Top Flight Handicap

[Uncle Buck]

imallin Wrote:
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> > The Powerscourt DQ made me a really nice score. I
> don\'t remember what i bet, but i remember hugging
> someone after they took that number down.

I remember throwing up. I saved the tickets I was so pissed. I had the trifecta for $3 on seperate $1 tickets and a $10 exacta PC to KK. I remember calling my buddy on my cell phone telling him how f-ing rich I was about to be. I can\'t remember the 3rd place horse but I was looking at about $1,500 per tri-ticket and at least a grand on the exacata. All tolled woulda been a great score but nope - Jamie Spencer was taken down and I went down with him.

This led me to cry for change in the DQ rules. Why not leave the parimutual pool alone and pay gamblers as to the order of finish as they crossed the wire. Then you DQ/change purse money only. That way the riders and owners and trainers are in their own race and us handicappers are in our own race. It makes no sense to punish the dilligent handicapper who does his home work properly, see\'s his efforts and win tickets come to fruition in an exciting rush and gets paid acordingly.

Why wouldn\'t my theory be best? If I\'m not mistaken, Steven the Weenie Crist agrees with me - or I stole the idea from him. Can;t remember which...

[bobphilo]

Buck,

On the surface this may sound good, but there\'s a very big but here. What about the bettor who has has worked so hard to handicap the race and bets the best horse only to have him lose the race only because his horse was fouled? Where is the justice there?

Bob

[Bally Ache]

Bobphilo


You keep trying to set up a straw man here.  The job of the stewards is to;


1  Stay out of the picture as much as possible.

2  Use good judgment when they are forced to act.


They didn\'t do that here.  Anyone who saw the race knows that Rahy\'s Appeal was much the best. There\'s an old saying (often misquoted) that a FOOLISH consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.  Yes, we can\'t have jockeys striking other horses with their whips.  But, in this particular case, it had absolutely no bearing on the outcome.  Therefore, the outcome should have been left alone.

[HP]

Man I played this race and had the winner (23-1? -- close on figs and nice TG trainer stat Bush Turf to Dirt) and AS SOON AS THEY CROSSED THE FINISH LINE the guy next to me says \"he\'s coming down.\"  I didn\'t see anything but...I had to agree after watching the replay that Rahy\'s Appeal had to come down.  He smacked him right in the face when they drew even.  Sorry Bally.  It was an awful foul.  You can\'t do that and win.  It doesn\'t work that way.  That Malibu horse has haunted me since that Breeders Cup where I bet him at 30-1 and Leparoux fell off.  At least I salvaged the exacta.  The other way would\'ve made my month...  HP

[bobphilo]

Bally,

To set up a straw man is to misstate an opponent's position so as to make it so weak as to be easily defeated. To say that the stewards should have turned a blind eye to Garcia's flagrant foul because it appeared he was going to win anyway is a weak position to begin with - no strawman required. Are horses that can be interpreted as probable non-winners be deprived of their right to run their race without being fouled?
I find it odd that those that are the most critical of the steward's interpretation are the very ones that are arguing that the stewards' opinion of who would have won the race be the deciding factor. Does anyone else see the self-contradiction here?
HP, I applaud you for your honesty, though you lost money on the decision. The race is not always to the swift and the fastest horse does not always deserve to win in cases where the jockey does stupid things like misjudging the pace, running into blind switches, etc. or, in this case, whacking his rival in the face with the whip. Those that lost money on Rahy's Appeal, it was because of your rider\'s reckess use of the whip.

Bob

[HP]

I read a bunch of these after I posted...

What I saw on the replay was that they drew even, it certainly looked like the momentum was going Rahy\'s way, and he snapped that whip right between the eyes, Malibu threw his head around quite a bit...  It was a real smack!  Looking at the final margin of victory there is NO WAY to know how close that race would\'ve been...I agree Rahy would\'ve won but it could\'ve been as little as a length if Malibu battled on...  

Plus, the whole reason he was going to the left side in the first place was that Rahy, in addition to having some momentum, was drifting in at that point and needed to be straightened up...  So Malibu suffered twice really, by having Rahy bear in on his path and THEN getting smacked.  

HP