Guest Post: Toga Party IV Winner - The Space Gal

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Sometimes a blind squirrel finds a nut. Sometimes you step in the mud and pull out a twenty dollar bill. Sometimes lucky is good. Sometimes you smile and nod. This is one of those times.

As promised in yesterday's announcement of the Toga Party IV winner, in exchange for passing up the grand prize, she elected to write a guest post summing up the victory and how she trounced yours truly and all of her contest secrets.

I've let her have the helm just once before and she did not disappoint....back in June 2008, when we had a brush with a certain prince in Saratoga.

Kudos to the Space Gal.  Not only did she defeat me, but 10 other bloggers, two handicappers from Buffalo and Albany, one horseplayer from Syracuse, one NYRA television personality, one horseman and my brother. Not too shabby.

Here is her guest post (and no that's not her real hair).....

Winner!  This is a yearly contest, right?  That means I get to gloat that I beat my husband for an entire YEAR??   My husband who sits for hours in the man cave watching every track in the country on the weekends?  My husband who has attended all of the major East Coast races for the last how many years?  My husband who gets paid to write racing columns and handicaps for the local paper?  That guy?  I beat him and I get to brag about it for an entire year?  Wooooooo hoooooo!!!

I guess all of my preparation and hard work really paid off.  And because I’m pretty much an open book, I’m willing to share all of my secrets.  I know I should be saving them for my book “The Space Gal’s Guide to Handicapping,” but I still have some more tricks up my sleeve that I’m saving for that New York Times Best Seller.

So here’s how I did it.  I googled last year’s statistics… and then picked numbers close to that.  Basically, I was under the gun, had NO idea what even the ballpark answers were and didn’t want to make a fool out of myself.  I mean, opening day attendance??  I have no idea!  Guess, guess and guess again.

Todd Pletcher is my not-so-secret trainer crush so of course I picked him for Leading Trainer.  Johnny V was nice to me at the Permanently Disabled Jockey Fund calendar signing on Belmont Stakes Day, so I picked him for Leading Jockey.  I picked “Tizway” because I like going to the restaurant “Tiznow” in Saratoga.  And “Stay Thirsty” who gave me 2 points, I picked him because I remember my husband talking about him a lot.  I thought maybe he had won a time or two in the past.

 

There you have it.  That’s it.  That’s my BIG strategy.  Now you know my secrets.  I should probably add that I do know how to read the Form.  But now that I have two Space Munchkins, I just don’t have the time to read it like I used to.  Plus, I never won anyway.  So, I’d like to accept this first prize on behalf of Google and Todd Pletcher’s hair.  Without them, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to tease my husband relentlessly for an entire year.  Thank you.

[Editor's Note: We'll get back to the regularly scheduled blog in a few days, once I get over this.]