Diane and John Fradkin

If any ducks have been careless enough to stray at the Michael McCarthy barn at Santa Anita, they've been promptly herded back into row. The McCarthy office has a new lick of bright white paint and a navy accent wall to compliment the trainer's coat of arms. There's the fancy new desk--one of those good-for-the-back ergonomic types that moves to fit the owner and not the other way around--and a blazing new flatscreen high in one corner. Then there's the trainer himself, freshly shorn from an in-office trim--a precision 10-minute...