Jim--

I've been trying to be nice about this BECAUSE you are a good customer. If someone like Beavis had been taking this tack I would have been much rougher. I haven't attacked you at all, just replied to your comments about me ("retrofitting"), and what we do here. If you're going to pull a quote, do it in context.

1-- My points about the two favorites being vulnerable because of coming off big efforts were made right here, on this board, in the days BEFORE the race, in my comments about this being a bad race to have a strong opinion about.

2-- I made it clear I didn't like the race. The three horses I used were the winner, the horse who broke down, and the horse who bled (according to Thoroughbred Times).

3-- LH broke down. There is nothing to be learned about his ability to get a distance by what happened here, and I do agree that question has already been answered, by his Derby effort. We disagree on the answer. And nothing has happened to reinforce anyone's position since, because we both have vastly different views of what has transpired since. I'm a numbers guy.

My thinking on LH in the Travers was this-- maybe 1 out of 3 to pair up, 1 out of 3 to go back a little, 1 out of 3 to X. This certainly made him vulnerable, but since he figured to save ground, that still made him one of the likeliest winners (25-30%), so I used him. Remember-- I didn't like the race, but I had to pick someone. An awful lot of people took that analysis, and if I passed the Travers I would have been killed.

4-- Eddington ran third by beating two horses who actually ran (one other broke down, one bled). But that's not the point, anyway. The point is that while you can certainly make the case that he would run his race off TG, he started out very slow compared to the others, and there was no reason to think he would jump. Ergo my question about what he looked like on Ragozin-- the horse was grossly overbet, and from postings on their board it could have been because of them.

5-- What I did in ROTW (which is still up) and the analysis was not just to identify NTL as the likely winner, but to identify several throwouts who were going to take money. I played only tris, and got about 5-1. I weighted ST heavier, which was probably clear from my ROTW comments. The idea was to expand the price on the short priced winner by expressing several opinions on the race-- some positive, some negative.

6-- I did not belittle your analysis. I applaud you for putting it up in advance, and I hope you continue to do so. But if I recall correctly, you posted afterward that LH lost BECAUSE he had distance limitations. I had a problem with that, and it turned out I was right-- the result proved nothing on that score.

7-- Sarafan lost. But if he had won, so what? Go through the ROTW (there are now several hundred) and find the many times we have taken a position against a short priced horse. Work out the ROI. I will bet you anything you want it is under $1 for every $2 bet.



TGJB