Just a few thoughts...

I think you have to look for a horse who's building towards his good races as opposed to a horse that may have already showed you his best (like Texcess has shown you with those four 5-ish races in a row -- where he's been stuck for five months). This is the logic for using Zito's horse. He had upside.

I think all this "California crop" and "plenty of speed" stuff is a waste of time. Just to address this "plenty of speed" thing, for example -- aren't these horses really too young to have "running styles" to speak of? How can you really say with authority that there is "plenty of speed?" The trainers are still figuring things out. I'll go a step further and say you have NO IDEA who's going to go early, who's going to hold back and try to rate, etc., and using pace to handicap a race like this is a complete and total waste of time. By Derby time, you MAY be on slightly firmer ground. Maybe.

Also, when someone says "the race was better than it looked," I rarely know what that means. If Jerry thinks the race was better than it looked he puts in the "buried" comment. Otherwise a 5 is a 5 is a 5.

I read so much stuff on this board that has NOTHING to do with TG handicapping. Every time I get bogged down in all this extraneous stuff (and I do, periodically) I lose. Look at the figures and play the race. Stop reading everything else and if you're doing badly stop buying the Racing Form for awhile and just use TG. Just a suggestion....

HP