As I looked through the Ragozin B.C. sheets, there were lots of things that I could see were wrong. But the trick is to find ones that you don\'t have to be a figure maker to see-- ones where any common sense at all tells you there\'s a problem. I want to make clear that none of these examples are intended to offer a prediction about what will happen in the B.C.
Shakespeare prepped for the Turf by running in the Turf Classic, a GI for older horses at Belmont. In that race he was wide both turns, and won a photo over English Channel, Ace, etc.
Gun Salute had his prep in the Hawthorne Derby, a GIII for straight 3yos, which drew a 5 horse field. GS went off 1/5, and was life and death to win by a neck over Cosmic Kris, while bearing out twice in the stretch.
On Ragozin \"SHEETS\":
a) Shakespeare earned 4 points the better figure, as he did on Thoro-Graph.
b) Shakespeare and Gun Salute earned the same figure.
c) Gun Salute ran 2 points better than Shakespeare.
Guess what. Ragozin gave Gun Salute a 2 point better figure.
Now, you need to think about this a minute. If Gun Salute had been in the Turf Classic he would have gotten 5 pounds at weight for age, worth another point. So Ragozin is saying that GS would have beaten Shakespeare by 7 lengths (3 points at 1 1/2 miles) in that race, given equal trips. Cosmic Kris would have beaten Shakespeare too, of course, though not by as much, since he was getting weight from GS that day-- he just would have won the Turf Classic by 4 or 5 lengths.
Somebody say Amen!
