As an infrequent player -- whose home track in Laurel -- who once had good basic handicapping skills but has become dependent on speed figures, I am especially attuned to the TG v. Rags debate down here.

I was not there on Saturday, which I can attest was a crappy, crappy day down here weatherwise. I actually had a track day on Thursday, when, unfortunately, it was all faves.

Anyway, while I'm very much interested in how the debate regarding the two stakes turns out, the element I'm interested in is the following: How would you do the figures if weather cancelations had not placed the two stakes back to back? Let's say the feature were followed by a group of typically unpredictable group of $8,500 NW2L or cheap maiden claimers. Or put two groups of equally difficult to predict groups of crappy Lrl horses back to back on a comparably shifting track.

My guess is that relatively large variances between groups of crappier horses are relatively common. As someone who has to bet on crappy horses, I worry that it is sometimes very difficult to do figures on these animals with much accuracy at all. This is important when trying to determine O2X patterns, explosive horses and particularly when a group of several horses coming out of the same race with shaky figures based on that race are running against others who may or may not emerge from easy or difficult-to-predict races.

Anyway, as someone who very much appreciates TGJB's ability to crush Derby's and Breeders' Cup days, I'd love to hear why you're better that Rags on the average days.

After all, you did start this string.