will show up for the Santa Monica’s seven furlongs. They always have.

A few final thoughts on the voting for the 2015 Eclipse Awards, which were presented last Saturday at Gulfstream Park:

Maria Borell was in the tunnel getting ready to saddle her first horse at Gulfstream Park last Sunday when the trainer in the next stall caught her eye and came smiling forward.

“We need to get a picture,” he said, handing his smartphone to an innocent bystander. “Two Breeders’ Cup winners. That’s us.”

There were a whole bunch of firsts celebrated at the 45th Eclipse Awards dinner last Saturday night at Gulfstream Park, some of them historic, others merely adding a little zip to a long night.

First, I was genuinely surprised that my tuxedo fit, and remind me to send a note of appreciation to the guy who invented those adjustment clips on the beltline of the pants. Yes, I will have the key lime pie.

The Astra Stakes will be run on Sunday at Santa Anita, followed on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, by the Megahertz Stakes. If they planned it this way, good for them. If they didn’t, good for them anyway.

Astra and Megahertz were the two mares who made the first half of the first decade of the new century so compelling, especially in Southern California, where they owned the grass courses at Santa Anita, Del Mar, and Hollywood Park.

There is something to be said for going out on top. No danger of the dreary second novel, the tepid second season, the uninspired second album. Sure, every artist would love to have a career with long legs, like Dylan or Bowie, forever leaving fans with the anticipation of “what’s next?” But there is something to be said for the way artists like James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, or Hank Williams were gone at the peak of their powers, the way great athletes like Jim Brown, Sandy Koufax, or Secretariat left the stage on top.