The 32nd Breeders’ Cup figures to be dominated by men who are well established at the upper echelon of the training profession. Hall of Famers Bob Baffert and Richard Mandella will saddle the leading contenders in the $5 million Classic. Earlier on Saturday’s card at Keeneland, two of the three winningest trainers of all time, Steve Asmussen and Jerry Hollendorfer, will be among the participants in the $1.5 million Sprint.

Gary Barber, head of the legendary MGM Studios, will be front and center at Keeneland on Friday and Saturday to watch three horses carry his fortunes in Breeders’ Cup events. But unless he wins, and there’s always that chance, the Breeders’ Cup will be only the second-most-exciting event of his week.

As long as we’re indulging in rampant fantasies – Cubs in the World Series; Trump in the White House – why not let the imagination run riot as Breeders’ Cup week at Keeneland begins? Why not wonder aloud what might have happened had the two finest mares of the young 21st century met at the top of the Breeders’ Cup mountain in the fullness of their 5-year-old form?

On Oct. 31, Beholder will try to do what only Zenyatta has done before. She will try to beat the boys in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, a stunt so daring it has been tried only six times in 30-plus years.

Time doesn’t just fly. It disappears, leaving only traces of the past as delicate, windswept footprints on the memory.

Fortunately, there are a few of the most significant moments in the history of Thoroughbred racing marked forever by solid pieces of remembrance. One of them will be celebrated on Tuesday of Breeders’ Cup week at the Kentucky Horse Park, just north of Lexington, when a bronze statue of Cigar and Jerry Bailey winning the 1995 Breeders’ Cup Classic will be unveiled.

Let’s take a snapshot of the Breeders’ Cup pre-entry class of 2015:

There are exactly 200 individual horses pre-entered for the 13 Cup races Oct. 30-31, an average of 15.38 per race. They have combined to make 2,341 career starts and have won 883 of them, a 37.7 percent victory rate.

The suspense was killing them. They’d never felt anything like this before. Then again, they’d never been in a spot like this before, with a racehorse all dressed up and ready to run in a Breeders’ Cup race but no guarantee that he would make it into an oversubscribed field.

I know these truths to be self-evident: I am not as good a handicapper as I was 20 years ago because I don’t have the time to spend on all the details, and I don’t concentrate as well as I once did. I am, however, a much better player than I was 20 years ago, or 10 years ago, or five years ago, or ever.

It is the age-old question: better at handicapping or betting? Both would be nice, but I don’t know many people who are equally proficient.

About this time every year, the same stories are being told. The leaves turn. The Dodgers lose. And Mark Casse is having the best year of his career.

Trainer Mark Casse, having the best year of his career, was reached Friday after morning work at Churchill Downs and asked what kind of magic spell he would be weaving to win the 1 1/2-mile Canadian International with the classy miler Kaigun. The purse is one million Canadian dollars.

If it’s okay, let’s deal with the sad part of the story up front.

The owner-trainer combination of Hronis Racing and John Sadler had their sights firmly set on this year’s Breeders’ Cup for their fiery French miler, Talco. The son of Pivotal earned his way into the BC Mile last June with a smart score in the Win-and-You’re-In Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita. After that, he finished a game second in the Del Mar Mile to underline his form, and there was only the City of Hope Mile on Sept. 27 at Santa Anita before it would be next stop: Keeneland.

If you encounter a 3-year-old filly late in the season with an 84-76-93 Beyer Speed Figure series, you can look at it two ways: She just ran the race of her life and can’t duplicate it, or that race is the tip-off that the best is yet to come. It turned out that it was the latter for Her Emmynency in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup last Saturday at Keeneland. She followed the 93, earned when she battled all the way in the Del Mar Oaks, with a 98 in winning the QE II under a perfect ride from Florent Geroux.