it is clever and amusing, and best of all...spot on.  Walden is a hypocrite.  Do as I say, not as I do.

The UAEd winner.  Won off from around them all.  Best guess ~1.  Appleby smartly passes KY to recover for BEL.  Hopefully gets forgotten by those that price these things up.

Just after the Juvi Fillies and Servis\' romp -  they threw from the simo to a commercial, in what clearly was something he thought was off mike, you could very clearly hear Kristofek saying, \"I guess you were right Gabby, the leniency in Kentucky...\"  I could not make out the last bit but that was definitely said.

Was not a fan of the WAYI concept when implemented as it seemed to take away from the entire point of running a full season - to collect enough points to guarantee a spot in the top 7.  Still kind of feel that way but I guess that horse has left the barn.

Had not thought about the promo value bluechip mentioned to NBC in being able to hype these races to viewers but that makes good sense.

Pretty pleased Enable is coming - if for no other reason that to get a look at her sheet.  It can be tough to tell just how their running compared to say a year earlier what with the adjustments time form codes in (that thank goodness it seems tg strips out) for weight for monthly age.

Arc winners (and even just runners) notoriously poor - wonder if it\'s different for her as not the typical long campaign, though of course they\'d still have squeezed her for all she\'s worth for that race. Gosden said just 85% and interrupted prep after the Kempton race with temperature. Inclined to believe him in this case actually - it really would make no sense to run her here (what could they possibly have to gain? - nothing she does here eclipses what she\'s already accomplished) unless they genuinely feel she\'s ready to fire. Granted even money is not making anyone rich. Will be harder for me to toss her from the PicN\'s tho as opposed to if say Sea The Stars had come, who isn\'t sadly, who\'d be a nice easy throwout.

Ah well, at even money, pretty much doubles every other horse\'s price in the Turf though which is nice if you want to fire against her.

Hope Roaring Lion (and his sheet) comes too for the big one - if the weather stays awful over there and he has to miss not just Champions but QEII even, he just might.

Post of the year Fairmont.  yeah, magician, he\'s certainly that.  

very interesting referencing difference in rules.

BL OFF.  Just announced.  Does this mean Baffert is worried they come after J hard and he wants this one around for the end?   Starting to get a little Eddington/Rock Hard ten feel maybe.

West owns the mare, which fleshes this out a bit more - says a classic placement sure wouldn\'t hurt her. So that kind of puts a different spin on this.

Last year there was a discussion between West and Baffert about running West Coast in the Belmont rather than the Easy Goer, ultimately they decided on the softer spot and then West Coast ran huge causing, I think, some regret on West\'s part that he had potentially missed a big possibility to win a Classic.

Plus, in the last few years have seen more than one Baffert 3yo come in off a terrible race not just rebound but run big new one right on this day - Bayern (and the aforementioned West Coast) being the two I\'m thinking of.

Price should more than compensate any other concerns (potentially wet again?), of which pedigree does not appear to be one. He has had a less compacted schedule than either of those other two as well.

Fair - yep same here as far as those 5 re final odds - really is tough to know exactly where the public will come down. Good point on that Beyer for Mendy too - not sure if it\'s there in print. I\'m swayed by the thorographically pristine pattern of a certain colt but hard to know if John Q P will agree.

Thanks for the more detailed breakdown on the increments for breakage MC, will use that going forward. Ironically the extra juice from the breakage does actually help to make most of these appalling ML\'s ever so slightly \"less\" incorrect (slightly...).

Fairmont - I love this rant - amen.  Couldn\'t agree more.

your rundown is superb - find these sort of discussions so helpful in really digging into the race - fwiw, have it: J-3, M-6, GM-7, A-8, Bolt-9, Moon-10, Vino 12, Hof 17. Which leads to having some really big prices on the stragglers which has not been happening lately so I could easily be wrong. My two thoughts are: A-that Moon will drift and not be single digits-so was pleased to see you have him a bit higher as well - what with almost everyone noticing the bore out last. And B-that Vino gets bet. He was bet hard in both Tampas and now off a win with those two deep pocketed owners kinda think he will be the \"surprise\" bet down on the board at first flash.

Regardless, great discussion and awfully fast, tough race.

Mathcapper - that\'s exactly the way I do it, minus the breakage, which knew was there but had not had a good way/number to account for it - thank you - going to start adding that in each time going forward using your 1.25.

Will just echo everyone who called this the post of the year. It sure is. Well said John, bloody well said.

Last Saturday by the time American Anthem had rolled into the stretch of the Met I was ready to throw up.

And nary a word from those in charge or those in print or on tv or radio about the improbability of this, save for homilies to Baffert\'s greatness.

Appalling.

His draw is a tragedy, much like Battaglia\'s morning line.

They should hire Fairmount - his was exceptional, especially the ordinal rankings from horse to horse.

Hence is the startling omission - perhaps the single most confounding omission of any horse for any pool since this was started by CDI. He has 50 points, from a dirt prep, and is pointed to it by a big name barn. Very odd.

In addition to the Sunland Derby winner, granted some of these are not fast, but they do have points so...

Master Plan - will have two CD works then see how points stack up - Belmont an obvious backup

Fast and Accurate - they\'re writing the cheque

Conquest Mo Money - claim they will write the cheque as well, would prefer to just train up to it but will goto Hotsprings if they need to

Blue Ridge Traveler - Kenny says Arkansas

West Coast and Term of Art  - both likely for Arcadia next week

Godfather reference superb.

I wanted to play Wild Shot reasonably heavy here but that post...ugh. Can\'t say a word against your other three for this Frank. Have to think the Mule gets bet as well as TAP\'s fave.  

Let\'s beat them both out of the tri.

btw, what on early has happened to Good Samaritan? Keen observers might notice he was included, unprompted in prior pools here - for good reason - but easy...not a peep of a work since juvie turf. too bad. still 4 weeks to Spiral if they got back immediately and really wanted to push it but...it\'s getting late in the day. Tho of course a certain turf horse in 2008 didn\'t debut till early march in an off the turf race and well...we know how that went.

tick tick tick.