Big-- a lone two turn race could be difficult if the field contains lightly raced horses and the configuration does not lend itself to an obvious conclusion (i.e., it's clear a couple or more horses ran new tops, but there are no scenarios where multiple horses pair up). Those can be a bitch and I review them later, but fortunately it doesn't happen often because the nature of racing in this country is that horses going long generally have run a few times first, giving you data to work with.

The San Felipe was not tough, dealing with 3yo stake horses seldom is. When a horse wins off like that you are facing the question of whether he ran what he usually does and the rest of them collapsed (unlikely), or the rest of them ran what they usually do, and the winner jumped. In other words, you do the race off the other horses, and give the winner whatever he gets. This is what happened with War Emblem the race BEFORE the Ill Derby, and we were the only ones who got it right-- Beyer and Len both gave him what he had been running. We gave him the big jump, which he paired in the Ill Derby.

Anyway, Andy got the San Felipe close to right, and the slight difference is probably due to the overall inflation of his California figures, which has become reduced recently. From a lot of Watchmaker's comments (like in tomorrow's paper) it's clear he's reading this board, and he might not be the only DRF guy doing so.

Hello, Mike. And for the record, since you read the string about FOY day, a) I said Andy got the relationship between the two races right once you adjusted for ground, and b) Saturday's race doesn't confirm his FOY figures anyway, since he gave them both different figures this time. The relationship between the two staying the same is irrelevent to figure makers if the numbers change. Feel free to post here, by the way-- seriously.



TGJB