You forgot about my Charles Town story from this fall. Also, I still say I deserve mad props for correctly tabbing Zanjero as a Grade I-caliber horse, even though injury and poor timing cost him his Grade I.

Think of how long it took Van Gogh.





























Now THAT'S a bad analogy.

I dunno, he seems like the kinda weirdo who'd lop off an appendage and give it to some whore.

I prefer to be judged on my blogging, Tweeting, and Facebook posting rather than my body of work here on DT (which has admittedly been sub-par).

You used your experiences here to eventually hone your social networking skills?

Yes, in a manner of speaking. I am FB friends with Doug, and other DTers, for example. And, you might like to know, I seldom use analogies on FB or Twitter. Mainly because I am afraid they will be ripped apart by you.

This is purely an opinion question....but if Dominguez went to FLorida for the winter how do you think he would do?

I think he would do very well. I don't know if he'd dominate like he does in NY, but he'd be in the top 2 or 3 riders. Which is why it's disappointing that he doesn't go.

With the exception of Leparoux, he basically dominates the rest of the Florida colony the other 9 months of the year. I just don't see it as a big deal that he stays in NY instead of mixing it up with Manny Cruz and Ariel Smith.

Are those really the guys who are successful there? C'mon dude, for whatever reason, he's taking the easy road for three months, just like he did in Delaware for a number of years. The point isn't that he's not a good rider, it's that it's disappointing at this stage in his career he still essentially rides in the minor leagues for a quarter of the year.

I don't see it as disappointing. I don't really agree it's the easy road either. Sure the competition is easier, but he schools the competition he would see in Florida the other 9 months of the year. I think it's more difficult on the body to ride in NY through the winter than it is in Florida and the purses are pretty much the same at this point.

It's absolutely the easy road. His competition for mounts would be much stiffer in FL than it is in NY. And I'm sure getting every live mount and winning at 35% helps warm his cold bruises.

You're acting like he's riding at Finger Lakes, when everyone else is at Belmont. In reality he would do the same thing in Florida that he did at Delaware and now NY, which is to dominate.

If he was a top ten rider during the year, that dominates the inner because everyone is away, I could see your point. But he dominates the same riders that are in Florida the other 9 months out of the year.

What is being ignored here is how Ramon rides. While it can be fairly argued that there are better finishers in the game, nobody is more prepared, and subsequently, nobody rides as well tactically as Ramon.

Honestly, the rest of the supposed argument is simply BS. He has won repeated riding titles against the best group of riders in the country on the biggest stage. He doesn't need the titles to prove anything anymore. His day to day riding and professionalism is always on display. Because some choose to ignore it doesn't change it.

I haven't been following racing as long as many on this board but if you go to pg. 124 of the media guide on NYRA.com and see the individual standings from each 2009 meet there has not been that kind of domination by a rider in the last 15 years. The years where Coa, JV, Garcia, and Chavez won the yearly title they did not have meets where they dominated like Dominguez did in 2009.

Whether he goes to Fla or not really doesn't mean a thing to me. It's a choice he makes to stay in NY and I'm sure it has nothing to do with being afraid of going to GP. If that was the case then why would he not run away from Saratoga as well? It certainly can't be because he is afraid that Castellano, Johnny V., Paco Lopez or Lezcano are going to be too tough for him.

If Ramon went to Florida instead of staying in NY, some other top jock would slip in and take his place. Then we'd be suffering through more poorly delivered Kobe analogies about Edgar or Eibar or someone.

Edgar?

Bergen.