Favorite’s Trainer Has Ridden Out the Storm

Horse racing fans whose interest in the sport extends beyond Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar might want to pay attention to today’s Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in France.

The favorite is a 3-year-old colt handled by five-time Arc-winning French trainer Andre Fabre. Given the recent weather along the Gulf Coast, fans whose wagering systems go beyond the Daily Racing Form have to like the colt’s name.

It’s Hurricane Run.

Trivia time: Who are the only three NASCAR drivers to have won three consecutive races at Dover International Speedway’s Monster Mile?

Empty words: It took Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News 18 words to sum up Denver’s 30-10 rout of Kansas City on Monday night: “The Broncos treated the Chiefs like a rented truck,” he wrote, “leaving them dented and damaged and out of gas.”

Proper incentive: German soccer champion Bayern Munich won its final nine games last season en route to claiming the Bundesliga title and won its first six games this season.

Dissatisfied with that, Bitburger, a German brewery, offered 10,000 liters of beer free to fans of the first team to end Bayern’s record 15-match winning streak. “Both us and the fans want some suspense in the season,” Bitburger spokesman Dietmar Henle said. “We hope this will encourage fans to cheer on their team even more. Nothing against Bayern, but there must be some excitement.”

In its next game, Bayern lost, 2-0, to Hamburg.

Driven to distraction: Fred Couples, Tiger Woods, Fred Funk and Annika Sorenstam will be the foursome for the Merrill Lynch Skins Game at Trilogy Golf Club in La Quinta, Nov. 26-27, and Woods already has Funk worried. “Tiger came up to me the other day and said, ‘Annika is the fourth,’ ” Funk said. “He said, ‘If she outdrives you once, you will never, ever, ever hear the end of it.’ ”

Slapshot: The return of the NHL was not greeted with enthusiasm by Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post, who bemoaned the goon element in the game.

“Rather than try to win a broader audience through speed and finesse, the league keeps pandering to the same head-banging crowd,” Kiszla wrote.

“Which might explain why hockey is doomed never to be a major-league sport in the USA.

“It’s hopeless so long as the good old paint-scraping boys of NASCAR already do a finer job of selling lowbrow violence.”

Hoofing it: Soccer American magazine reported that goalkeeper Gennaro Bracigliano of the French club Nancy relieved a foot injury by putting a piece of raw veal in his boot to cushion the impact when kicking.

Trivia answer: Rusty Wallace, David Pearson and Jeff Gordon.

And finally: According to Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, “India’s 18-year-old tennis sensation, Sania Mirza, has come under fire for her revealing outfits from some radical Islamic groups, who point out that Chris Evert played her entire career wearing sandals, a floor-length black robe and veil.”