I spoke with Paul briefly in the backyard on Thursday or Friday. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing some of our conversation.

We discussed if the game was beatable and we both agreed it is still beatable. However, the margins are far less obviously which lead to him saying these things I agreed with about the state of the game.

He said it isn't as much fun as it used to be. 20 years ago, you could study the night before, narrow the field to 3 horses let's say and have a very solid but not 100% detailed idea of where you might go and then at 20 minutes to post zero in on your exact play looking at the board, making final decisions, and swing at the races. But today, you need to have that 100% detailed idea the night before based on possible track conditions, how it might be playing, where the CAW has zeroed in, and then at 20 minutes to post you are looking at the will pays to decide if you can even play the race based on what the best guess at anticipated odds will be from a few sources. After all of that. Often, the best decision is to PASS the race today.

Which lead to him explaining something I hadn't considered but realized, Yes, he's on it. You can't get into a rhythm of race to race to race with your bets when your decision is so heavily involved with whether to pass or not. 20 years ago, there was another race with enough juice in it that if you missed, no big deal but now you have to be so freaking perfect with your decisions race to race, day to day and it takes a lot out of you for that grind.

We discussed a few other things. Hopefully I haven't butchered his/our thoughts and again, hope he doesn't mind me sharing (I don't think so at all). Obviously it is fun to win and beat the game but it is to no one's surprise much more difficult esp when not putting in a play is the right one more than ever.