Dear Indulto and Janis Joplin,

Thank you for the kind words. I am not sure I caught all the posts relevant to me since there seemed to be quite a bit of activity over there over the weekend, so apologies if I missed anything. A few comments --

1) As far as yente and Yiddish, I am no expert although I did grow up in a household where Yiddish was copiously sprinkled into English conversation (and Yiddish was the native tongue of half my grandparents and spoken by all of them). I think "yente," linguistically, could apply to a person of either gender, but that it is so more frequently applied to women than to men that it has taken on a sheen of femininity. A comparative illustration in English would be "nurse." Obviously either gender could be a nurse, but it is so unusual for a male to be a nurse that you often see one referred to as a "male nurse." You would never see anybody feel compelled to specifically identify a "female nurse."

Also, the feminine connnotation of the word can be used for particular effect. For example, if a male friend of yours was acting like an old woman, you might call him a "yente" for the purpose of accentuating your point. You see this same linguistic device occuring in certain parts of America where you will see somebody refer to a man as a "bitch" or a "queen." While these words are unmistakeably feminine (which I think differentiates them slightly from the case with "yente"), they can be appied to males to make a particular point.

The reference to Yiddish came up due to my use of the word futz, but I note that another reference of mine, Ethel Mertz, is a good example of a yente. While people often think of a yente as a matchmaker, it is probably more accurately identified as a meddler in the affairs of others. Having said all this, I am not expert. My father, however, does reside on Isaac Bashevis Singer Street on Manhattan (for those of you who do not know it, a portion of West 86th street was renamed due to that Yiddish language writer's long time residence in the building called the Belnord (which is the entire block on the north side of 86th between Bway and Amsterdam)). This is a long way of saying I have an expert who can be called in if it is necessary.

I am sorry if this is too messy a response to resolve your wager. To bring this discussion back to something relevant to the bulletin board on which it appears -- variant-making, unfortunately, is not the only area in life where things are not always black and white.

2) I will keep my eye out for situations, in advance of a race, where the discrepancies between the two types of sheets can be examined. Do not hold your breath waiting, though. I will note that I have noticed two types of differences. One relates to isolated tops. Both sheets will on occasion have a unique or unusual isolated top for a horse. It is very difficult to tell who had it right and who had it wrong and you often need to play both ways (or at least take it into consideration in light of the odds board). the other type of difference relates to pattern reads. Both sheets will show the horse being of the same relative speed, but one sheet maker's sheet will indicate one pattern and the other's will indicate a totally different pattern. Obviously this difference will impact a handicapper depending on how tightly such handicapper seeks patterns -- it is easy to recognize that this is a controversial area. I will further note that I recall discussion a while back where people felt that Thorograph was assigning unusually good efforts to certain mid-atlantic circuits. I followed this closely and I must say that the evidence I saw went both ways and was not conclusive (yet another area in life where stuff is not black and white). However, if you play the odds board, there were certainly occasions where Thorograph's seemingly "suspicious" mid-atlantic figure could produce some healthy payoffs by taking the contrarian path.

3) When I think of Ethel Mertz, I sometimes think of episodes of "I Love Lucy" where Fred Mertz is seen reading the Racing Form. For some reason, which I cannot adequately explain, I have always tremendously enjoyed seeing the DRF in movies or television (often used as a prop). I am curious if people have favorite instances where the DRF has shown up in a show or a movie? Is there any chance of a sheet ever showing up in one? Talk about product placement! I think the Ragozin Sheets would have an advantage over the Thorograph Sheets in this area due to their unique shape which can convey a lot to those in the know simply by their physical appearance.

4) I realize that this last note is potentially wading into waters that I do not want to be in, but I hope that I can beat the rip tide if things get out of hand and make it back to shore. Putting aside all discussion of methodologies, mistakes, etc and just focusing on bulletin board management and ettiquette; I think that TGJB does deserve some credit for allowing discussion to continue, even if adverse to his own interests, on this bulletin board. Obviously, he has his own commercial interests as everybody does, but I do think that TGJB has shown patience that he does not have to show and genuinely reads and responds to almost all posts that are capable of being responded to. I think some of the discussion on both boards can get a bit convoluted and it becomes difficult to understand what is being said and provide a coherent or cogent response (and many posters, myself included, are guilty of this). Also, on both boards, there has clearly been some abusive behaviour of the anonymity (or lack of accountability) that that internet provides, and this must be dealt with in some way or another. Putting aside things like who got the BC Sprint or the BC Distaff right, at least TGJB allows controversial discussion of this on his bulletin board. I am not sure there is anywhere else on the internet to have such discussions and, despite all the bad blood and ill will (as evidenced in part by TGJB's initial reaction to my starting the thread), I do think these sorts of discussions are good and helpful. If other people do not think such discussion is good or helpful (or is harmful), they can simply turn the channel. At the end of the day, we are all interested in how fast particular horses are in relation to other particular horses. Everybody will have different opinions (as is abundantly clear from the two bulletin boards), but, as they say, that is what makes horseracing. The point is that the dicussion about Clock Stopper versus Champali, or Midas Eyes versus My Cousin Matt, or Stellar Jayne versus Island Fashion are simply these types of discussion.