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Old 08-21-2007, 11:33 AM
ArlJim78 ArlJim78 is offline
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,549
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DaHoss9698
I don't know how else I can say I am not talking about wagering. The race was a joke. I don't really know how else to explain it other than say if there was no poly. If I told you Student Council won the Pacific Classic you would tell me I am nuts.
Well he did, strictly because of the poly. Also, since he had never really showed a fondness for the poly, it just doesn't make sense. I know, Jerry Brown liked him, blah blah. Maybe I am a bit of a traditionalist but it has ruined racing out west for me. And this is not me being sour because I lost. I made one bet at Del Mar yesterday, a turf race. I won't tell you if I hit it or not, because I wouldn't want to be a dreaded redboarder. You like it, because you have had some success on it. I tend to think your opinion might be different if you didn't. We saw how quick Titan's changed.
Student Council didn't win strictly because of the poly. You're a good handicapper, and by now you surely have seen that he and Awesome Gem had the best TG#'s. Surely you can also recognize that he is impeccably bred for distance and that he was steadily getting better. Is it really such a shock that a horse with that talent and breeding would excel at 10 furlongs against a highly questionable group. Based on your traditionalist viewpoint, who would have been a more deserving winner from that field? Have you never seen upsets on dirt? If they ran the race on dirt and anyone other than Lava Man won, would you be calling that a joke as well? You should because there were no proven horses with classic distance GR1 credentials. Only Lava Man, and his credentials are somewhat suspect for reasons that have been reviewed over and over.

To me the joke is that Student Council was given less respect than horses like AP Xcellent, Big Booster, Albertus Maximus? The other joke is that more people couldn't see the writing on the wall in terms of Lava Man sending him off at even money after having had to gut out a win against AP Xcellent who has absolutely zero GR1 credentials.

I would just suggest that you might want to be a little more open minded and view the result in a context that is not so heavily colored by the surface. I think the surface effected the final time and little else about the outcome other than perhaps some of the margins.
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