A deep thinker on the Rag site posted today that the subsequent figures Congaree has run have indicated the 01 Wood figure we assigned was wrong. Ragozin gave him a bigger number than we did for that race, and his thinking seems to be that the 18 months and 9 starts (at 3 and 4 no less) where he did NOT return to that figure are not indications Ragozin got it wrong, but that the enormous figures over the last year prove the Wood number.

It would be nice if Friedman posted Congaree's sheet so we could all have an intelligent discussion, but I'm not holding my breath. When the horse made the big jump in the NYRA Mile last fall both Ragozin AND I had the race about 6 points better than his previous best as a 4 year old, and his pattern was MUCH less healthy on Ragozin-- he had never come anywhere near getting back to his 3yo top, and some of his efforts were about 6 points off it (those pesky California route numbers again-- in reality he had 4 efforts as a 4yo within 2 points of his top). We didn't like Congaree that day because there were a lot of faster horses in the race, and if there were Ragozin players who played him that day as the favorite off the Ragozin sheet I will guarantee they weren't playing him to run a new top.

But since we are talking here, I will point out that it has now been three years in a row that the winner of the Classic has looked MUCH better on TG than Rags. This year PP didn't look good enough to bet on the day but could have been used (I did, and took the big price in the futures), and was significantly faster than on Ragozin, where he was an absolute toss. Last year Volponi was a throwout on Ragozin, a definite use on TG, and I and others made a lot of money on the race. The year before I pointed out here BEFORE the race that the biggest difference between the two sets of sheets on the whole card was on Tiznow, although I did not bet the horse.

Anyway, here's Congarees sheet.



TGJB