I want to commend Jerry on his analysis of RA in the Preakness. I did not see the TG numbers but everyone understood that RA was coming off a very fast figure from which she figured to regress. The main question was how much and would it be enough to cause her to lose or run out of the money. Jerry\'s comments on the board were pretty accurate, including his analysis of her pace abilities. Watching the race it seemed like she could have cleared the field but Borel elected to have her stalk just outside BD and then she made the lead as she pleased.
Based on how the horses came in, beaten lengths and times throughout the day I guestimated that she ran about 3 points slower than on Oaks Day. We\'ll see how the figs come back. If so her pattern is going to look a lot like War Emblem\'s and BB\'s. I made a killing betting against WE in the Belmont and last year failed to do so by not betting against BB -- mainly because I believed my eyes in the Preakness (note to self, never do that again).
I also appreciated Jerry\'s view of why the big efforts cause problems, though I do think that sometimes the effort actually does cause a significant physical issue that is not detected pre-race (thinking Barbaro here).
The list of top horses that went bad after big efforts seems to dwarf the number of horses that just ran consistently good numbers in the normal range. From memory I have Ruffian, Go For Wand, Fusaichi Pegasus, Charismatic, Big Brown, Afleet Alex, Point Given (granted he ran a number of ridiculous numbers but I think his last race was his fastest and he never ran again), Riboletta, the list goes on. It is a game of percentages, not certainties. I\'ll ride the percentages every day.
