Miff-- I wish I'd seen the "New York Bred Slow Rats" race in the book. I was looking for that condition for Northern Stealth.

The Aqu track Sat was faster by quite a bit than the one Friday (good to fast), but almost exactly the same speed as the ones Thu and Sunday, so I guess the question becomes, compared to what? The times looked fast due to some really fast horses running, and a large number of chute races that were sped up by the wind. Survivalist paired, everybody behind him ran well off their tops, Forest Danger ran a new top (sort of, more on that in a minute), Jerken's horse paired, Don Six went back. Lost In The Fog went back, Hushion's horse ran slightly worse than his top.

People underestimate how much effect wind can have, especially on fractions-- we'd have to run it through the computer, but my guess is you could add a second to the half for those 7f races, almost 2 seconds to the 6f in the miles, which wouldn't be that fast for the horses in question. The "rats" ran half a mile with the wind at their backs, and it helped them a little on the turn, hence the fast fraction and relatively fast final time.

As far as the possible wind shift, I'm having Litfin check, but if it was the other way those horses would get BETTER numbers. And, as I said, I took off a point or two early in the card anyway, just off looking at the horses.

Michael D-- as we discussed, doing that GP figure for Forest Danger was a bitch (track was clearly getting faster, turf race on either side, no more dirt races afterward), and when he ran faster this time I reviewed it. Given what several have come back to run since, I went with the other possible scenario, which basically gives FD a pair.



TGJB