David Patent

[Alydar in California]

DP on the Sheets board: \"The only way to identify a speed bias is if you had several races where horses that were unlikely to perform well based on their sheet patterns won or ran in the money.\"

 Please tell me you weren\'t serious.

[Michael D.]

Alydar,
I kind of agree with DP here. When I rate a speedball slower (or worse, however you want to look at it) than the rest, and he runs well, I start to wonder. If the slower speedballs run well three races in a row, I start to move up the speed.

[Alydar in California]

Then you disagree with David. Please read his entire post.

My point was that this is not \"the only way.\"

[Michael D.]

Sorry, that is too much work. I generally agree with the sentence above. Personally, I usually will not move up speed horses until I see a few speed horses running better than I expected. The main exception is a wet fast Belmont strip, where I will move up the speed from race one, and use the angle until I am proven wrong (or broke, whichever comes first).

[Michael D.]

I do, however, tend to move down the deep closers when any track is wet fast (from race one). So I guess you have a point, saying the speedball comparisons are the \"only way\" to judge speed favoring tracks may not be exactly correct.

[dpatent]

Alydar,

I just saw this string, buried under all of the mule posts of the past week.

I obviously am serious.  Serious being defined as not posting a joke.  

Might there be other ways?  Of course.  To avoid a battle with you consisting of the splitting of grammatical hairs, I meant the only reliable way that I can think of.  And implied in my definition of \"identify\" is \'and have a high degree of confidence that I am correct\'.

Query to you:  What other methods do you believe exist?

[Alydar in California]

Look at the odds.

[dpatent]

Alydar,

Glibness does not suit you.  You are equally lucky that I like you.

[Alydar in California]

David: I am a large horse (about nine feet long). I contain multitudes. It was a glib answer to an impertinent (\"do you believe exist?\") question.

[dpatent]

Aly,

To show my \'multitudes\' of good will and gratitude that we will have ML baseball in September and October, I will not swing at either of your eephus pitches -- \"I contain multitudes\" and \"It was a glib answer to an impertinent question\".

After all, this is supposed to be a horse (and mule) handicapping forum and not a grammatical exposition and we are beginning to wander far afield.

[Alydar in California]

    David,

     \"I am large, I contain multitudes\" is a famous line from Walt Whitman\'s \"Song of Myself.\"

     \"Impertinent\" means \"not pertinent.\" That\'s how lawyers usually use it. But it also means \"not showing proper respect.\" That\'s how I used it.

Now I am taking another vacation.