The hedging continues.

Dude, all I do is take stands. You gotta be kidding me.

Should I call 911 and send the EMTs to your house? Did you fall and hit your head?

Andy, my calls are right there. Are they not good enough for you?

Good of you to just quote the last line. LOL

Did you answer my 85 Beyer question? You are a Beyer shill, would that be acceptable as a come back race for a horse who ran a 110 as a 2 year old?

sorry to go off topic, but Harvey is a great movie.

Now, be careful, you could be treading into meanness territory and away from simple teasing. Am I going to have to send you a threatening PM? I may not be tougher than I look, but.....

To be mildly serious, I don't think you can say in one sentence " the horse is finished " and in the next say " but he may well beat Any Given Saturday ".

I also think getting too caught up in Sheetspeak, without looking at the entire situation, is extremely dangerous.

I'm not a big speed figure adherent. His 108 in the BC is more like a 98 to 100 to me in that he earned it under ideal circumstances. Were he to run poorly at Tampa I would be concerned, if I had some attachment to him ( which I don't ), but Tampa does seem to be a tricky surface...at least that's what a jockey recently told me ( and they are NEVER wrong ).

I honestly don't get too caught up in this Derby/Triple Crown stuff. I want Street Sense to win if only to quell the silly " Juvie-Derby " jinx talk.

I was trying to say the same thing, but the words didn't come to me.
Don't get so hung up on those numbers and theories. Just look at the race. He had a dream trip, things went his way and he won easy. Surely the number was inflated a bit, but to project that he is through? Wathc the horse galloping home, does he look through?

he ran like a horse that has been off..dats it..imo..or maybee he wasnt feeling well..ill make a bet hes not done by any means

I will happily eat crow if I'm wrong. I honestly don't like rooting against horses...But if I'm right, I sure as hell hope I get the same.

You mean like the poster who earlier today was arguing with me about how great Round Pond was?

Seriously, we take our stands at the windows, and take our lumps when we are wrong. The rest is just fun conversation.

OH ok Andy...Apparently our stands and our bets are not correlated in any way. My fault. How silly.

Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't.

Did you book an enormous winter book bet on Street Sense in the Derby?

I sure as hell would have...The people betting him in the KY futures are completely nuts. In the first pool or the second. At underlaid prices no less.

Fine, and I would book everyone in those pools, as I am eager as well to take advantage of takeout. Plus, I realize in a best case scenerio his correct odds are in the neighborhood of 25-1, so I would gladly book him as well.

However, my point is that the REAL name of the game is making money, and while obviously I enjoy the chatter here as much as anyone, I don't see how any of us can expect much if we are " right ". It's the basic argument I have with making picks and not betting. If you don't actually bet you don't know if you could have turned even a good opinion into money.....and if you don't make money you aren't successful in this game.

And, specifically in this argument, I disagree with the PREMISE for your position. I do agree with you that he is less likely to win the Derby than probably 99% of others think. However, simply saying you think his career is basically over because he ran a negative number on the Thoroughgraph sheets, as a 2YO, to me borders on lunacy. Certainly you know a GREAT deal more about the game than that, and have proven it, and in all honesty, IMO, are not giving YOURSELF enough credit in furthering such opinion.

He's not likely to win this upcoming weekend. If he's beaten a couple a lengths and closes well, then it'll be a good race for him. The connections aren't trying to win this race, Any Given Saturday is the most likely winner. I thought thoses ouchy works the past couple of weeks were impressive. Maybe the connections wanted to make sure the horse was ready to take on the rigors of the triple crown so they gave him plenty of time for his 3yo debut versus running him in the holy bull or fountain of youth and finding out that he's suffered an injury.

Andy, again, I am a historian. I know what history says about numbers like that. I'm not going with a gut feeling here...And yes money is the name of the game. And trust me, I bet plenty when I have an opinion. I completely agree that picking races without betting on them makes no sense....But betting against a horse like Street Sense for the rest of his career will make you money...Playing against SNS in that GP race was the right thing to do. Leaving him out of every trifecta was the right thing to do....Did I win on the race? Nope, had the tri wrong...But it doesn't change the fact that when you take stands, the money has a higher likelihood of coming your way.

I know you bet and was in no way trying to imply you don't. I'm more just saying you shouldn't expect to gain " internet-cred " and accolades because you make a smart prediction here.

Hell, some dude started a thread here once asking my opinion on a random 9th race at Aqueduct, and after giving the three horses out who combined for an $800 trifecta I got " I wish you had said beforehand you really liked the one who won " and a post somewhere much later acting as though I took credit for a winner I didn't have.

So, sorry if I don't think you should be surprised if people don't congratulate you on your brilliance should your Street Sense predictions come to fruition.

More importantly, for anyone who has all the HBOs, " Mean Streets "....one of the all-time must see movies, is just starting on one of the channels. No movie from the last 40 years has been more copied than this one.

" What's a mook? ".

here's where your wrong. I don't want internet cred...Which is why 90% of this board has no idea how I've done in the past....But I hate the fact that if Street Sense becomes Secretariat, I will take s.hit the rest of my life---but if it works the other way---whatever-- according to you. To me, that's unequal....But that's reality I guess which I'm fine with.

Excellent point.

Eric

This is the internet...and you asked for it. You're smart enough to know that. You are getting very little credit if you are right but quite a bit more crap if you are wrong. Not saying it's fair....but it is what it is.

Hell, I've had people at Saratoga ask me if I ever have a winner....after giving out some good picks. It goes with the territory. Like everything else in life, you better find self satisfaction.

Agreed. Don't get me wrong, I respect people taking a stand. I think most of us do -- regardless of the outcome. The after dinner speakers and bashers aside of course.

If the horse is done, I think that's pretty clear. Unless someone wants to predict that he wins next weekend and is retired after the race, LOL.

Eric

You can "count" self satisfaction. I understand the concept.

Andy you can have a drink from the bottle that Grits is giving me in Toga...I promise no arsenic in it.

You should be watching " Mean Streets ".

My fantasy baseball draft is right now, I should be paying attention to that. I just drafted Cory Lidle after taking Daryl Kile earlier.

How will you make money betting against him? Removing one horse from the equation doesn't guarantee big paydays. If you don't get the rest of it right you may make nothing even if you were correct on Street Sense. Also if you are correct and he never comes close to that level again, the public will make corrections and the value of your opinion will get diluted over time.

The time to strike will be right away, his next race. Will you be going all in on Any Given Saturday? I'm curious how you're going to clean up on this "stand".

Jim, is that the same public that made Wilko 3-1 today? They don't change their minds, they are lemmings...And this is a value game. Take shots at faves or go home is my motto.

Wilco was the second favorite in a small field. His odds weren't that much different than several of the other lesser threats. I left him out of my pick three and was delighted that the four beat the seven.

Like I said, eliminating a horse helps, but you still must figure out who to wager on.

I wish there was a " public " these days....and I wish whoever they are were lemmings. Unfortunately, the pools are pretty fair, and the opportunities, the real opportunities, are far from easy to find.

That being said....WILKO was 3-1? Did John Candlin have an entry in the race?

aint that the truth....what is the % of the pool that is the public, 10%?

i like him to beat any given saturday off the layoff, so you keep saying he's finished and maybe i can get a decent price

But isnt that how it is almost every year. All you hear is "Oh this year is very average" but your right the Juvy is looking very strong. Now lets hope SS can keep it going. Couldnt find better connections that with that horse.

(I wrote a response here before reading the rest of the thread. What I'd written had been well-covered by other posters, so I deleted it.)

--Dunbar

It's ridiculous how awful Wilko looked. I know he's never been a world beater, but heavens...

still would have liked to have read your take on it. It's not like we never have redundancy around here.:)

When you say he looked awful, do you mean his appearance on the track or how he ran? I didn't get a look at him in the post parade but his effort looked normal to me and pretty much exactly what one would expect.