Joe Clancy

Monday’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony hit a sweet chord all around. The participants were funny, sentimental and gracious, and never failed to forget what brought them all together on a summer morning in Saratoga Springs – the horses.

Last night, millions of dollars bandied around the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion. A million here, a million there. Buyers gulped. Consignors sang. Fans clapped. Tonight brings more of the same at the annual selected sale of yearlings.

Peachtree Stable’s founder John Fort glanced at his program prior to Sunday’s Fourstardave Handicap and couldn’t help but think of the one statement that offered more questions than answers.

She came. She conquered.

Bob Baffert stabled Indian Blessing in Saratoga with one race on her agenda. The Grade I Test Stakes, going 7 furlongs for $250,000. The daughter of Indian Charlie went off 1-4 and looked 1-10 with a flawless effort in the 83rd running of the Test. Under John Velazquez, Indian Blessing toyed with five rivals to improve her career record to 7-for-9 and nearly $2 million in earnings. Owned and bred by Hal and Patti Earnhardt, Indian Blessing improved her 2008 mark to 4-for-6 with two seconds. She earned an Eclipse Award last year as top juvenile filly and has returned to her stellar best after two defeats earlier this year made her look vulnerable.

How often do you make phone calls you want to make? How many times do you dial your cell phone and think, ‘I’m going to make a man’s life with this phone call.’ Have you ever?

“I’m hoping. I’m hoping.”

That’s how Allen Jerkens described the chances of Any Limit in the Honorable Miss Handicap. The Chief braced on a post near the end of the paddock stalls and thought long and hard about the Grade II stakes.

Todd Pletcher and John Velazquez teamed up to win the Majestic Light Stakes Friday. The victory kept Velazquez at the top of the jockey standings and helped Pletcher tie Steve Asmussen and Gary Contessa at the top of the trainer standings.

Every once in a while you get a horse that defies logic. Trainer Tom Amoss ventures east with a Rubik’s Cube of a chestnut, Graeme Six, part of a salty six-pack served up for the $150,000 Honorable Miss Handicap.

Charlton Baker leaned down and slid a safety pin into a front bandage on a bay gelding set to train Thursday morning. Baker doesn’t look like a trainer. In a U.S. Army, Fort Knox T-shirt and doing the work of a groom, Finger Lakes’ favorite son has 10 horses stabled at Saratoga. Baker’s barn sits on a diagonal, tucked into the trees,  in the neighborhood of Dallas Stewart, Billy Badgett and Mike Trombetta. You wouldn’t know whose barn it is by looking at it. Red webbings, blue saddle towels, not a stall plaque or a name tag in sight.

The three jockeys replied with one word – “homework” – when asked what California should have done before it went about mandating synthetic racetracks.