Jerry,

The Derby is over and it is "just one race". But in the aftermath, we see comments from other experts in this business like Beyer, Crist and others say that this result shows that this was a slow class of three year olds, with two exceptions - Bellamy Road and Afleet Alex, and in the Derby one of those horses ran a little, the other ran very little.

All the horses except Bellamy Road came in light on the Beyer speed figures and they ran to it in the Derby, running a slow 2:02 and change.

On the other hand, on T-Graph we had FOUR horses who ran faster in their last prep than Smarty Jones ran in his last prep last year. No doubt that the big margins that all four horses won by influenced their big figures.

Just wondering Jerry, if you give any thought to the possibility that Beyer is right and this is a slow group of 3 year olds and the figures you gave out were too high because the horses that the "big four" ran against were slow, thus the margins and resulting figures were off.

Even the "estimated" figures you gave to Closing Argument and Giacomo seem out of line to me. If you give them "0"'s, that makes this the 4th fastest KEntucky Derby of all time. That is tough to swallow. Beyer, with his 100, is calling it one the slowest in the last 20 years.

Are these "0's" the result of going too far down the path of giving super figures in the preps and now there is no going back, without making the whole thing a mess?

Not trying to be antagonistic, but it is troublesome to think that this is the 4th fastest derby of all time. Even in the context of your piece on "horses getting faster".

I gotta believe Funny Cide, Peace Rules and Empire Maker would have trounced these guys on Saturday, but the figs say different.

Thanks,