I loved it.

I would point out that if the crop and/or triple crown nominee size has been severely compromised by MRLS, then it makes perfect sense that the crops of 3 years olds would be getting weaker. Outside of Smarty, I thought last year's crop was pretty dreadful. Late year performances against older horses supported that point of view.

So perhaps, instead of making "100" the magic bullet Beyer cutoff number, it might be better to make it "95" (or some other arbitrary one) to account for lower expectations.

I am sure a similar analysis can be done with TG figures and it might shed more light on the subject.

By the way, I believe this crop has also been been pretty dreadful "so far" other than a few horses that have shown significant ability in sprints, but may be suspect at the classic distances. Someone will win though - even if they aren't as good as some past winners.