David,

I'm busy today and I would rather stick with the nine Belmont races we agreed to. I see three races to play, maybe.

The quality of the card betting-wise is entirely irrelevant for the purposes of this contest. What you and Mall are talking about is 'value', and since you get the same points for 2-1 that you do for 20-1, this 'value' factor has been effectively eliminated. Even exotic scores (if you picked the cold tri) are unrewarded, as a cold tri (35 pts.) doesn't get you much in relation to a winner (20 pts.). You can't pass races and payoffs are meaningless. This format is not designed to reward betting opportunities, so there's no real reason to seek them out or place any emphasis on them. Nine races is plenty to settle this one. HP