Ron Flatter

As much as he wants to think Napoleon Solo still has a fighting chance to win the 3-year-old male championship, trainer Chad Summers knows that racing history and Golden Tempo are stacked against him.

It was just last week when My Gun’s Loaded went from stakes debutante to Grade 1 winner in a little more than two minutes when she won the Alabama (G1).

Just in time for Friday's noon opening bell, Breeders'Cup Classic contender

Gold Phoenix wins the Del Mar Handicap. That sentence has become so reliable that it may as well be programmed into a function key.

It is a given that Chad Brown will be voted into racing’s Hall of Fame when he is eligible in six years. Even with five Eclipse Awards in his possession, there still is one big thing he hopes to have checked off his to-do list by 2032.

It is not even close. No one has more wins in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity than Bob Baffert. Combine the totals of any 10 other trainers in history, and they do not equal his 19.

Closing weekend at Saratoga could be another steppingstone for Kinnon LaRose. He could get his first Grade 1 win, perhaps from the filly who gave him his first graded-stakes breakthrough just last month. Or maybe from a colt who broke his maiden early in the meet.

That old line about luck being the residue of good design might as well fall on deaf ears with Ethical Diamond’s trainer Willie Mullins.

Taken on their own merit, the Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga and the Del Mar Futurity in California are worthy Grade 1, seven-furlong tests that will measure some of the country’s top 2-year-olds.

Bruce Lunsford, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who rose to prominence in Kentucky politics and in U.S. horse racing, died Saturday, a close friend confirmed Sunday. Lunsford was 78.