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Bruce Fenwick likes to tell people he traded a new mower for Bon Caddo. Jonathan Sheppard recalls a used manure spreader. Under pressure, they both admit to being guilty of spinning tales. But neither is that far off.

Sweet Shani stepped off the van in Pennsylvania and Jim Bergen shuddered.

Shug McGaughey has done it all. Choreographed the career of undefeated Personal Ensign. Won the Travers and Belmont with Easy Goer. Captured nine Breeders’ Cup races. Campaigned nine champions. Won more than 1,600 races for more than $100 million in purses.

He just appeared one day. I don’t remember how he got there, why he got there, who sent him or when he left. We were living in an old yellow house on the edge of Route 82 in Unionville, Pa.

The steeplechase season ended a week ago, OK a little more than a week ago but here we are at the end of a trip that began back in March at Aiken.

He’s up, he’s down. He’s awesome, he’s awful. He’s dominant, he’s dominated. Tax Ruling, America’s most up and down (no pun intended) steeplechaser solved a crazy Eclipse Award debate in the 2011  season’s final Grade I stakes Saturday.

The Colonial Cup is the decider. Since 1970, it’s the race that finalizes it all. This year, 12 horses, the last 12 standing, line up to secure a big check and clinch the Eclipse Award.

Kevin Boniface talked his son Fritz through the early stages of the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup’s maiden timber race. Fritz and Moonsox showed the way. Kevin might as well have been along for the ride.

Joe Aitcheson, Paddy Smithwick, Dooley Adams, Jerry Fishback, Tommy Walsh, Jeff Teter, Chip Miller, Blythe Miller, Matt McCarron.

When Good Night Shirt tried to run off during a hack last month, Jack Fisher didn’t think much of it. Ex-racehorses will do that sometimes and perhaps the Shirt had a flashback.