There are a bunch of major races yet to be run this weekend and next for older males, with millions up for grabs, but many of the fields will be alarmingly light in quantity and quality. There are plenty of good horses out there, it's just that a bunch of them have long since had their last Breeders' Cup Classic prep race. That's the trend. Give them a nice long rest before Breeders' Cup Day, which will supposedly have them fresh fit and at their most dangerous come time of the big event.

There's just one problem with that strategy: it rarely works.

Time has proven that it's hard to win any Breeders' Cup race off a long layoff, but none is trickier than the Classic. Only once in its 20-year history has it been won by a horse with a layoff of seven weeks or more, which Black Tie Affair accomplished in 1991.At least he helped avoid what have been a lopsided shutout. Horses with layoffs or more than six weeks coming into the Classic are 0-for-29.

Yet some of the best trainers in the country are intent on bucking such an obvious trend. Ghostzapper (Bobby Frankel) and Saint Liam (Richard Dutrow Jr.) last ran in the Woodward, seven weeks before the Oct. 30 Breeders' Cup. Pleasantly Perfect (Richard Mandella) will have had 69 days off. Birdstone (Nick Zito) will come in off a 63-day layoff and will have run just once (in the Travers) between the June 5 Belmont and the Oct. 30 Classic.

They are all saying pretty much the same thing, that their horses run well fresh and they have a better feel for them when they train them up to the race. That may be, and it's hard to disrespect the decisions of some of the top trainers in the country, but the evidence suggests the Classic is much like the Kentucky Derby. Horses who are not well-prepared and ready after a series of preps, the last one no more than four or five weeks prior to the race, fare miserably. Both are very tough races that cannot be won by a horse who is not perfectly prepared. I doubt very much any of the above mentioned trainers would run a horse in the Derby after a 63 or 69-day layoff.

Frankel, alone should have learned a lesson. That he is 2-for-57 in the Breeders' Cup may have something to do with the fact that he, particularly in recent years, keeps insisting on running horses after long layoffs. Frankel has started 12 Breeders' Cup horses off layoffs of six weeks or more and has yet to come up with a winner among that bunch. He got particularly layoff happy last year when he ran Aldebaran (55 days), Medaglia D'oro (52 days), Megahertz (91 days), Peace Rules (63 days) and Midas Eyes (140 days) and saw none of the above make it to the winner's circle.

It's dangerous second-guessing such good trainers and maybe a horse like Pleasantly Perfect will romp to victory after he comes out of his cob-webbed filled stall. But I hope not.

The growing popularity of giving horses extensive time between races is definitely not good for the game. Great fall races like the Woodward, the Jockey Club Gold Cup and the Goodwood lost enough prestige when they became mere preps for the Breeders' Cup. It's gotten even worse over the years. They can put up $1 million for a great race like the Gold Cup and get no guarantees that any top horses will show up, not when it's out of fashion to run four weeks prior to the Breeders' Cup. As it stands now, Love of Money, Domestic Dispute, Evening Attire, The Cliff's Edge and Funny Cide are likely to run in the Gold Cup. Possible starters include Newfoundland and Powerful Touch. With Funny Cide's star having faded as much as it has, there is not a legitimate top horse in the field.

Racing's best hope is that the trend reverses direction and that Frankel and others grow tired of seeing their horses who have been pampered and kept in their stalls all fall coming up short in the Breeders' Cup.

For now, we have a depressingly weak rendition of a great race in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. On the same day, they're putting up $750,000 for the Hawthorne Gold Cup and are trying to scrape together a small field that won't come close to boasting a top horse.

Meanwhile, the Jockey Club Gold Cup winner probably won't be any better than 25-1 in the Classic. And that's a shame. The best thing for Pleasantly Perfect, Ghostzapper and Birdstone may be to sit out these several weeks. I doubt it, but who really knows. It certainly not the best thing for the game.