Breeders’ Cup week likely will begin with a wet track but hopefully that won’t be the case Saturday. However, last weekend’s torrential rains helped readers of this space to a potential small windfall.

The week began slowly when neither Dr. Malaprop nor Emotrin qualified as a play on Wednesday. We needed 8-5 and/or 4-1, respectively, and the horses closed at 6-5 and 5-2. No bets.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Artificial turf is coming to Keeneland Race Course.

The track's board of directors has instructed its management to continue the planning, design and engineering necessary to install Polytrack next summer, Keeneland president Nick Nicholson said Wednesday.

An Eclipse Award is the loftiest prize that an American-raced thoroughbred can win in any given year. Every division has a champion, and every champion helps define the thoroughbred’s evolving standard of greatness. Sometimes, an Eclipse is given to a very good horse for maintaining a high level of performance throughout the year, but more often, horses secure the award on the basis of key wins in the division’s pivotal races.

Since its inception, the Breeders’ Cup has largely fulfilled its promise of shaping, and in many cases dictating, each season’s slate of Eclipse winners. But the extent varies quite a bit among the divisions. This week, I’ll look at the eight Breeders’ Cup races in terms of their influence on the Eclipse Awards, and ponder this year’s outlook.

With less than a week until the 137th Belmont Stakes (gr. I), the mile and a half race looks like this: Preakness (gr. I) winner Afleet Alex, Kentucky Derby (gr. I) winner Giacomo, and the rest of them.

The rest of them consists of nine horses – a grade III winner at Lone Star Park, a listed winner at Tampa Bay Downs, a listed winner at Pimlico, a grade II-placed horse, an allowance winner, three maiden winners, and a maiden.

This may sound like an outrageous question in October, but could it be that we finally are going to see a Triple Crown winner next year? It just very well may be that the stars finally are aligned for it to happen.

The formula for a Triple Crown sweep in the past was simple: a horse had to be a champion 2-year-old or at least have a championship-caliber campaign. Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Citation and company all were household names before they ran in the Kentucky Derby (gr. I), unlike the horses of today who have won the first two legs of the Triple Crown. Neither Smarty Jones, Funny Cide, War Emblem or Charismatic accomplished much as a 2-year-old, and only became media stars after they won the Derby.