Jerry, I got through to the office on Tuesday morning, a day later. No one was working yesterday and the ordering problem he thought was a 1 day glitch. It was very frustrating for me but I love your product and it was the first day I have ever had any problems like this. It was only compounded because no one was able to answer the phone. No worries!

Jerry, I have been having problems ordering and I can not get anyone to answer your phone. It has been ringing for the last 45 mins.

Boundary is a little like Skip Away, even though his turf TGI isn\'t great, it sure does seem like more than a fair share of them will really take to the turf as this Boundary did. Just my observations.

Jerry, I have obviously never had to make numbers for any horse,and I love your numbers, but, I felt your Kentucky Derby number for Smarty Jones was too low (because of the weather and track conditions that day) if Lion Heart ran his -1 in the Derby than Smarty probably ran his -3, which would make him less of a bounce candidate in the Preakness. Do you agree with that thinking? I also think Smarty ran an incredible race fig today because of how Smith rode Lion Heart today. Smarty was 4-5 wide through the first half of the race before he realized Mike couldn\'t control Lion Heart. How much would he have won by if he saved more ground in the early part of the race? 15-18 lengths?
My comment in earlier posts about him looking like Secretariat coming down the lane in the Belmont is looking a little more possible today. I wished he hadn\'t used Smarty so hard today, Servis was obviously more worried about this race than I thought he had to be. Just my thoughts, curious what others think.

Thanks, I will look into it.

I do occassionally, but the printing takes forever.

Ronwar, I am sure this can look like hindsight to some, but how can you expect Smarty Jones to bounce now? or Lion Heart for that matter? I predict the exact same order of finish for 1st and 2nd in the Preakness, but that is why they will run the race; to make some of us look like fools, this game can humble you. Of coarse we haven\'t seen the post draw and for sure someone is going to try and press these two into awfully fast fractions, but I am already leaning towards betting on the same outcome with the possible exception of using the Cliff\'s edge underneath as well. From what I have seen nobody\'s beating Smarty Jones and I am not betting on his bounce coming now, this horse looks for real to me. The Belmont will be his test and I don\'t think we will see his best until then. It could be another Secretariat coming down the lane ahead by many, they would be fools to do that in the Preakness with the Belmont still to run, but the Belmont is where we may see what this horse really has. I hope I am not just getting caught up in emotion here but I think this horse is the real deal, I have never seen any horse like him. He attacks the ground with every stride.

That answer helps tremendously, I thought I was missing something. I have no substantive reason to put this notion forward, but I have intuitively determined that a horse running a 4 on the dirt would run a -7 on the turf, again, everything else being equal, breeding,distance,trip, etc. I had no way of determining if there was a rule of thumb so I guess I was streching. It was especially perplexing because I know the average turf coarse in the US is faster than dirt so you would expect that a turf number would be faster than a dirt number not slower. Just my insights after using your sheets extensively for many years. I mostly buy the sheets at the track so you probably don\'t realize how loyal a customer a truely am. I wish you had them at Monmouth in their off season because I have to drive 30 minutes each way, to freehold to buy them. Great product though or I wouldn\'t do it.

Ahhh, and there lies the dilemna, I absolutely agree with you that the true value of the sheets is the visibility to predict the effort a horse should be capable of running in his next start, but it is certainly not the tools fault if and when we guess wrong. Smarty was capable of running another huge effort in the Derby, Are you going to bet against him in his next? I won\'t, but others may, it is only an answer you can derive for yourself. I still seriously doubt there is any other tool that identifies the true contenders and throw outs as consistantly as this product. We still have to interpret the data on our own and each of our \"frames of referrence\" will influence our decisions, but the numbers and facts are there, sometimes we interpret them wrong and sometimes we speculate that something may or may not happen to get the best value in a race; which is a whole other discussion, but the fact remains, the numbers are there for us to interpret. Sometimes we are correct and sometimes we are wrong, when we are wrong, I don\'t think it is the tools fault.

I want to know how to compare dirt numbers to turf numbers. It appears, that a horse running on the turf with the same level of effort will earn a number 2-3 pts higher than the same effort on the dirt. Another way I can ask a related question, if horse A is consistantly running -5s on the turf, same track, same distance, etc; and horse B is consistantly running 2s at the same track, distance, etc and both are equally bred to run on the turf. What would the dirt horse run on the turf with the same level of effort as he has been giving on the dirt? Is there a rule of thumb for this conversion? I realize there are no absolutes, I am only looking for the typical outcome. Hopefully, my question is clearly stated.

I think what is the most interesting about your comment is: regardless of anyone\'s analysis of the numbers, (even Jerry\'s), the sheets had the the winners identified. If you just played the horses with the lowest numbers, you hit the win and the exacta very easily.  clearly Smarty Jones, Lion Heart and The Cliff\'s Edge were the lowest numbers, and oh by the way, Smarty Jones had the fastest back number to boot. Sometimes we all over analyze a race when all you have to do is play the lowest number or the lowest back numbers in the race. It happens to me every day I play. The sheets are the best handicapping tool I have ever used and the thorograph numbers are more accurate and contain more data than its competitors and I would be lost without them.