CC

I definitely agree with your second to last paragraph above.

Regarding your post on another thread about Frankel and the BC. Speaking only of this year's BC, the brief analysis I provided in that string showed how his BC horses ran relative to their tops rather than relative to the competition. I don't quite see how the way they were spotted could explain that result.

Also, note that I used last 90 day stats only. During those last 90 days, Frankel horses only won about 21% of their races. Given this stat and the fact that most Frankel horses are entered in graded stakes makes it pretty clear that his horses might have be well spotted recently but they were definitely not walking over the competition. Also note that most of the Frankel horses that Ran X's on BC day were favorties(Sightseek, Peace Rules, Aldebaran, Tates Creek) so it is hard to argue that they were in over their heads.

In my mind, it is pretty clear that something was "different" on BC day with the Frankel horses. You have to figure that competition, surface, distance, racing luck, etc. all came into play in the previous 90 days in pretty much the same degree as on BC day. The only novel apparent "cause" of the change is the increased drug testing and security for the BC. Obviously, this is a limited amount of data and just a hypothesis. It may in fact have simply been a random bad day for the Frankel barn or their may be some other root cause but the existing evidence sure seems to point in one direction.

It will be interesting to see how Frankel horses do in graded stakes in FY04 (the new extensive testing is supposed to be done in all graded stakes in FY04). Can he continue his dominance or will he become just another good trainer?

Of course, the chemists usually manage to stay one step ahead of the testers but the chemists may have to play catchup now at least for a while...

Cheers.

Chris