You only get one chance to make a first impression and the new Laurel Park dirt surface didn't disappoint yesterday when the track opened for training after a seven-month project. At 6 a.m., trainer Lisa Jimenez and her gelding Bring Him Gold were the first to test the track and she was in awe. "It is spectacular," said Jimenez. "It looks like Belmont Park, it is so wide. There were so many naysayers but they hung in there and got it done right." Laurel Park track superintendent Glen Kozak indicated about 140 horses were on the dirt course yesterday morning with 22 official works recorded by clocker Kevin Geraghty. Hamilton Smith worked eight of the 19 horses he has stabled at Laurel, while John Rigattieri worked the first horse he sent to the track.

Not to be outdone by football, baseball, basketball and hockey, the sport of horse racing has begun climbing toward the heights of self-destruction that the leaders of the "Big Four" have enjoyed for years. You think the NFL games last weekend were embarassing? Clubs that had clinched divisons and home-field advantage playeds strictly by the rules and had no incentives to win. Some of them didn't win, much to the despair of teams with fading playoff hopes. How about the college football Bowl Championship Series pattern of picking championship opponents while having to leave out teams that deserved a chance to play? Ever wonder if baseball's drug policy ought to be worked on, or its procedure for permitting agents of inductees into the Hall of Fame to conduct virtual auctions to determine which team they will be representing at Cooperstown. If a guy played with more than one team, in his career, he can pick the cap of any one of them to wear.