Flatter: There is a slice of madness available at Keeneland

Lexington, Ky.

It is nice to walk into a racetrack without feeling the need for a hard hat or a reinforced insurance policy.

Keeneland brings with it that feeling that before a piece of trash hits the ground, there is someone there to intercept it as if Daniel Jones or Jimmy Garoppolo discarded it. Wasn’t that the old legend about the late Dick Duchossois snapping up worthless betting slips when he ran Arlington? That was a rueful sigh you just heard.

On the quiet eve Thursday of what will be a crackling opening day, Keeneland is like Pinehaven, that fictitious slice of sultry suburbia in the movie “Body Heat.” As Ned told Matty, it looks “well tended.” And me, the gambler in waiting? “I need tending.” Cue the saxophone in the band shell.

The feel of Keeneland goes beyond the not-a-hair-out-of-place trappings that are immaculate right down to the nine-letter topiaries on either side of the toteboard. Imagine what it would cost to fix a misspelling on those.

Which brings us at last to the object of the game this week. Of the 15 Breeders’ Cup automatic win-and-you’re-in, lose-and-we’ll-let-you-know qualifiers left in the U.S., eight are at Keeneland on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

If the Breeders’ Cup is our sport’s version the NCAA Tournament, then the 10 days from last Friday to the end of this weekend are like championship weeks.

Seemingly under construction as long as it took to build the Second Avenue subway in Manhattan, Churchill Downs last weekend was like a conference tournament that was shoved to one side of an indoor football stadium. You can play in the corner, but don’t mess up our nice carpet.

Santa Anita would be the equivalent of the Pac-2 Tournament being played at the same place the Final Four was going to be a few weeks later. It is nice and all, but being there now has all the warmth of going to a preseason football game the week before the sold-out opener in the same joint.

Belmont at Aqueduct is the stunt double for the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden, especially since they are from roughly the same era. Think about that. The current grandstand at the Big A has been around nine years longer than the oldest arena in the NBA.

Having Gulfstream Park host the freshly demoted, Grade 3 Princess Rooney Stakes this weekend for a spot in the Filly & Mare Sprint feels a bit like moving the Maui Invitational from the fall to the spring. It seemed more hale and hearty as a stakes respite during the dog days of the South Florida’s schvitz-bath summer.

Then there is Keeneland, where there will be more people on the grounds on any given race day this week than at a Tampa Bay Rays playoff game. And there will be no grousing that these race cards were scheduled at the last minute in mid-afternoon on a work day when traffic was tough and a bridge was out and the stadium was an indoor dump in a less-than-desirable neighborhood that is hard to get to just to see something that was not the seventh game of the World Series on a day when it was nicer to go to the beach. Seriously, Pimlico ought to ship the annual alibi breakfast to St. Petersburg, Fla.

The storylines coming out of Keeneland this week have the feel of something strictly old school. That would be good, old school.

Bango, trained by popular Kentucky trainer Greg Foley, will try to prove he is a legitimate player in the Phoenix (G2). Brightwork and V V’s Dream look to match the hype Tamara got in California when they go in the Alcibiades (G1). In Italian will be odds-on and looking for revenge against Diana (G1) winner Whitebeam in the First Lady (G1). Locked could make his case to be a way-too-early favorite for the Kentucky Derby by winning the Breeders’ Futurity (G1). Charlie Appleby tries to check another U.S. trophy on a flight back to England, this time with Master Of The Seas in the Turf Mile (G1). Nest tries to get even for her loss to Personal Ensign (G1) winner Idiomatic when they renew their rivalry in the Spinster (G1).

That paragraph was mouth-wateringly thick enough to match the corned-beef sandwiches they sell in the paddock carvery.

Any of those narratives would be worthy of all the attention in any given week. That they come together on three days’ worth of races at Keeneland make this week feel like a trip to the ACC Tournament, if only we were not in SEC country.

What the spring and fall calendars at this track do is provide both a prelude and an encore for the meets at Saratoga and Del Mar. So often it is said those two months on either side of the country are the true celebrations of this sport, and that they remind us racing still can be vital. What Keeneland does is teach us it does have to be just in the summer.

There is merit to the argument that racing would be a better sport if it were contracted. Keep Saratoga and Del Mar and Keeneland and their like, but rid us of those meets where there are not enough horses to race, not enough bettors to prevent shallow pools and not enough attention to warrant any kind of mainstream care.

The problem with that argument is the same as the thought that college basketball is only worthwhile come championship weeks and tournament time. Without the thousands of games that come through the winter at schools that may envy a gathering the size of a Rays baseball crowd, there would be no context to the big games that define the madness of March.

The same goes for racing. Without the maiden and claiming and allowance races that are the other-thans that fill the condition books and overnights, the stakes would be nothing more than all-comers contests.

So enjoy the feast of races we are about to experience this week and then again next month in the Breeders’ Cup. If we can get Bill Raftery to growl “horse to horse” the way he growls “man to man,” it would make for a wonderful keynote.

Oh, yes. It is worth remembering that after all the big stakes races are run this week, Keeneland does have an eight-race card Wednesday featuring a $110,000 turf allowance. It will not be at the high level of this weekend, but the bourbon bread pudding will taste just as good. And a 10-1 shot pays just as much in a claiming race as it does in the Turf Mile.