I have bet against every single horse trying for the TC since 1977, when I was still using Ragozin, and it has turned out to be a pretty good idea-- in fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't used one on a ticket. But I'll tell you what-- in none of those situations was the horse this much faster than everyone else going in, and I'm not just talking top to top, which is what the term usually means on this site. SJ has 4 numbers 2 lengths or more (at this distance) better than the best of the next best horse of his generation, and the 2 horses that ran even that close to his off races are either not going or unlikely to run that well. In general, I have found that (on dirt, anyway) when a horse is capable of running his top at 1 1/8th he can almost always handle any distance, and certainly the last 2 make the distance a non-issue-- if he packs it in through the stretch it will be because of those closely spaced efforts finally taking their toll. I probably will find someone to bet, but I'm pretty sure I won't be leaving SJ off my tickets.

Re Beyer-- as I said a few weeks ago, he blew the Rebel figure because he simply didn't believe it. With the big gap behind SJ and the other routes at Pimlico he was in position to get it right this time. Ragozin blew the figure for the race before the Rebel, but that was a very tricky one, and I almost went that way myself-- I was very happy to see not just SJ run big,but others out of that race pair up right away. I told Walden back in March that the Arkansas crew were the best in the country and no one was talking about them, and took a shot at buying two of them (Pro Prado and another) to no avail.



TGJB