Twirling Candy is gonna blow this field apart!  And you might get 9/5!!!  Bet the mortgage!  Bet the mortgage quick before Irene blows your house away!  Workouts are great -- he loves the beach.  Fantastic analysis by SoCalMan2 -- muchas gracias

Nice way to play it.  A tough race and you scored!

The race analyst claims that Setsuko lost the Californian due to \"ground loss.\"  I suggest a different view - that Setsuko lost because Twirling Candy is far superior to him.  Twirling Candy was rank, had to be restrained, got shuffled from third to last, and then blew past the field with an acceleration that Setsuko simply does not possess.  Do trips such as the one Twirling Candy experienced factor into your theory of assigning numbers?  A horse who loses so many lengths, and is restrained from running freely, the way Twirling Candy did, should surely get a better figure than Setsuko\'s unencumbered trip.  Twirling Candy would have won that race by 10 lengths had the trips been reversed.  It is a race well worth watching, for those of you (possibly the analyst as well) who missed it.  June 4th.  Replays are at calracing.com.  Best racing to all, D

...and Save Our Sport.

\"Horses are naturally competitive... the whip is mostly not needed\"
- Hall of Fame Trainer \'Sunny\' Jim Fitzsimmons

\"Why don\'t I go to the racetrack?  Because they whip the horses\"
- Claire, Los Angeles Resident

Why are there so few women at the racetrack, I used to wonder.  Women love to gamble, women love horses, and women love to dress up and wear stylish hats when they know they are being appreciated in public.  Why then do they (and the children the ones with families would bring with them) stay away from the track in droves?  I am not an expert on thoroughbred horses, but Sunny Jim is.  I am not a woman, but Claire is.  Her sentiment has been echoed at cities and racetracks throughout the country, from Emerald Downs in Seattle to Belmont and Monmouth in the East, and from Pimlico on Preakness Day back out west to Santa Anita.  Women have an intimate and emotional connection with our equine friends that few men share; when they bet on a horse they form a bond with it, and when Chop Chop (jockey Jorge Chavez) lashes a good 20 licks on that horse through the stretch, they feel it with a sharp intensity, enough to keep them away from the sport.

Is it a viable option to phase out (grandfather) the use of whip?  Sunny Jim says it is unnecessary.  How many other great trainers agree with him?  Could racetrack attendance be doubled and even tripled nationwide, via this method?  The whip is dramatic, visually impressive, and brutal.  Does the forum think this could be done, and that we would gain more (in acceptance of the sport for the mainstream, with commensurate advertising dollars for female and family product placement) than we would lose?