TGJB Wrote:
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> Miff-- there were four routes on the day,
> including a cheap claimer, a nw1x alw, and a
> starter handicap. There was no way you could do
> them the same-- the first two (races 1 and 3) came
> up minus 4 and minus 6 (corrections by me to the
> mechanical variant). If you did the stake with
> them, SNS would have gotten around negative 10, as
> I said at the time, and the next seven horses
> would also have gone negative-- not real likely.
> So that race had to be cut loose, the only
> question being what variant to do it at. The track
> got slower again for the other route (last race),
> but not nearly to the degree it was early in the
> card.
>
> Chicago tracks have always featured a lot of split
> variants, and years ago, when I started seeing
> them, it shook me up. Now I expect them, and am
> not surprised.
> I also try to get what info I can, though I don't
> depend on it. This day, for example, they didn't
> water the track until the fifth race.
>
> My guess is that somebody (not Beyer, who is not
> dogmatic, especially since my Expo presentation)
> tried to put this day together based on an average
> variant for the day. This will result in getting
> the stake too fast, the first two way too slow,
> and the last race about right.

Two weeks later at Hawthorne two stakes were run at 1 and 1/8th miles the GIII Nat. Jockey Club and the GIII Sixty Sails for F&M. Three Hour Nap won the NJC with a final clocking of 1:52.48 and Fleet Indian the SS in 1:49.37, a full 3 seconds faster.

I realize the NJC came up weak, even for a GIII, but can we really surmise that Fleet Indian would have beaten the boys by 15 lengths? Any chance that Hawthorne can change that dramatically over a one hour period?