What is the point of trying to figure out why the guy is not winning at his normal rate if you are going to exclude a possible reason? Especially when this site's guru has implied that illegal drugs are a factor in the business, whether or not he ever implicated TAP?

Weeks ago Miff made a hard-edged statement about the weakness of racing at Monmouth and Delaware, but now he assures us TAP is a nice guy and his winning in NJ proves the problem in NY has nothing to do with drugs. It has something to do with John Velasquez' personal problems.

Excuse me, but don't you think a trainer at this level would use a different jockey if he was losing repeatedly with a guy who had a short term problem? I'm certain I would change jockeys if that was the cause of the downturn in my fortunes.

For sure, barns have always gone hot and cold. Horses run through their conditions and it's natural to see them run for long periods before the connections drop them into cheap races. In TAP's world, however, that explanation never held up, as he consistently won at historically high percentages.

I don't know why he won out of NY but not in NY this year, but I have assumed it had something to do with a 'chill' placed on his barn by the authorities there. He's sort of stuck, however, since his stock, across the board, can't be pulled out of the NY limelight to conquer second rate tracks. He would have to take the horses to California or Kentucky to attack higher purse levels, but he won't do it as long as those states are doing testing at the levels they have for a few years.

Ask Jeff Mullins why he was dropped from 30+% wins to 10% in SoCal. It's a tough place to cheat.

Unless the Breeders Cup authorities put a killer test operation into place at Monmouth, I think you will see TAP dominate the event, just as he dominated the regular meet there. At least, that's the way I'm betting it this year.