Humberto Ascanio, 62-year-old assistant to the late Bobby Frankel for 35 years, doesn't know what he will be doing this time next year, but he's not about to sit around and fret about it.

"I'm just going to go to work until the end of this year and I think Juddmonte (Farms) is going to make a decision and Dottie (Ingordo-Shirreffs) is going to make a decision about his horses," Ascanio said Thursday, only three days after Frankel died at 68 from complications of lymphoma. "Whatever happens, whatever decision they make, it's going to happen."

Ascanio, who said several trainees that Frankel owned will be sold, currently is overseeing about 32 horses at Hollywood Park. He's preparing three horses to run in Hollywood Park's Turf Festival over Thanksgiving weekend, including 2008 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint winner Ventura in the $300,000 Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes on Nov. 28.

"I hope she wins for him (Frankel)," said Ascanio, who also will saddle Proudinsky and Fluke in the $300,000 Grade 1 Citation Handicap on Nov. 27.

Frankel won a record 17 Turf Festival races -- 11 more than his closest pursuer -- and saddled the winner of the Matriarch a record eight times.

It didn't take long for Ascanio, who went to work as a groom for Frankel in 1973, to climb his way up the ladder in the Hall of Famer's barn. He was promoted to assistant about a year later, but not before some serious thought.

"In a way, I was hesitant," Ascanio said. "I knew he was a real tough guy, real strict. He wanted everything to be right, organized, everything. He said to think about it, that he needed someone to run his (stable). I talked it over with my wife and she said, 'Do what you want, whatever makes you happy.' "

Ascanio said he believes he earned Frankel's respect through the dedication to his work.

"I was a good worker, I worked hard with his horses and I think he saw this," Ascanio said.
"He always liked his horses to look good, because if they don't look good they don't run (well)."

There was no better teacher in the profession than Frankel, and it seems Juddmonte could do a lot worse than to keep its horses with Ascanio and see what the native of Guadalajara, Mexico can do with them.

It says here Ascanio learned his lessons well and is ready for the challenge of heading his own stable.

In my book, if ever a horseman was cut out to be commissioner of horse racing, it's D. Wayne Lukas, who still holds most of the records out there but has not gotten the stock in recent years that he did during his heyday.

I had the good fortune of interviewing Lukas on the phone the week leading up to the Breeders' Cup, and I've already written much of what he told me in print editions and on here.

I'm not sure Lukas would ever want a job that would most likely be more of a headache than anything else, but you can tell when talking to him that he holds a great love for the tradition of Kentucky racing. He lives in Louisville now and it sounds like world peace would be easier to achieve than getting him to move back to California. During my 30-minute interview, though, he did admit to missing the Southland at least a little bit.

"I miss the camaraderie," he said. "I made so many friends out there among the trainers and so forth and some of my best friends are still training there. I don't miss the traffic, like anybody else, (but) I enjoyed those racing days out there. The synthetics kind of threw me for a loop and I saw that coming and made the right move.

"I'm in the mecca of racing back here, living in Louisville. The people back here have a great appreciation for the horse. The horse is revered and trainers have a little bit different status in the community, too. When I lived in California, California is so callous in so many ways that I never really got to know the neighbors. I lived there 13 years in Arcadia and never knew the neighbors on either side of the house. Out here, I live on a golf course here in Lake Forest, a golf community, and I know everybody in the community because you're a horseman. It's a whole different status deal."

Lukas would also like to see the Breeders' Cup become a permanent staple of Churchill Downs because of the crowds it attracts each time it is run there. Breeders' Cup XXVII will be run at Churchill next year and Lukas believes the folks will come in droves again.

"Statistically, it's a no-brainer," he said. "I mean, in economic times when we're trying to showcase the sport and make the most of it, Churchill is the only one that gets them 80,000 people (per day)."

Lukas seems to think the 82,578 that Santa Anita drew over the two days last year and the 96,496 who turned out this year would pale in comparison to the numbers that would show up for the event each year at Churchill.

"See, that would equate to about 160 (thousand) here, and that can't be ignored I don't think. But I don't begrudge California having it every few years, and New York either. New York is making great strides, and New York has a racing program that is going to take off in the next three or four years. They've got the ship righted there. Belmont can handle big crowds if they can get the people interested."

Agree or disagree with Lukas, but one thing is for certain -- the man knows the game and what ails it. I don't agree with everything he says, but racing could do a lot worse than D. Wayne Lukas when it comes to somebody heading the sport and steering it back in the right direction.

Robert Frankel, one of the three best trainers of my lifetime, died early this morning at his home in Pacific Palisades from complications of lymphoma. Frankel, a five-time Eclipse Award winner as top trainer in the nation, was 68.

A Brooklyn native whose tough exterior belied his sensitive side, Frankel had been absent from the race track for more than six months while battling a disease that he'd beaten in the late 1990s but that had resurfaced in the past year.

About the only race Frankel never won was the Kentucky Derby, but he won six Breeders' Cup races, including the Classic in 2004 with Horse of the Year Ghostzapper. He also won the Pacific Classic at Del Mar a record six times and is one of only six trainers to saddle the winner of the Santa Anita Handicap in consecutive years.

Inducted into horse racing's Hall of Fame in 1995, Frankel is second all-time on the money list behind D. Wayne Lukas. His horses won 3,654 races from 17,657 starters for earnings of $227,947,775.

But Frankel was about way more than just numbers. Though he could bite your head off one minute, he also had an extremely soft side that few outside the sport ever saw. He was deeply saddened in 2007 when his dog, Happy, died after a lengthy illness.

The Breeders' Cup honors its top jockey each year with the Bill Shoemaker Award, and here's a call for officials to begin recognizing the top trainer each year with the Robert Frankel Award.

Southern California race fans have been blessed to have the opportunity to listen to two of the greatest race callers in the history of the sport during the past 30-plus years -- Harry Henson and Trevor Denman.

The late Henson, who called the races at Hollywood Park and Del Mar, was my all-time favorite. His distinctive call, "And there they go!" and his dramatic calls of stretch duels -- "It's Cougar and Quicken Tree, Cougar and Quicken Tree, Quicken Tree and Cougar .... and Quicken Tree is the winner by a head" -- were as good as they get.

Denman, who currently is track announcer for Santa Anita, Del Mar and Fairplex Park, has his own distinctive flair, and his call of Zenyatta's stirring victory in last weekend's Breeders' Cup Classic was outstanding. I truly think it was his greatest hour.

Current Hollywood Park announcer Vic Stauffer says he wouldn't be in the business today if not for Henson.

"When I was a young man, I found myself listing to the announcers way more than my friends, and I came up at a time that was a real salad day in Southern California for announcers because Dave Johnson was calling Santa Anita and Harry was calling Hollywood Park and Del Mar, and I knew that I wanted to try to be like them," Stauffer said. "Harry was my inspiration, and the first time I heard Tom Durkin, I knew that's who I wanted to try to emulate.

"People have said to me, 'You sound a little like Tom Durkin,' and I say, 'Well, there's a reason for that. Because I'm not good enough to sound exactly like Tom Durkin. Because if I could, I would.' In my opinion, he's the greatest race caller that ever lived, and it's not even close for second."

Henson, Denman and Durkin. Now there's three race callers who could make an $8,000 claiming event sound like a stakes race.

OK, you've seen Rachel Alexandra destroy members of her own 3-year-old filly class, watched her beat the 3-year-old boys and older males while attracting all sorts of attention to the sport .

You've also watched Zenyatta, unbeaten in her career, turn in the greatest moment in Breeders' Cup history by becoming the first female to win the Classic. Zenyatta WAS the 2009 Breeders' Cup, and her thrilling, emotional victory will be etched in the memories of all those who were there to witness it in person forever.

Rachel, 8-0 in 2009; Zenyatta, 5-0. Both brought tremendous exposure to a sport that badly needed it. Here's your shot. Weigh in.

Breeders' Cup XXVI brought 58,845 to Santa Anita, the Great Race Place, last Saturday to watch the greatest filly/mare I've seen run in my lifetime, and I've been going to the races since 1973.

Yes, Zenyatta put on quite a show for a turnout that, for the most part, didn't care who they'd bet on when jockey Mike Smith steered the mammoth daughter of Street Cry to the outside and then closed like a locomotive to win the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic by one length over Gio Ponti.

It was the biggest non-Churchill Downs crowd for a Breeders' Cup since 1986 when 69,155 turned out at Oak Tree to watch horses like Capote, Fran's Valentine, Precisionist and Skywalker run. It was the biggest crowd at Santa Anita, period since 1988 when Alysheba won the Big 'Cap in front of 70,432.

It just shows how important it is for the sport to be able to showcase its stars on big days like Breeders' Cup weekend. Yes, there's no denying the fact a lot of poor management decisions have helped drag the industry down to where it is today, but a big part of the blame can also be pinned on the decision to retire horses before they've developed a following. And once they've developed that following, during the running of the Triple Crown races or what have you, then they're sent off to the breeding shed before we can witness scenes like we did when Zenyatta became the first female to win the Breeders' Cup Classic.

"I think we're all euphoric," Allen Gutterman, Santa Anita's marketing director, told me Sunday morning at Clockers' Corner. "It's been a difficult meet, and to see the reaction (of fans), you feel like you are in a real major-league sport again when something like this happens. It's good for racing when we have these kind of things happen where the fans come out and want to be part of something.

"It shows you how badly we need stars and how the problem is when horses are retired so young. We don't get a chance to develop stars as marketers and race-track operators. It's not just all about the betting, it's about the horses, and people love horses. When you see people with signs for Zenyatta or Rachel (Alexandra) or anybody, that means that they care. That's an emotion that you can't create with giveaways or freebies. It comes from the horse, and I think it's the same thing how people feel about the Lakers or the Dodgers or something like that."

Exactly.

Walter O'Malley's decision in the late 1950s to uproot the Dodgers from Brooklyn and move them to Los Angeles caused a lot of bad feelings. Yes, the Dodgers were a bunch of bums to many Brooklyn fans, but they were "their" bums, and that's all that mattered. They had developed a following, and then they were moved 3,000 miles to the west and the Brooklyn fans had lost something that meant a lot to them.

Same way with horses, only to a lesser extent. Stars like Secretariat, Street Sense, Empire Maker and Smarty Jones are retired way too early, before they can attract the same type of fan base Zenyatta did. And we saw Saturday just how powerful that fan base can become and what it can lead to in terms of drama and excitement for the sport.

Sadly, money rules the world nowadays. It's the reason World Series games are all played at night and why the baseball playoffs are sprinkled with so many needless days off. It's the TV money that calls the shots.

Same with these horses. Breeding rights are so valuable now, few want to risk future riches by racing their stars much beyond their 3-year-old campaigns.

Love him or loathe him for his decision not to bring Rachel Alexandra to the Breeders' Cup because of his disdain for synthetics, but owner Jess Jackson deserves much credit for campaigning Curlin as a 4-year-old and if he does bring back Rachel for her 4-year-old campaign. Ditto the Mosses, Jerry and Ann, for bringing back Zenyatta for her 5-year-old season.

Imagine the sport right now if we hadn't had Zenyatta this year, or if we didn't have Rachel's 4-year-old season to look forward to with anticipation?

Well, that's too depressing to even ponder. Excuse me while I go watch a replay of Saturday's Classic again for the umpteenth time.

Talk about a show stopper, well, Zenyatta not only hogged the stage on Breeders' Cup XXVI weekend at Santa Anita's Oak Tree meet, she also overshadowed so many other great accomplishments and storylines the 14 World Championship races produced.

Now, don't get wrong -- Zenyatta was the 2009 Breeders' Cup. Trainer Bob Baffert was right when he said, "What she did (Saturday) for the sport was incredible. The Breeders' Cup, without her in the Classic, oh my God. It would have been like Friday. We'd have had two Fridays. She put about 10,000 people in the stands."

Yes, Zenyatta is great. Fabulous. Incomparable. All the adjectives you want to use to describe a 5-year-old mare who has developed such a personality over the past year that she probably intentionally broke a length or so behind the others in the Breeders' Cup Classic. Spotted them a handicap, so to speak. Let the boys have a sporting chance.

She also had a quick answer for Life Is Sweet's ultra-impressive victory in Friday's Ladies' Classic, one-upping a stablemate she had dominated in three head-to-head meetings this year with her own amazinginly emotional one-length victory in the Classic.

But how about these sidelights to a weekend that was again marked by great weather, injury-free racing and a huge two-day throng of 96,496, easily surpassing last year's total of 82,578:

* The Brian Koriner-trained California Flag gave 82-year-old owner Keith Card a victory in the Turf Sprint. It's been a tough year for Card, who has suffered some strokes and has not been in the best of health. But California Flag's victory had to be great tonic for the man.

* When Dancing in Silks won the Sprint in a driving four-horse finish, it undoubtedly was great medicine for trainer Carla Gaines, who lost her brother and best horse -- Nashoba's Key -- in 2008 and needed a shot in the arm. The gelding's victory also gave jockey Joel Rosario his first Grade 1 win.

* Cloudy Knight, a 9-year-old gelding, almost pulled off a victory in the $500,000 Marathon, losing by a nose to Man of Iron and depriving Rosemary Homeister the chance to join Julie Krone as the only female jockeys to win a Breeders' Cup race.

* European invaders Goldikova (Mile) and Conduit (Turf) successfully defended their championships from a year ago with big come-from-behind efforts. Conduit's, in particular, was noteworty because the front-running Presious Passion ran his eyeballs out in the 1 1/2-mile event, running the half-mile in 45 seconds flat and still having enough in the stretch to hang with Conduit until the final 50 yards. What a race.

* Life Is Sweet finally emerged from Zenyatta's shadow to post the biggest victory of her career, winning the Ladies' Classic by 2 1/2 lengths. When she did that, Baffert knew Zenyatta was going to be tough in the Classic against the boys.

"I always thought well, maybe she's (Zenyatta) been beating up these mares, and then when that Life Is Sweet did what she did the day before, I said, 'Oh boy. Oh (bleep).' (Zenyatta) had been toying with that filly."

* Ahmed Ajtebi became the first Middle Eastern jockey to win a Breeders' Cup when he guided the Saeed bin Suroor-trained Vale of York to the narrowest of victories over Lookin At Lucky and jockey Garrett Gomez in the Juvenile.

* Julien Leparoux won the seventh annual Bill Shoemaker Award for Breeders' Cup excellence when he rode three winners in the two days, lifting him into No. 1 on the North American earnings list and giving him 10 Grade 1 stakes victories for the year as he bids to unseat Gomez as the Eclipse Award winner as top jockey.

Overall, it was another perfect weekend for the Oak Tree meet as Santa Anita became the first track to host the Breeders' Cup in consecutive years. Things went so well that even one Eastern writer volunteered that maybe Oak Tree should host the event every year. Wait until guys like Nick Zito and Wayne Lukas have a chance to digest that idea.