I guess I should kick it off by giving a personal recap, seeing as the redboard
police are apparently on shore leave, and those wonderful athletes in the NFL
now insist on presenting short one act dramas after EVERY touchdown (even when
their team is hopelessly beaten). The days of being a gracious winner are
apparently long past. I think my inclination to celebrate quietly may be a
throwback to racetrack days when one would attend the races with large groups
of folks, any one of whom might be willing to offer to share in one's good
fortune.

I caught the late P4 on a $45 ticket: 1/5/6/3 for .$50. I was rather
disappointed when I first looked at the will pays; the only explanation being
that World App and Gun Runner were bet more heavily in the horizontals than
they were in the "straight" pools? Given the field size and given the fact that
the shortest priced runner in the sequence did not prevail (and that none of
the four winners were odds on), I was expecting more, but that is an
observation, not a complaint.

Am I going to "thank" JB or TG? No, because the "thank you" posts make me laugh
too hard, reminding me as they do of the "Thank you God!" scene from the movie
"Animal House". (Don't take this personally P-Dub-- I'm glad you had a good day
and I'm glad your Raid-az beat the floundering fish Sunday night). I bought the
sheets for Saturday's festivities and, to be honest, I think I could have come
up with legs 1,3 and 4 without the TG product and probably without the DRF past
performances. In the case of the Juvenile, I will however say that Good Magic's
TG "3" compelled me to add what might have been Chad's least likely winner to
my ticket; in short, GM's number power allowed (forced) me to look past the
fact that he was a maiden running in North America's most prestigious race for
2YOs.

Enough about me. Lets talk about Bob Baffled, who came up empty handed after
dominating dirt racing at the higher echelons for most of the year. Lots of
umbrage and consternation here and elsewhere when BB shipped in and dominated
the Belmont Day undercard, with all of his runners jumping forward
dramatically. I will not here debate performance enhancing medications,
enhanced testing, or out of competition testing but will speculate that in the
future the Baffert stable stars might not be fully cranked for Summer
engagements, with an eye towards having something left in the tank in November.
I think BB may have also learned that some runners (Drefong?) may lose their
competitive edge when not raced on a regular schedule.

Still, BB had a weekend most trainers can only dream about, with Abel Tasman,
Somsini, Collected and West Coast all running well and collecting large checks.
I can not help think that 2018 will be a pivotal year for BB, coming off a year
where he was no factor in the Triple Crown races and a year which saw the rapid
decline of the "World's Greatest Racehorse".

Television: Good straightforward coverage as best I could tell by NBCSN and
NBC. No figure skaters, no bizarrely dressed Euro experts. Solid work from
Brittney Eurton of TVG and Matt Bernier of DRF. I came not to mind the cut to
the overhead camera view. With TVG carrying the races, one had the choice of
listening to Denman's on track call or Larry The Screamer's NBC call. Sadly it
appears to this listener that the iconic and beloved Trevor Denman has lost a
bit off of his race calling fastball, so the decision was made to listen to
Collmus (with the volume way down).

Beyond: A thought on the Pegasus. Good concept, wrong surface? Possible that a
Pegasus like race run at a distance on the [b]turf[/b] would have broader
appeal? A large international field of owners and horses to draw from?