1-- On Eight Belles, I would refer everyone back to my comments about her in the seminar BEFORE the race. For those of you who were not around many years ago (pre-website and pre-computerized sheets), I said something virtually identical in my comments about Go For Wand before the B.C.
The other thing I said I might talk about I think I have to sit on, at least in terms of specifics. In general terms-- we bred a Graph Racing mare (Pinata) to Unbridled\'s Song, Eight Belles\' sire, so we had a stake in her future. Back in March, I sent an e-mail to someone in the industry (not Porter or Jones) saying that if they trained her up to the Oaks she was even money to win it, or even money to hit the board in the Derby, but if they kept running her every 3 weeks they were looking for trouble.
A guy from the WSJ called me today and interviewed me at length about EB and various aspects of the industry. I was my usual quote-machine self, though I didn\'t let him get me to use words like \"greed\" when describing why some things take place in this game. Still, he\'s probably going to sensationalize it. Oh well, what\'s a few more enemies in this industry.
2-- Miff-- don\'t have trackman work yet, but if the wind was as strong (24mph) as they reported on TV and in their faces leaving the Derby gate, it would slow down the time for that race significantly (they run through the stretch twice), and speed up the times for the one turn races significantly, especially for the ones longer than 6f. This is going to come up a very big figure-- On Beyer it would be about neg 2 TG, before adjusting for ground.
3-- 10 years ago I got one of the best compliments of my life. Alan Shuback (foreign correspondent for DRF) was one of the people who was in our group the day VG won the Belmont, and still with us around midnight at a watering hole in Soho. He said \"You\'re exactly the same guy you were at 3:00 this afternoon\".
Jellish, my hat is off to you. You called your shot in detail beforehand, you crushed the race, and you acted like a mensch here afterward. Congratulations. Others should take note.
