Mall has pretty much covered all the bases on the contest. It was fun and I really enjoyed spending 2 days "doping out the races" with Mall and also meeting a lot of other good people and good handicappers such as this year's champ, Jamie Mickelson. As Mall said, he should be a good representative for the rest of us handicappers and may help dispell a bit of the "racetrack degenerate" sterotype associated with the sport.

Unfortunately, my decisions were not nearly as good as Jamie's and despite his record-breaking performance our Youbet team did not win the team competition.

The cameras were a bit of distraction at first but these guys were very good at what they did and after a while you hardly noticed them (except for the bright lights and heat). Hopefully, some of the Mall interview will survive the cutting room floor because he is just as articulate and interesting as the others he mentioned in his post (although not quite as young).

The cameras also were rolling during various pre-race discussions between Mall and myself and it will be interesting to see if any of those make the broadcast. It would be fun to see the show spiced up with references to "recovery patterns, explosive lines, what number it will take to win the race, and the % of tops this trainer gets off the layoff" etc.

Mall, mentioned a few of my bad decisions but I was not the only one guilty of picking a big priced horse who ran well and failing to play it in the contest. On the second day, Mall and I were discussing a mandatory maiden race that had a 3/5 first timer in it, which presented a lot of longshot possibilities with the rest of the field. I liked a 25/1 making its third start and Mall was touting (quite convincingly I might add) a second time starter at 50/1.

I stuck with my pick which chased the 3/5 shot all the way around (the 3/5 shot won by 10 lengths) and lost the place at the wire to none other than Mall's 50/1 shot. I figured that even though I did not score any contest points, at least Mall would pick up the cap price on the place but, as you probably guessed, Mall ended up not playing the horse.

The one bit of film I hope does get cut is when my only longshot contest winner on the first day held on to win by a nose in an extended stretch battle and they had the cameras on me watching the entire stretch drive. I have a feeling that I will be cringing if I see that one on the tube...

Chris