If you are trying to build credibility for a new race, it never hurts when your winner goes on to win a Breeders’ Cup race. Bobby’s Kitten won the Penn Mile last spring like a horse who would go on to win major races. He proved it at Santa Anita. His run from nowhere in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint was obviously not impossible. It just seemed that way before it actually happened.

So, when they run the Penn Mile for the third time in 2015, it will come with Grade 3 status, the first graded race at Penn National since the 1989 Pennsylvania Governor’s Cup.

It seems as if everyone with a digital platform and a key to the quarter pole has weighed in by now on the subject of 2014 Horse of the Year. Clearly, there is nothing left to say.

That said, there is always room to burst a few lingering bubbles, starting with this:

There are many worthy candidates for Horse of the Year.

What else is a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee like trainer Jim Cassidy going to do in the Deep South except bring a big, old carpet bag and try to fill it full of money?

Cassidy started off slowly, stepping up to the slots at the Delta Downs Casino in the southwestern Louisiana town of Vinton, not far from the Texas state line. He won 30 bucks just like that, took a break to count his blessings, then returned to take another 50.

On the day after this year’s Breeders’ Cup, 48 of the 240 or so Eclipse Award voters cast ballots in the NTRA’s final weekly Horse of the Year poll, and it looked like a two-horse race. Main Sequence got 20 votes to Bayern’s 13, a combined 68 percent of the vote, with California Chrome and Wise Dan dead-heating for a distant third with five votes each.

On Saturday, NHCQualify.com will host a mega-qualifier – up to 10 seats to the National Handicapping Championship in Las Vegas will be awarded. The buy-in is higher than usual at $400, but players get a favorable 26-1 player-to-seat ratio.

With less than two months until the NHC, Saturday’s contest might mark the best chance left for players to qualify for the country’s premier handicapping contest, where players will attempt to win their share of at least $2 million.

Here are the races for the contest (all times Eastern):

Among the items tucked into the corners of the well-worn wallet carried by Dr. Jack Robbins was a yellowed past performance clipped from the Feb. 4, 1961, West Coast edition of Daily Racing Form . The horse was Sister Antoine, a 4-year-old daughter of Royal Serenade. The race was the Santa Margarita Handicap.

“Take a look at the dates,” Doc would say, and you would comply, noting that the filly was owned by Ethel Jacobs and trained by her husband, Hirsch Jacobs, who was inducted into the racing Hall of Fame in 1958.

Now that all the candidates have finalized their Horse of the Year credentials, it is time to review. I pretty much decided after the Breeders’ Cup what I wanted to do, but I wanted to give it some time to gain perspective.

I am going to list six possibilities, but I think it may come down to two and should come down to just one.

I think a Horse of the Year has to run more than four times regardless of how effective that horse is in those races. Wise Dan and Main Sequence were a combined 8 for 8 with seven Grade 1 wins between the two horses.

Sunday’s ninth race at Del Mar marks the bitter end of the synthetic-track era in Southern California. Will the last horse out the door please sweep up?

What began in 2006 as a grand experiment designed to reverse an unacceptable trend in racing and training fatalities will fold quietly in a 6 1/2-furlong maiden race for 2-year-olds worth a purse of $56,000. A full field will run.

It’s easy to get carried away with this boy vs. girl deal at Del Mar on Saturday, when California Chrome meets Lexie Lou in the $300,000 Hollywood Derby. After all, she’s been there and done that, having stomped colts in the Queen’s Plate last July. And he’s a colt with a capital “C” who unfurled his young stallionhood in a big way last May while saddling in close proximity to Ria Antonia on the Pimlico grass.

“Now I’m worried,” deadpanned Art Sherman. “What if he draws next to her in the gate? He’s liable to just follow her around out there and never want to go by.”

Thanks. A useful word, although it depends on how it’s delivered. For instance ...

With gratitude: “Of course I’ll help you move and drive you to the airport.”

Thanks.

With surprise: “Here’s that hundred bucks I owe you.”

Thanks.

With a touch of sarcasm: “I believe you lie five, not four.”

Thanks.

With conflicted emotions: “You’ll be glad to hear not everybody got sick from that mushroom fondue we ate last night.”

Um, thanks, I think.