The numbers, in and of themselves, are staggering. Dale Baird has won 8,589 races, 2,273 more than anyone in history. He has been leading trainer in the country 15 times and won every training title there was to win at his home track of Mountaineer Park during a 20-year span. Yet when someone steps to the podium to be inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame this August at Saratoga it won't be Baird. He probably won't even be on next year's ballot.

Why isn't he in? Baird says he doesn't have the answer, but it's obvious. The Hall of Fame is a restricted country club and its voters have no intention of welcoming in the hoi polloi. No matter how much someone has excelled in the sport, if they haven't accomplished anything in New York, California or Kentucky they need not apply.

It's not just Baird. King T. Leatherbury is the third leading trainer in

history with 5,933 wins and has even trained a few stakes horses, but his primary accomplishments have come with claimers on the Maryland circuit. He's not in. Neither is retired rider Dave Gall. Gall completed his career with 7,396 wins, making him the fifth winningest rider of all time, behind only Laffit Pincay Jr., Bill Shoemaker, Pat Day and Russell Baze. But since the bulk of his winners came at tiny Fairmount Park, he has never been so much as considered for induction.

This is not to suggest that a win at Mountaineer or Fairmount is equal to a win at Santa Anita or Saratoga or that people who excel at the highest levels of the industry don't deserve extra credit. But outstanding achievements

come in all shapes and sizes. Baird is simply one of the most noteworthy

individuals in the history of the sport. The 66-year-old native of Martinsville, Illinois arrived at Mountaineer, then known as Waterford Park, in 1961. Over the years he built his stable into a mammoth force of 100 or more horses that has dominated racing at the West Virginia track for three decades. He won races in bunches and that, plus his longevity, have give him numbers that may never be topped.

"I think my record speaks for itself," said Baird, who doesn't like to talk about the Hall of Fame issue. "I've done it all my life."

"The only reason the Hall of Fame has passed him by is because most of the races he won over the years were cheaper races," said Baird's stable jockey Dana Whitney. "That's not even the case anymore with the way the purses have gone up here. He's still winning as many as ever. He should get in the Hall of Fame. He's accomplished something no one else has in racing and it shouldn't matter where or how you got a record that is so impressive. He's as good a trainer as there is."

Baird should have made it in years ago, but it's never too late. Hopefully, some day this gross oversight will be corrected.

How do they make the Grade?
Members of the graded stakes committee are scheduled to make an announcement next week and should be interesting to hear what they have to say. It's not easy to grade races before they have been run, but clearly the results aren't always what they should be. Take last weekend's Falls City Handicap run at Churchill Downs. Many thought it was the best race run this year for older fillies and mares outside of the Breeders' Cup. The race included three Breeders' Cup winners (Spain, Caressing and Unbridled Elaine) plus two other U.S. Grade I winners (Miss Linda and Forest Secrets), yet was a Grade III race.

Some believe the races should be graded after they are run, not before. That's a little too radical for us. Rather, the committee should be quicker to react to change and rely more on common sense than whatever formulas it has been relying on. It took forever to make the Blue Grass a Grade I event even though it was arguably the most important prep race held anywhere for the Kentucky Derby. The Super Derby has ceased to be a top 3-year-old race yet it clings to its Grade I status based on history.

Dates may change for Monmouth
There is no more pleasant a place to spend a day at the races than Monmouth Park, the jewel of a track at the New Jersey Shore. What makes Monmouth so special is not just its picturesque beauty but the fact that it's one of the few racetracks in the country that has an opening day and a closing day and everything in between seems like something important. This is the way racing was meant to be conducted.

But the New Jersey horsemen and track management from Monmouth and the Meadowlands, both of which are owned by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, are at each other's throats again and the result is a so-far unresolved dates squabble. Who knows how it will be worked out, but the horsemen are pushing for an extended Monmouth meet, which could last all the way into the fall. Nothing would be sadder than to see Monmouth operate on a chilly fall afternoon with 1,500 people in the stands. For once, can't everyone agree on something that is in the best interests of the sport?

Probably not. What a shame it would be to see Monmouth spoiled.