I sure as hell wouldn't argue to hard that TGJB's judgment about the Kentucky Derby is poorer than mine, by all means it's probably superior to mine, I just thought it could be worthy of exploration if something could be just a notch off here, and I'm leaning towards that it might be the Dubai # that could be a point or two too slow. You said it yourself, the day will come when you might have to consider those foreigners in the KD but the evidence is not there yet, nor will it ever be if one is not willing to even consider the possibility that they may be coming closer. If Mubtaahjid actually did run a # closer to 1 than to 3 in Dubai, that might be an evidence that they're getting there. It's a hard ask to any horse, and specially a 3yo, to ship to another continent to face the best horses on their best surface in the toughest races to perform well, and doing that without lasix, and in either case one would have to say that Mubtaahij ran very well regarding all this.
However, isn't it fair to assume that he might have liked it a bit better in Dubai? So if in fact the dubai # was a bit too slow, as you say they have changed the surface back to dirt again, that would have implications for the figures for all the horses that he faced that day also, which again could have implications for all the figures given to Dubai-runners later on. Don't ever think that I do not believe that TGJB and his associates hasn't thought long and hard about these questions, I'm sure they have, but still this is not an exact science and it could be very hard to spot these trends with TG's methods (which by my understanding is the best methods by far) if you're not keeping an open mind about issues like these (after all it must be a much tougher job to make ratings in Dubai, than it is in America where one knows a lot about all the horses and their performances going a long way back). Specially because in those cases where one have American figures running in the Dubai it's all reversed, then it is the American runners that don't have lasix anymore and that have shipped all around the world, to another surface, another culture etc; then they are the one that are at disadvantage. Then they are the ones more unlikely to run to their true capabilities.
So for me, it's just an interesting discussion. If that is not welcome here, I will be happy to stay quiet and never question the figures ever again, and I would still be buying them because as far as I'm concerned they are much the best available when betting horses in USA.
Pete
