It's going to take a couple of days to get my feet back under me, so those of you who directed questions at me should try again later in the week. SC, save that question about Derby tops for next week-- that's a good subject to discuss as we get closer to the race.

Some thoughts--

I hadn't been to Keenland since they got a track announcer (over 20 years), and it was fun, despite getting my head handed to me at the windows. I have more trouble with that place than any other major league track, and when people ask me why, my answer is if I knew that I wouldn't be losing. Looks to me like a big angle place-- an awful lot of horses don't fire, a few jump out of their skin and run huge, and that schism shows up in beaten length gaps and when I make the figures, with Turfway-like distibutions of tops and "x"'s. Some of the TP horses run at Kee, some don't. I got real antsy wearing a tie and shoes after two days and bailed on the fancy dining room, spending the final day with Frank's raunchy crew, minus Frank, who was headed back to Canada with what might be a broken foot suffered leaving the restaurant the night before. The waitress got a $200 tip that night, half for pain and suffering (hers, not Frank's), she earned it.

Good seeing Mall, Anderson, and NoCar Tony, who really looks like Brooklyn Tony. Scenery ain't bad at Keenland, by the way. Not Del Mar opening day, but what is. There don't seem to be a lot of horizontally challenged women in Lexington.

Derby preps-- You don't see a whole lot of major races where the winner runs at least 4 points better than anyone else, let alone FOUR of them in 8 days. Taking a fast look at the day it looks like Bandini ran negative, and I'm not talking about breaking the race out, either. We'll see. Haven't looked at AA yet, that's going to be an interesting number. On Ritchey-- he did a great job if the Arkansas Derby was his ultimate target. Now all he has to do is get him back over there again in three weeks, then two weeks, then three again. Looking forward to more 46 works.

By the way, this past weekend's Thoroughbred Times (Free Ragozin numbers!!) says they gave Buzzard's Bay the same number as Greeley's Galaxy (Free hallucinagens on eleventh street!!). Even the Beyer Californiaphiles knew better than that.

This Board-- there are a couple of guys who's posts are in the end really always about themselves, and it's getting annoying. There are also others who (with some justification) are getting both annoyed and annoying. Everybody grow up and knock it off. The only one who gets to be a self-indulgent child here is me.



TGJB