On Sunday in Paris, the 5-year-old mare Treve will run in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Europe’s most prestigious and difficult prize.

Four weeks later, on the last Saturday of the month, the 5-year-old mare Beholder will take on a similar challenge when she meets American Pharoah and company in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, North America’s richest Thoroughbred event.

Charlie Whittingham once said that if no one told you when you were born, you’d never know how old you were. He also trained Sunday Silence and Ack Ack, which is why we let him talk that way.

Our daughter was born Sept. 27, 2005, and she knows it. So, that cat’s out of the bag, which means Sunday marks one of those milestones celebrated by deca-digital creatures who never got over their fascination with having exactly 10 fingers and 10 toes. Also, it begins with the same letter as “top,” which, once discovered, inspired a robust industry of widely varied compilations.

Art Sherman will be staring at his closet on Saturday trying to remember what he wears to a Grade 1 affair. It’s been since he saddled California Chrome in the Dubai World Cup last March that he had a date for one of these, and while the styles have hardly changed, he’d still like to dress with the appropriate flair.

“I hear it’s going to be 90 degrees or more,” Sherman said Thursday from the balmy side of town at Los Alamitos. “Maybe I’ll go with a Hawaiian shirt.”

I have little doubt that Beholder would crush the field in the Awesome Again Stakes, but there is no point in trying since she can run for the same money in the Zenyatta Stakes at Santa Anita, a race she likely will win by a friendly five lengths with a Beyer Speed Figure of approximately 100. The great mare will need to come back to that 114 Beyer in the Oct. 31 Breeders’ Cup Classic, but not a moment before.

Earlier this week, officials at Gulfstream Park West (aka Calder) announced that there will be three additions to their betting menu when their meet starts Oct. 7. One is a welcome addition, one is a goofy but fascinating experiment, and one is simply a terrible idea.

What a difference a year makes. Apparently, not much.

One year ago, Beholder was running in the Zenyatta Stakes, Shared Belief was in the headlines, and Victor Espinoza was voted off the show.

Twelve months later, and here is Beholder again in the Zenyatta Stakes, while Shared Belief is making news, and Espinoza has been voted off another show.

I was seated at a table in the Selima Room of the Bowie Library pouring over chart books from the Maryland tracks when Big Ray walked in. My memory is that it was the summer of 1977.

We were there for the same reason. We had read Andrew Beyer’s classic book “Picking Winners.” If you wanted to make accurate speed figures, Beyer had instructed his readers, you needed to go to the library, ask for old chart books, and start the arduous process of constructing parallel time charts.

From Bobby Vinton to Jim Morrison to the Steel Monkeys and the Foo Fighters, the end of summer has been celebrated in song as basically a bummer.

Hope your summer was fun. But now it’s gone, or it will be when the sun comes up Wednesday, the day of the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, when Earth’s axis stands at attention in relation to the planet’s orbit of the sun. I had to look that up.

Here we go again. Another study on the effects of Lasix will be undertaken. No, make that two more studies.
This time, the studies, to be conducted separately by Dr. Warwick Bayly at Washington State University and Dr. Heather Knych at the University of California-Davis, will follow up on preliminary work suggesting that the benefits of furosemide (Lasix) administered 24 hours prior to exercise may be equal to, and in some cases better than, furosemide administered at four hours pre-exercise. In other words, the studies will try to determine if Lasix is needed on race day.

Let this be stipulated up front: Ralph Beckett has had a character-building season, whether his character needed any building or not.

On Aug. 16, the British trainer stood helplessly by as his filly, Secret Gesture, was disqualified from victory in the $700,000 Beverly D. Stakes at Arlington Park. Then, last Saturday, it was déjà vu all over again as the Beckett stable filly Simple Verse was disqualified after beating a field of colts in the $610,000 St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster.