The schedule at Saratoga can feel as ephemeral as the bubbles in champagne. The races come so quickly you don’t want to blink. We’ve only got six weeks of this, after all, and even a couple of days into it you feel as if time were flying by.

Lunarpal and his connections certainly felt as if lady luck deserted them yesterday.The precocious 2-year-old colt earned his first loss in five races after pushing up on the pace and tiring to fade under the wire in fifth. It was the unstoppable charge of favored Afleet Alex that won the Grade-2 Sanford. Jeremy Rose took him five wide and the horse closed the race as if he’d been shot out of a cannon at the half mile pole.

Now, we jump right into the weekend and the running of the Diana, the Test, and Sunday’s Go For Wand.

The Grade 1 Diana is a wide-open turf race over 1 1 / 8 miles for fillies and mares. Bobby Frankel’s import Intercontinental has been tearing up the American turf. But she’s up against the best turf girls running. Wonder Again and Riskaverse are sure to figure.

In the 78th running of the Grade-1 Test,I can’t get away from Padua Stable’s Dazzle Me, trained by Steve Asmussen. I’d like to find value in this $250,000 race, but Asmussen is doing so well, and Dazzle Me is 4 for 5,running well in each of those wins. Perhaps Rodeo Licious, who turned in an absurd race here last out, might come back into form and step up to meet the class found here.

Certainly, there’s enough horseracing on the East Coast. The best handicap horse in the country, however, will be running out West.In Sunday’s San Diego Handicap, Pleasantly Perfect returns to the track for the first time since taking the richest race in the world, the Dubai World Cup.

Alex Solis,who was up in the irons for Pleasantly Perfect’s dramatic victories against Medaglia D’Oro in last year’s Breeder’s Cup Classic and in Dubai,will not be making the trip. He’s in the hospital with a fractured back and ribs. Mike Smith will have the mount Sunday (Jerry Bailey will take the mount later in the year) and Smith will most likely be steering him straight to the winner’s circle.

Also expected for the 1 1 / 16 -mile, Grade-2 San Diego are Choctaw Nation, During, Nose the Trade, Reba’s Gold, and Taste of Paradise. None of these horses should beat Pleasantly Perfect. The big horse has earned a career total of $6,699,880 (and that’s without any bonuses – this is money that any horse in the race could have grabbed). He’s targeted for both the $1 million Pacific Classic and the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, which puts him in striking distance of the great Cigar, the highest earner in racing history.

Dubai often proves too much for these ponies. For a glimpse into the future of Pleasantly Perfect, this is clearly the race to watch.