Horse Racing

ELMONT, N.Y. — The Triple Crown of horse racing is a sports heirloom. It is your great-grandmother's wedding ring, passed down the line, still glamorous in its nicks and smudges. The J. Paul Reddam/Doug O'Neill colt I'll Have Another will be running a mile and a half Saturday in the Belmont Stakes for the right to hoist a 34-year-old virgin. That is a silver trophy, designed in loose likeness of its 11 predecessors, but unencumbered by previous ownership. Each of the 11 previous Triple Crown winners got separate trophies for their owners.

Like the sport itself, Friday morning at the John Shirreffs stable at Hollywood Park is a carnival ride of emotions. Barn 55 South is the home of Zenyatta, current superstar and the key adhesive holding much of horse racing together. To get there, you walk a quarter mile along Zenyatta Way. Fitting. The marvelous mare won her 19th race without a defeat last Saturday, and 25,837 people showed up to worship and yell their lungs out. Most days at Hollywood Park, even during a meeting carrying the prestige banner of the Oak Tree Racing Assn.

Had any owner protested that last Saturday's Citation Handicap was run about 25 yards short because of a misplaced starting gate, Hollywood Park's stewards did some instant research to make sure they would be able to handle an appeal properly. What Hubert Jones found in the Jockey Club's Rules of Racing would probably discourage an owner from protesting. "First of all, when a race is run at the wrong distance, the protest must be made before the 'official' sign goes up on the race," Jones said.

In many ways, this year's Kentucky Derby, just 11 days away, will be a horse of a different color. The actual two minutes of racing should not be a departure from the past. There will be a large field. The start will be a cavalry charge. The best horse may or may not win, depending on jockey pilot success in finding a crack in the usual Great Wall of Churchill that the horses create as they turn for home. Other similarities will remain. The mint juleps will taste like medicine and be overpriced.

Normally, Mace Siegel's focus would be only on Rail Trip. The 84-year-old from Beverly Hills, one of the godfathers of Southern California horse racing, owns the 5-year-old with a chance to become only the third-ever multiple winner of Saturday's prestigious Hollywood Gold Cup. The other two, who each won three times, were Native Diver and Lava Man. Being in that company is the chance of a lifetime. But Siegel's mind is all over the place, and with reason. It is a Friday morning at Izzy's Deli in Santa Monica.

The bizarre and complicated world of thoroughbred blood testing and sanctions reached the mainstream Thursday, when the California Horse Racing Board penalized the trainer who has won the first two legs of the sport's Triple Crown. The seven-person, governor-appointed board, ruling on a case that has been argued and litigated since the summer of 2010, suspended Doug O'Neill for 45 days and fined him $15,000. The penalty actually carried an additional 135 days of suspension, but that will be voided if there are no further findings involving O'Neill in the next 18 months.

Dick Feinberg said Thursday that he is resigning as vice president and assistant general manager at Los Alamitos Race Course. Feinberg, 50, has spent 20 years in the horse racing industry, a majority of it in harness racing. He was Los Alamitos' general manager for nearly eight years. He has been credited with building the largest satellite wagering network in the world, while overseeing significant growth in the track's total average handle to $1.2 million nightly.

Nashville voters narrowly rejected pari-mutuel betting on horse races Thursday, and Democratic Rep. Bill Boner outpolled eight other candidates in a mayoral election but faces a runoff against businessman Phil Bredesen. With 100% of the vote counted, the proposal to allow betting on horse racing was defeated by a vote of 62,840 to 62,145. Pari-mutuel gambling was authorized on a local option basis by the Tennessee General Assembly this year but strongly opposed by the state's clergy. The Rev.

Other than jockey Kent Desormeaux, the nominations for this year's Racing Hall of Fame election have an overwhelming East Coast flavor. Desormeaux, who rides in Southern California, is on the ballot with Eddie Maple, Randy Romero and Jose Santos. Maple and Romero are retired. The trainer nominees, all New York-based active conditioners, are Shug McGaughey, Nick Zito and John Veitch. The male horses up for election are Lure, Manila and Skip Away.