SARATOGA SPRINGS — Most mornings, 82-year-old trainer

Ramon “Mike” Hernandez can be found standing outside his barn 76 office, quietly watching the horses go by on the Oklahoma training track.

For the past two years, he’s spent part of at least one afternoon in the winner’s circle at Saratoga Race Course, courtesy of Classic Pack.

“He is like everybody else, I guess. He loves Saratoga,” Hernandez said Saturday morning. “I love it here myself.”

Hernandez will attempt to give Classic Pack a Saratoga stakes victory for the third consecutive year in today’s $100,000 West Point Handicap for New York-breds.

The 11⁄8-mile West Point is seventh of 11 races, sharing top billing with the $100,000 Yaddo Hand­icap. Carded as the fourth race, the Yaddo was pushed back after being originally carded for Saturday.

Now 5, Classic Pack has won five of 20 career starts, with one second, five thirds and $480,864 in earnings. He is 2-for-3 at Saratoga, winning the West Point last year at odds of 13-1, and the Cab Calloway Division of the $150,000 New York Stallion Series in 2006 at 8-1.

Owned by John Becker, Classic Pack did not run following last year’s race until finishing sixth in the $113,000 Kingston on May 11.

“I don’t know what happened,” Hermandez said. “He must have stepped on the hard ground and twist his ankle or his hoof. It gave him a lot of problems. I gave him the winter off and bring him back. We worked on him a little bit, and he seems to be OK.

“I’m glad to have him back this year. It took a lot of time to get him back and ready again. Even though we gave him the winter in Florida, we came back and he was still a little off. Thank God he’s OK now.”

In his last start, Classic Pack rallied from last to run third, beaten 31⁄4 lengths by Banrock in the $78,000 Thunder Puddles. Jockey Jose Espinoza gets the return call.

“He showed a lot of courage,” Hernandez said. “If he comes back with a good race like he did the other day and like he did last year, of course, he could be in there.”

Classic Pack is a stakes winner three years running, having taken the Times Square Division of the New York Stallion Series at Aqueduct in 2005.

Once again, the weather will be a question mark. With rain in the forecast, Classic Pack has lost his last five tries on a less than firm turf course, with two thirds.

He’ll face some familiar foes in Banrock, runner-up Gimme Credit and fourth-place finisher Extra Zip from the last race.

“We’d like to think he might be right to go for this one,” Hernandez said. “We just have to stop the rain. We might get lucky, right? You never know.”

YADDO

New York Racing Association racing secretary P.J. Campo opted to move the Yaddo back a day when only five fillies and mares were entered for Saturday.

Today’s redrawn races attracted each of the original five horses, along with Chestoria from trainer Billy Badgett.

Rewrite, a winner of four of her last five starts, all in stakes, looms as the favorite. The 5-year-old mare won the Ticonderoga and Dynamic Lisa in 2008 and the Irish Actress and Gaily Gaily in 2007, the latter in open competition.

Bred and owned by late Hall of Fame trainer P.G. Johnson’s Amherst Stable, Rewrite also owns a win at Saratoga, in the $83,000 Dinner Diamond last July.

Runner-up in the Grade III Regret in 2007, You Go West Girl faces state-breds for the first time in her 10th career start.