>>It had nothing to do with any discourse,
here or there, about his "too-fast" last Beyer number, which he may or may not have legitimized with his Fountain of
Youth performance.<<

Papi C ran a 92 in the Fountain of Youth after running a 98 in the Sham. I believe ground loss accounts for some if not most of the difference, but the Sham Beyer figure "is" mildly suspect (maybe a couple of points too fast).

Once Wild's Santa Catalina figure was also slower than his Sham figure, but in his case he had a little trouble at the start and then ran on the inside of the track. It is possible that the inside part of the track was NOT the place to be at SA that day. If that's the case, then even though his Santa Catalina figure is lower, between the start and the bias, he may have run a similar race.

There were several decent horses that ran on the rail at SA Saturday that performed worse than expected and it certainly didn't seem like horses running wide were at a huge disadvantage. Time will tell on that one.