I made comment that Calvin was too stupid to win the race.

I was dead wrong and owe the man an apology. All day Friday and Early Saturday Calvin went down the rail saving ground and winning. It was deja vu race after race. Watching the Derby objectively, a few so called better jocks had a chance to drop inside ahead of Calvin chosing inside run vs outside, but all of them just went wide and wider in a 20 horse field many banging into each other Charlestown style. Surely you would have thought that someone out of team TAP or DARREN MILLER or O\'neil would have caught on by the 10th race on Saturday.

Just watch the overhead shot of the race yourselves and see which Jocks could have or should have went inside instead of banging into each other and knocking one another out of the race on the outside. And besides all of that, It seemed to me the inside was the place to be all weekend (AKA BREEDERS CUP) and not the outside.

Thank God I played a few 7\'s earlier in the day, as the Derby was a disaster for me.

NC Tony

imallin: Tony, i\'m with ya, i hear ya and i comprehend ya!

These jocks are SO stupid, that if they weren\'t 110 lbs, athletic and strong, they\'d be flipping burgers or pumping gas.

HOw many jocks do you know that have any smarts or talent outside the track? How many times have you heard, about riders, \"well, if so and so wasn\'t a jock, he can make a living in (fill in occupation here) field with no problem.

Jocks just dont know. They asked Johnny V about his win in the 4th race on the card, a race he rode the rail to victory. The question was posed, \"did the horse win the race or did the rail win the race\" Johnny V said \"The horse won the race\"

Not even an elite rider like JV even knows what a bias is. He\'s sitting on that horse and the horse runs fast and crosses the line first...what does he know about track bias? Track bias is for horseplayers, not jocks. All jocks know is sitting on a fast animal and guiding him around the oval. If he wins, the horse did the work. Bias isn\'t something you can see, feel, taste or touch...so, these jocks just don\'t \'get it\'.

To them, its about the animal.

Chuckles_the_Clown2: Samrt is as smart does. Any jockey that saves ground is going to be successful.

I\'ll be interested in TGJB Derby Day rail study. I did not see a rail bias. Was worried about the rail being soft as it has been the last couple years, but the La Troienne tended to indicate it was fair. I would point out that Street Sense\'s surge definitely stopped and Silverinmypocket was getting late down in there.

I like to think I\'ve got a keen eye for bias. You have to be careful with it. Factoring bias when none exists is a sure fire way to throw bets down the toilet. That said, I\'m amazed at times when I find a jockey that seems to have sniffed the bias out and consistently places his horse in the golden path or off the preferred route. There are some observant jocks out there. Berjerano at the Old Turfway was amazing. Jerry Bailey much less so. JB\'s pre Derby comments were bold, assertative and generally way off base.

Bottom line, Calvin BoRail did a masterful job Derby Day, but all a jockey can really do is get in the way. BoRail was not an impediment.

imallin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tony, i\'m with ya, i hear ya and i comprehend ya!
>
> These jocks are SO stupid, that if they weren\'t
> 110 lbs, athletic and strong, they\'d be flipping
> burgers or pumping gas.
>
> HOw many jocks do you know that have any smarts or
> talent outside the track? How many times have you
> heard, about riders, \"well, if so and so wasn\'t a
> jock, he can make a living in (fill in occupation
> here) field with no problem.
>
> Jocks just dont know. They asked Johnny V about
> his win in the 4th race on the card, a race he
> rode the rail to victory. The question was posed,
> \"did the horse win the race or did the rail win
> the race\" Johnny V said \"The horse won the race\"
>
> Not even an elite rider like JV even knows what a
> bias is. He\'s sitting on that horse and the horse
> runs fast and crosses the line first...what does
> he know about track bias? Track bias is for
> horseplayers, not jocks. All jocks know is sitting
> on a fast animal and guiding him around the oval.
> If he wins, the horse did the work. Bias isn\'t
> something you can see, feel, taste or touch...so,
> these jocks just don\'t \'get it\'.
>
> To them, its about the animal.

Uncle Buck: Nice job NC Tony. Amends do indeed feel good most times. It\'s obvious Borel has a lot of Okie in him. The DRF had a good story about him Friday. The man cannot read or write. I\'m not too sure he has any front teeth. But he has a lot of heart and judging from the post-race reaction from fellow jocks, outriders and such, he\'s a hell of a guy. He brings his lunch pale to the track every day and is a damn consistent jock. I started playing him regularly about ten years ago. It seems he\'s usually off at about 5-1 9/2 too!

I can tell you I was never more confident in him and SS this year. I KNEW they were gonna do it and stated as much right here in April. I\'ve never in my life played a race more aggressivley and never have been rewarded like that either...Saturday was an amazing day to say the least. Friday wasn\'t bad either.

Dana666: Borel deserves credit for knowing his horse and being one with the animal, but there\'s no set rule for every horse. I\'ll agree that jockeys, especially in grass races, seem to have forgotten about saving ground -- I\'m not sure if they don\'t teach stuff like that anymore to riders; I play mostly California tracks, and realize the riders are horrible out there, I see mistakes every day. In SS\'s case, he\'s a fantastic horse who you can do anything you want with, but I\'ll tell you, a lot of horses won\'t run hard inside other horses, and run far better outside; normally you\'d also see much more trouble with riders trying to come up the rail -- odd twist of luck that SS passed like 18 other horses while running on the rail, don\'t you think? Each horse is different; a sore animal will also appreciate drifting out wide and when jocks try to keep them straight on the rail, they just stop running. For years the California tracks would often have dead rails, so being on the rail wasn\'t always the place to be -- polytrack seems to have completely changed that at Hollywood. I still stay each horse is different and jocks need to know how to best maximize each animal. I do agree with some of the posts that some jocks don\'t even consider bias\' and I wonder how dumb the trainers are for not pointing that out to them, but whenever I make an absolute statement about racing I\'m usually proven wrong before the next race goes off.