You took your handicapping scalpel and produced an exploratory incision into the patient that is Hystericalady. How else to find out what caused her badly timed episode of sleepwalking during the running of the Santa Monica Handicap? I applaud your keen observation that one synthetic surface "doth not necessarily honor" the constitution (or Newtonian laws) of another synthetic surface. After all, we have seen the opposing faces of the Hollywood Cushion Track and its evil twin, the notorious Santa Anita Cushion Track. The Santa Anita Cushion Track is more alarming and unsettling than Mr. Spock with a goatee, grinning from pointed ear to pointed ear.

I have my own theory, and it doesn't involve evil twins. It involves basic mathematical statistics. In the statistical universe, an overabundance of "variance" produces aberrant (unexplained) behavior. This happens in any statistical model, whether it be a presidential primary or a thoroughbred horse race. And Hystericalady swallowed a triple dose of variance. First, she had only one prior race over the Santa Anita Cushion Track surface, on October 7 of last year, and it can be argued it was on an altogether different surface than the abomination that serves as a racetrack today. Secondly, the October 7 race was run over a longer distance (1 1/16 miles), in fact some 21% longer than the 7 panels of the Santa Monica. And as it turned out, Overly Tempting made things worse by setting a nearly uncontested pace in the Santa Monica. Thirdly, there is the 98 day layoff for Hystericalady coming into the Santa Monica. Anything approaching 100 days or more introduces question marks, or variance, into the interpretation of a horse's race readiness. Even the trainer may not have a clue! And if you want a fourth reason, it is the co-existence (or "covariance") of all these issues happening at once. It's a bit of a witch's brew, and it's a concoction designed to choke the life out of dedicated "bridge-jumpers."

Still, all in all, Hystericalady should have won, and she should have been a near certainty to finish third or better. Personally, I enjoy these weird occurrences. It stimulates the old gray matter, and mine needs a lot of stimulation these days.