TGJB:

Doesn't the Senate's "stewardship" of baseball derive from the fact that the national pasttime has always been exempt from anti- trust laws? Kind of a trade- off, if you will?

Flushed:

I do not want to be in a position where I am defending Pletcher, but you mention Oonagh MaCool and Pool Land-- they were defeated by the Pletcher trained Spun Sugar (13.00) (defeating Baletto in probably my toughest beat of the meet). English Channel(and his adversary, Artie Schiller), seems to have gone off form, but Go Deputy won a grass stake and paid 15.40. Octave won a 2YO stake and paid 21.60. Wait a While could have broken the Saratoga course record in winning the Lake Placid. Fleet Indian won her seventh straight race since being taken over by TAP in winning the Personal Ensign.

Late last year, TGJB initiated a discussion of whether the scale needed to be adjusted, whether TG was assigning too many negative numbers; JB sought the input of TG users. I don't know if a decision was made either way, but would be curious to see if less negative #s have been assigned in the first 8 months of this year compared to last year. Of course many factors besides an internal adjustment could account for less negative #s, ie increased pre race detention and the deadening of track surfaces in response to breakdowns (see Arlington and Del Mar).

My own opinion was that the there were too many negative #s being assigned, but I have only used the product (sparingly) for about 2 years. My "poster boy" for excess negativity was Funny Cide, who posted negative TG#s in something like 8 of 11 starts as a 4YO while only winning one of these races.

Final word on Spa trainers: Tom Bush and Linda Rice going as well as they have ever gone. On the flip side, J. Jerkens and D. Romans. Honorable mention to Pat Kelly (no surprise he is having his best meet in years with that anchor of a Frenchman he has used for years on the injured list).