Report From The Contest Front.

[Mall]

NCTony won day money & is in 1st place by $7 after day 1 of the Col contest, derby1592 came within a hair--again-- of qualifying for the AmTab Open, & I\'m guessing that even if they had the usual 3500 or more entered, 4 of 8 has at least a decent chance of getting me to the brisnet contest in Dec., where 7 World Series spots are up for grabs. If you aren\'t following my advice & are relaxing & reading this instead, congrats again Tony. Now get back to work so you\'re ready to close this out tomorrow.        

[NoCarolinaTony]

Mall,

I am working at this real hard but needed a mental break. Thanks for the advice.

It was a chalkie kind a day and had to pick  your spots. We plan to come out firing tomorrow. any advice from the board on Race 2 @ CNL is welcomed.

We also had super in Race 9 at ARL plus Win Plus Exacta BIG...Great Day all around!!!

NC Tony

[Michael D.]

way to go tony!!!!! i looked at the card, and i saw nothing (and i have been a negative indicator this week). good luck!!

[NoCarolinaTony]

Well you live and you learn. One day you can\'t do anything wrong, the next day nothing makes any sense. Still had day 1 victory and only two winners on Day 2. Early on the first three winners were long shots that didn\'t make sense (like a 14-1 shot which was coming out of 6500 clm in 6 horse feild beating allownace Co) but some people had cause the needed the number to get into it. The last 3 out of four races wer such short fields with very logical horses at very short prices you couldn\'t gain ground. The last race offered no value. Anyway, we finishded top 20 in first tournament with day one top spot and day money so it wasn\'t all bad. Want to thank Mall for his support and TG for the numbers being posted so early. Nice to meet Bill as well.

TGJB thanks for the HAT!!

Might make a day trip to SPA on Friday and will be there last week of meet.
Hope to see you there.

Regards,
NC Tony

[TGJB]

The guy who took the toughest beat in the contest was a certain TG customer who was leading when he went to saddle a horse in one of the races. As I understand it, he wasn\'t allowed to bet it because he trained it, other people did, it payed $30, he was in 14th place after the race.

Tony, I won\'t be there this weekend, but I will be there Labor Day weekend. See you then.

[Mall]

As often as not, what happens in contests at the smaller venues has a distinct \"make it up as we go along\" feel, kind of like the inconsistent & inexplicable decisions of the stewards at Dmr this meet.  This contest consisted of 8 of the 10 live races at Col, & because he was a trainer, the guy you\'re talking about was prohibited from making plays in two of those races, so in his case, & his case only, they decided he had to make plays on the other two live races Sun. Like the opener at the Spa Wed, both featured full fields & were 2 plus miles over the fences. Just the kind of ruling which can all but eliminate one\'s chances & simultaneously produce an immediate, intense, & long lasting migraine headache. I\'m sure he understands why he couldn\'t play the races in question, but I\'d guess that he might be wondering why they didn\'t substitute two comparable flat races from other tracks.      

[Labeebmile]

Tony...I thought that the horse that won the race in question was almost as fast as the other runners, but when taking into account the 2 points it was getting with buggirl Napravnik he looked as fast if not faster than the others in the race. Combined with the price it was a good thing.

Mall...I agree that the contest was run by the seat of the pants. When I asked the press box rep why we weren\'t playing the full cards each day, I was told that the first race of each day was being taken out due to traffic on 64. Then the powers that be at Colonial decided they can handicap the races and deemed the 7th race on Saturday as a race not to use because the favorite looked so strong. It was a very bettable race, with Toccoa being an easy choice. So then it was decided that for some reason that they had to have an even amount of races in each day, so the second hurdle race on Sunday was taken out of the contest.

Even with these things going on at Colonial, I still had a good but expensive weekend. I only had the winner of the first race on day one before being whitewashed the rest of the day. Luckily I managed to catch the two early prices on Sunday, but then caught little else to finish in the top 25. Hopefully we\'ll have a strong contingent at Monmouth in a few weeks. Now I just need to get me one of those hats...

[TGJB]

You definitely have a hat coming. If you will be at Saratoga, Bill will give you one there, otherwise we\'ll have to get you one at one of the contests, or some other way. Bill had a bunch at Delaware, but he left before I met you.