Agreed, I was having a decent day up until the derby, but sunk everything into it and came back with nothing. I wondered aloud on this board a couple times about the lack of pace in the race, and it ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy that I disregarded in my wagering strategy. I was just convinced there would be a bounce from the paired up 1s because of the absolue speed of the numbers, not the overall pattern itself. But it appears no one else was ready to run either.

Buddha scratching probably hurt too, he may have pressed the pace somewhat. It certainly made the odds a lot lower on Saarland, MDoro, and perfect drift. My other self-fulfilling prophecy, "the trend is your friend" burned me with the Lukas horse, another good run off a lexington performance. The baffert horse I can understand, I still don't understand the Lukas one. Does this horse like chocolate or vanilla milkshakes?

But man, what a great day down there. Could not have asked for better weather or better scenery. Incidentally, I did not see Crist on the Caesars riverboat, but noticed he included several paragraphs about it in his derby diary. I did hear Wesley Ward being paged in the casino at 130am the night before the derby, I thought that was kind of funny. His horse did not run well the next day, coincidence? LOL. Oh well, "wait till next year"