The DRF poker column was not only poorly-conceived, much of it was very bad advice. I have been a moderator on a similar poker forum for a major publisher of poker books, and the kind of advice which was discussed on DRF would have been ridiculed. They took the approach often taken by inexperienced poker players of assuming nothing of your competition and bemoaning bad beats. I was shocked to see the degree to which the same writers who have a relatively sophisticated sense of the inherent variance and difficulty in horseplaying had little concept of the same features of poker.

I think the idea of having comparably-sophisticated discussion of different forms of potentially positive-expectation gaming is a good one. But the fact is that there simply are not many people who have the time or energy to be both great handicappers (I am certainly not one) and great poker players (I\'m trying to get there) because both are so difficult.

I know that in the past, DRF has adjusted the Beyer figures given to certain races after the fact. Last year I remember seeing the \"Best Beyers\" list change fairly substantially because of a few ex post facto changes they had made in sprint figures given on a day in January at Santa Anita. The changes affected some of the big \"Best Beyers\" figures because that day had featured a major sprint stakes (the Palos Verdes or the Sunshine Millions or something like that). That change was only a few points, but it does show that there is precedent for Beyer adjusting figures after the fact. My question is simply whether, if Smarty Jones wins the Belmont in another impressive time, all of a sudden the \"Best Beyers\" list will all of a sudden feature not only the 117 or whatever Smarty earns in the Belmont, but a new \"114 - Smarty Jones - OP Mar 20\" line. I don\'t think it\'s all that unlikely.

I think the points that have been made about why the Chapmans want to continue running Smarty Jones are dead on. Another thing to realize is that Smarty Jones, even if he wins tomorrow, still has more that he could prove. If he wins tomorrow, he will be one of twelve triple crown winners and presumably one of the, say, 25 greatest racehorses of all time. He will be champion three year old and horse of the year. But that is hardly the limit of what he can achieve. I assume that he will be given a considerable break after the Belmont, possibly precluding performances in the major summer races like the Haskell in the Travers. But he still will likely race two or three times this year, in the Pa. Derby and the B.C. Classic, with possibly another race in between. If he were to win those, say, three races, he will end the year 10 for 10 and 12 for 12 in his career, completing arguably the greatest single season in racing history.


But even that would not be the limit. It is still a long way in the future, but I think it is not unreasonable to start considering another of racing\'s greatest feats, 16 wins in a row. The Belmont, then three races this year, would put him only five races shy of Citation/Cigar\'s record. And, frankly, he has done nothing to show that winning eight more races without a loss is unrealistic.

The point is simply this-- Smarty Jones has the potential not only to do something that has not been done in racing in 26 years. He has the potential to do even more. Jerry Brown and co. have already shown quite conclusively his exceptional speed. If he wins the Triple Crown, the Breeder\'s Cup Classic, and gets 17 in a row, we would all be hard-pressed to argue not just that he wasn\'t one of the greatest racehorses of all-time, but that he was THE single greatest racehorse of all-time.

Given, if he loses tomorrow, this might all be out the window. But that\'s racing.