Joe Clancy

Never tell a bald man he’s going bald. He already knows.

“If you win, act like you’ve been there before.”

Tom Ludt made a big decision. Vinery’s general manager disbanded his horses from trainer Steve Asmussen earlier this summer. Five-time winner Kodiak Kowboy transferred to trainer Larry Jones at Fair Hill Training Center and made his debut for Jones in Monday’s Amsterdam.

Kent Desormeaux did everything right in Saturday’s Diana Handicap – settled Dynaforce in a perfect spot, blew past Bayou’s Lassie to get first run on the closers and hit the eighth-pole with an insurmountable lead. Desormeaux hit Dynaforce one last time left-handed and then switched to his right. In mid-switch, Forever Together and Julien Leparoux blew past him.

Nick Zito wrapped Carlos Correa in a headlock as the two men – co-workers – bulled their way to the winner’s circle after the Whitney Handicap. It was their world – two men telling each other, ‘I told you so.’

No, Saturday’s Grade I Diana Stakes wasn’t a steeplechase, but it was two steeplechase greats, Augustin Stable’s George Strawbridge Jr. and trainer Jonathan Sheppard, who won the race with Forever Together.

With her head held high, Ginger Punch paraded around the walking ring before the Go For Wand.

Kiaran McLaughlin stood in front of the big-screen television in the Saratoga clubhouse, peering up as his charge Abraaj threatened to drift out of sight as the field for the Grade II Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap hit the three-eighths pole.

Saratoga is about making it. Chad Brown and John Fahey III felt like they had made it when they won their first races at Saratoga.

Condition books don’t come with warning stickers. Perhaps they don’t need them. After all, the trainers who saw Ginger Punch’s name on the nomination list and still entered horses in today’s Grade I Go For Wand knew what they were getting into.