For actual, in-depth handicapping, check out my fellow Turf Bloggers.

Gio Ponti takes in the early morning track activity.

Midday (center) and company return from galloping.

Turallure pauses at the top of the chute.

Goldikova heads to the track.

Goldikova kicks up her feet a little. Harmonious is at right.

Trainer Freddy Heads talks to the press after Goldikova comes off the track. He confirmed that the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Mile would be her final race. Asked what he hoped for on Saturday, he replied, “I want her to get a good run.”

Trainer D. Wayne Lukas, outside his barn with retired Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day, reminisces about Breeders’ Cup races past.

Breeders’ Cup Juvenile contender Creative Cause plays around during his bath.

Flat Out in his stall. He looks sweet, doesn’t he? As though he’d like you to come over and give him a pat. I would have, but was warned off — apparently he’s a biter. Even trainer Scooter Dickey gets nipped by the big horse.

“Go Scooter! Go Scooter!” Well wishes for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Havre de Grace gets a mint from owner Rick Porter.

Breeders’ Cup Juvenile favorite Union Rags, out to graze.

Game on Dude exits the track after galloping.

Outside Bob Baffert’s Churchill Downs barn.

And for a little fun! The Breeders’ Cup Classic contender cartoons.

It could be that Valerie Grash wrote on a similar topic only two days before, drawing on the wealth of data and insights she’s accumulated in writing about top class distaffers internationally over the past couple years.

While Blind Luck’s rival Havre de Grace will likely use the Beldame as a prep for the Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I) against males, Hollendorfer said there is no way his filly will run in that race.

“I’m not running her in the Classic,” he said. “I don’t believe in that. If others want to do it, God bless them. If we win the Ladies’ Classic, that’s plenty good for us.”

Farewell to Horse of the Year, too.

9/22/11 Addendum: About HOTY, Hollendorfer? Hovdey inquires. “If I did the right thing for my horse, I’d say that nothing would make a difference.”

9/29/11 Update: Interesting — the rivalry could resume in 2012. According to their connections, both fillies are expected to race as 5YOs.

But rather than ban it, I think we should mandate it.

Nearly all Thoroughbred race horses bleed. If you think we can breed our way out of this by separating the horses that bleed from those that don’t and breed a new racehorse that doesn’t bleed and doesn’t need Lasix, you would have to ban it in training as well which nobody wants to do.

And, how do you explain banning it to the animal rights activists that view our sport as being cruel and inhumane? …

Or, as trainer Rick Violette has said:

“Horses bleed. That is a fact. To force an animal to race without it is premeditated, borderline animal abuse.”

Arguing that a Lasix ban is abusive raises the question — if it’s inhumane to race horses without a drug, then isn’t it inhumane to race horses at all? If horses need a drug to mask the conditions in which they’re bred, trained, and raced, then shouldn’t the focus be on changing those conditions?

I don’t have answers; I merely ask.

“There’s so much talk of no Lasix, we decided not to run them on it until they need it,” McLaughlin said Monday at [Saratoga]. “No one told me I had to do this, I decided it.”

Good for him.

9/15/11 Addendum: Jeff Scott looks closer: “Lest anyone get the impression that McLaughlin’s four juveniles were the only 2-year-old starters not running on Lasix at the Spa, Equibase charts show there were 60 altogether, and they came from the barns of 25 different trainers.”

How about if they keep the Juvenile Sprint on Friday, and, in fact, move all the juvenile races to Friday and promote it as “Future Friday?”

With the solid showings on this year’s Derby trail of Juvenile Turf graduates Soldat, Master of Hounds, and Willcox Inn, and the early grass success of Animal Kingdom and Brilliant Speed, the Breeders’ Cup can promo Future Friday as a potential spawning ground of Triple Crown horses …

Sure. It also creates a hook for promoting next year’s Breeders’ Cup (will we see the Juvenile or Juvenile Turf Fillies winner return in the Classic or the Filly and Mare Turf?) and another for invoking the past (last year’s Juvenile Sprint winner returns). It would add a real sense of continuity from year to year.

There are several realignments that would work better, such as emphasizing juveniles or sprinters on Friday. My personal preference would be to run the seven newest races on Friday and the original eight on Saturday. Any of these schemes, or others, would work better than “Filly Friday Except for the Juvenile Sprint and Marathon and the Fillies Running Tomorrow Day.”

I’m partial to a juveniles Friday, which not only makes for a good story but better fits the implicit stakes hierarchy Saturday races sit atop.

With the summer meets weeks ago, I’ve started on this year’s Buzz Babies list. Like last year, I’m tracking the 2-year-olds who, by pedigree or performance, are grabbing fans’ attention (or seem likely to, as we head into the fall). New for this year is a dedicated Twitter feed, for updates and interesting tidbits.

It would undoubtedly require major changes in training patterns and, ultimately, in breeding patterns as well. Is it possible?

Bill Finley:

It’s not that complicated and doesn’t require a whole new series of summits or meeting. In fact, it’s a no-brainer. Do it.

Ban or die.