I follow both boards closely and bet the Haskell using both TGJB and Robes, though the only reason I cashed was because I left Iwinski\'s horse on the ticket despite advice from both that he would bounce.

It\'s a funny game. I have $4,900 worth of uncashed Spa tickets (lost SS card) due in large part to Hardoon\'s opening Saturday seminar; but when JB takes a stand  I must listen carefully.

I post infrequently but while I believe using sophisticated speed figures is crucial to beating the game, I also believe that it is virtually impossible in many instances to produce them. Too many sore horses, oddly run races and weak/short horse fields.

I confess that I use rags less because I am convinced they are superior but because I like to play NY and MD, where I think their figures are solid. And, frankly, I found myself using too many horses based on trainer stats and other tangents I followed from TG. I also like the smaller sheets.

Anyway, I\'ll be at the Spa on Friday and saturday next. (Alabama day) and maybe the final weekend. If TGJB is going to be at Siros, I\'d love to hang for a drink.

And TGJB, when you\'re at the spa, why not host a  companion seminar?

Peace,

TK

Will Monday\'s sheets be available for purchase at sales sites the day before given Sunday shipping and the holiday?

I\'m specifically talking about Laurel

Thanks for posting those sheets. The Alabama winner looked terrific on Thorograph.

It\'s funny, though. On Rags, and I\'m going by recollection here, Island Fashion had a similar line, pairing 8\'s where you have the 4.2 and 5 and Rags had the delaware race at a 10. Off of THAT line -- I excused the 10 because it was a runaway and I also suspected it was too slow -- I figured the horse would jump up to maybe a 6 and therefore bet with both hands at 9/1.

It goes to show how subjective all of this is.

Well it is indeed tough at the Spa. I had Bon Lil at 57-1 to win and in exactas and Tris to the horses that picked up the pieces after he bounced off the rail and unseated Fragoso.

Bet that whole card after attending one of Hardoon\'s seminars (in which he said Bon Lil had \"sneaky good\" turf breeding) only to read about it in the paper the next day.

By the way, I\'d love to see Thorograph for the Alabama. I had a very positive read on the winner off of Ragozin even tho\' I assumed they had the Delaware race too slow.

I couldn\'t make it to the track today, but if I had, I would have gladly accepted the free money by tossing Magic Weisner.

The trifecta pool had $61K in it and the tri with the 3 faves (other than MW) running 1-2-3 paid $82

How often is it that a horse who so obviously doesn\'t have a chance -- after all, he was near death with an infectious disease that withered his hindquarters -- goes off at 6/5? Didn\'t run a step. And this is after posting 6f works of 1:17 and the like.

\"One of the effects of the virus is the loss of motor skills,\" said the DRF lede story. He was, however, the best bet of the day for Laurel in the all-important DRF picks.

Unbelievable.

Results: Made money, but when I saw EM at 7/2. I wished I was in a bookie shop in Europe to rope those odds in. I bet a ton -- for me at least -- in the pick four and used more savers than I\'d planned. In the exotics, I got 7/5 on EM and my exotics. But 2/1 woulda been nicer.

My strategy is to single Empire Maker to allow myself to go deep:

Just a Game (8th)-- 6 on some tkts, 4 on others. Just to be on-the-record: 1,2,3,5; plus 6,8)

Riva Ridge (9th) -- only 3, two faves plus Halo H. on a few. This is where I might get bit in the ass, but the number power on Midas and Posse is too strong.

Manhatten (10th) -- I go as deep as 6 on some tickets (1,2,5,8,10,11) given the uncertain nature of conditions and the race itself, but my focus is on the jump-up horses (Requete (2), Honor in War (11) and the fave (Denon, 10)

Empire Maker -- I give this hoss more than a 50 percent chance to win, and even more if the conditions are wet, so the opportunity to (mostly) single a pick 4 with a 7/5 shot is where I\'m finding value. Don\'t like the takeout, tho.\'

DO T-GRAPH SHEETS HAVE TGJB ANALYSIS FOR THE BLACK-EYED SUSAN AND PIMLICO SPECIAL?

Very good post, Mall. I\'m a journalist and I make a habit of tape recording all of my significant interviews -- meaning any time I want to quote or paraphrase anything.

This was a classic example of a newspaper putting something into print in which they had not run their traps. Simply watching the videotape of the end of the race would have sufficed. Or maybe deal with your photo shop instead of running the photo past an old coot like Walter Blum.

Just because you have a holy **** quote doesn\'t mean you actually have a holy **** story.

Bad journalism to even get this started. Santos in the infamous foto is in the midst of twirling the stick in his hand just as he\'s winning the derby.

The videotape, which I just saw on my local news, shows this. As he\'s changing his grip, there is no way he could be holding an object; it would be like twirling a baton while holding a battery.

There is no object. There is no foul. And the Miami Herald reporter is a dipshit.

Well, without trying to get into a snarky exchange with TGJB, I only would say that while I do not have the analytical capacity to get into an exchange over the accuracy of the two products\' numbers, save to suggest that a fluky fast downhill sprint turf # doesn\'t seem as though the best figure to make comparisons with route figures, plenty of posters on this board have used less evidence to make their point.

I do not have the sheets for the Oaks, though on another subject, I am hopeful of buying Gus a beer on Black-Eyed Susan day. Actuially, he should buy me won; the Albany paper reports he had $200 on FC at 150/1 in Vegas and went back for more several times at lower odds.

Anyway, I did appreciate TGJB\'s analysis more than Robes\'for the Derby, tho\' I continue to harbor doubts about the capacity of anyone to produce super-accurate figures -- IN SOME CIRCUMSTANCES -- and so, as I search for the Holy Grail, I keep returning to trips, trips, trips...

I had both sets of Derby sheets and read the analysis by booth TGJB and Robspierre and I actually would call it a dead heat.

Naturally Robes\' opinions were mushy as hell, but if you tossed his weak endorsment of Supah Blitz, he gave you the Deby tri in a 4-horse box. But he didn\'t like the race, wageringwise.

TGJB\'s churlishness on the SoCal numbers earned a big demerit when the results seemed to confirm the weakness of the SA Derby. But he did well on Funny Cide (BTW, I grew up three doors down in Delmar, N.Y. from syndicate member Gus Williams, a beer-drinking retired contractor) and Peace Rules. He seemed more negative on Empire Maker than Robes but at least added the VERY good comment about Jerry riding him like he was the superior animal.

I personally have no regrets on the Derby itself. I had the tri and the exacta, fairly lightly, but, following TGJB\'s advice, was spread for a great result if EM ran out. (Cide was one of my keys) A second for Peace Rules or a better trip for Atswhat and I would have had a nice score.

Alas, I would have really been poised for a great score had I spread every so slightly more in the Early Times; when devising my pick-4s, I fell back into \"old-think\" on the winner -- bad post, first time in a Grade 1, simply can\'t win....woulda, shoulda coulda...

Anyway, I will concentrate next year on Derby Pick 3s and pick 4s because it\'s (generally) so much easier to eliminate those who CAN\'T win that to sort out your 2nd and 3rd place horses.

If one only wants to purchase the Derby sheets as a portion of a create a card for saturday, it would include the typical annotated comments on the derby horses, correct?

I do not mean this in a hostile way, but in this very message, TGJB, you acknowledge the \"trickiness\" of making accurate figures, suggesting EM could have easily have run 2 pnts faster. And this was on the best day of racing for this particular track.

In fact, it seems that groups of horses can in fact run unpredictably enough or perhaps in sufficiently confusing ways, figurewise, so that you are unable to produce figures with which you have sufficient faith.

As the route varient got slower, I would speculate that the \"very tricky\" conditions you encountered could produce inaccurate figure for any number of the route races.

Unexpected trip to the Bay area allows me to check off Golden Gate on my tracks visited list.

Do you have live ground at GG? Does your competition?

Also, is it a track where sheet players seem to move the odds much?

BTW, with so many tracks on cable and the Internet, do you use such replays for trip notes?