Back from a weekend away from the office (and a computer), to find Lucy/Soup/Raggie Dave in full spin mode, and lots of stuff flying around the Rag board. I\'m going to be catching up today so I may not have time to get into everything (and this weekend was loaded, you guys have no idea unless you looked at both sets of sheets for the Haskell), but I\'ll try to get to it all before I head up to Saratoga later this week.
1-- To Indulto-- yes, it\'s that George White, and the reason we didn\'t make a big deal about it before is that GW didn\'t want me to. Given what followed his post, you might guess why, especially since (as he said) he doesn\'t think I should get as involved as I do with combatting the garbage. But even saintly George has been driven to distraction by what he has seen, and felt compelled to reply.
So Indulto (and others), you are having a hard time reconciling George\'s long time affiliation with us with the image you have of us. Check your premises.
2-- We have made it clear before, and Jimbo had it right-- the ROTW is a device with which to teach people to use the data, all of it, and at this point there is so much that it is intimidating to newcomers, which we are going to have to address. As such, we don\'t make picks in ROTW-- but we do in the analysis for the race which is the ROTW. Actual picks, that can be determined to have won or lost. For example-- in the Diana I didn\'t like the favorites. I don\'t remember my play, but it lost-- down one unit. In the Whitney, I gave out a 4 horse box that ran 1-2-3-5. I didn\'t specify which pools to go into (different players have different resources), but if you played $2 exactas, tris, and supers it cost you $120 (24+48+48), and you got back $603 (78+525), a return of 4-1. Plus 4 units-- see how simple that is? And by the way, we gave out specific plays that gave us the exacta in the Jim Dandy exacta on a 2 horse box (9/2 return), and the Haskell tri on a pretty tight play (win bet on Pies Prospect, exacta under LH, tri part wheel LH/3 horses/PP-- return depends on how you weighted it, but I got about 8-1).
Now, LF did have the Whitney winner on top. But here\'s the question, which I have raised before-- what was his play? We know he liked the horse at 12-1, but was the horse a win bet (before the fact) at 7-1? This, by the way, is why we give minimum odds requirements for win bets in the analysis. Was his play diluted by exotics? Ask yourself this-- if Seattle Fitz had won and RIM run second, would Friedman have been given credit for a hit? In point of fact, given how many horses LF says to use when discussing a race, does anyone think he got 7-1 on this race, or anything like it?
Soup, it is nice of you to bring up the boxing-against-the-favorite thing again, and not just to confirm it was you (since absolutely every other individual who has ever come here gets it, as do you-- but you seem to think the readers here are morons). No, it\'s good because you once again allow me to bring up the race you are referring to, the 02 Derby, one of my favorite memories. That day, in the 20 (?) horse field, I put together a group that made a weighted 7 horse tri and super box, since we didn\'t like the favorites (including Harlan\'s Holiday, Friedman\'s pick in the race). We put in (by memory) $2,600, and took out about $108,000 (a buck on the super which paid 180k for $2, $2 on the 18k tri). Plus an awful lot of units.
If I\'m wrong and you really don\'t understand, see if you can get someone to explain the leverage and thinking behind that play and the one in the Whitney. If you still don\'t get it, I suggest you stop playing horses.
Anyway-- you said you were going to check out the Haskell in ROTW. Hope you liked it. More to follow on that beauty later.
