I don't have any data to back this up, but my best guess as to why the foreign horses have trouble in the Derby would be the # of prep races and the spacing of those.

The lightly raced 3yo's as well as the ones coming into the Derby off a layoff just don't do as well as the other horses.

I'll say this though... It would certainly make things A LOT more interesting if a couple foreign horses DID win, and then each year 6 or 7 would start showing up.

It would be really neat if some of the U.S.-based 3yo's would cross the pond for the grass races in Europe. Then TG could perhaps have enough information to start making figures for the major foreign tracks on a daily basis. I think it would be both entertaining and profitable to look into full card simulcasting for a few foreign tracks each day. I imagine that some service will offer something like that in the near future...

As for Dr. Fager, my dad was at AP and bet him on the 1:32 day. There's a lot of cool info. on him at:

http://horseracing.about.com/library/bldrfager.htm

Like:

"Dr. Fager started 22 times, finishing first 19 times. Only three horses ever finished in front of the good doctor: Champion juvenile Successor; Horse of the Year Damascus; and Horse of the Year Buckpasser."

Steve - congratulation on your contest/tournament success. When I lived out there, my dad and I won the "Stardust Derby." The other person who was alive going into the last leg of the contest was the race/sports book manager at the Frontier. Fastness beat Tychonic (or some name close to that) in a turf stake from SoCal. What's funny is, I think it was 2 weeks later, we made it to the final leg again. Our horse had a 5L lead in the stretch, but got nipped right on the wire by the other horse in the head-to-head matchup.

The guy "Walker" who now works at Caesar's used to frequently offer head-to-head matchups for the big races on the weekends. I saw a special on HBO about the Super Bowl, and he was one of the people they interviewed, so that brought back memories...

** Sorry for rambling. lol But nothing compares to racing. It's the best sport, the best game, and hopefully more often than not, a solid investment opportunity.



24/M/IN... Anyone is welcome to e-mail me at racing@flashmail.com.