First of all, we send you best wishes for a happy holiday season, no matter what holiday you celebrate. Secondly, this is our last column of the year—we will be on hiatus next week and will return the first weekend of 2009, hopefully with a clearer set of brains. Thirdly, we do not wish to discuss last week’s Pix—we went screaming into the night as well as many of you. There was something good about last week’s card, though—four winners were on it, including a stone cold Trifecta at Aqueduct. This week’s card is a little thin and likely to be hampered by weather, but we found one potential nugget, see below. So, there is always hope—-sign up for DRF-Plus and get the card on the front page of . Remember, there’s a new look to our sheets for the sales of 2008—we have added SURFACE as a new category to tell you whether the horse breezed on a dirt (D) or synthetic (S) track. There are four (S) sales this year—OBSFEB, OBSMAR, OBSAPR and KEEAPR; and three D sales—FTFFEB, BARMAR and EASMAY. Just to add some more insight to your handicapping. Also, our rules still hold about BreezeFigs “qualified” runners: You can get a good idea of what “qualified” BreezeFigs horses are by clicking on BreezeFigs Information underneath the two BreezeFigs links in the DRF PLUS box in the right hand column on the home page and downloading files there. Remember, keep stride length (SL) in mind when handicapping from the BreezeFigs sheet and take advantage of all the tips that we provide on those sheets as well. Also, refer to a study we did which shows that using BreezeFigs for 3-year-old maiden races in just as viable as using them for 2-year-old maiden races. Go to the DRF PLUS box on the . If you’d like to learn a little more about how we come up with BreezeFigs, take a look at our new website by clicking here: . There’s just one race this week with some potential in terms of first-time BreezeFigs starters. Good luck! Hollywood, , Maiden Special Weight, 6 Furlongs (Synthetic) This is not going to be an easy race—there are plenty of first-time homebreds in here with very top class pedigrees, so the lone BreezeFigs horse is going to have his work cut out for him. That would be Downtown Banker, who had a very respectable one-over-Par, Group 2 profile at OBSAPR with a SL that was just about on average for colts that day on the synthetic surface. However, he never made it to the sales ring, having been scratched (SCR) after his breeze, so something could have gone amiss. He is strictly a gimmick play but he likely to be a very long price—if he scores out, buy someone you love a nice present! Once again, good luck and have a great holiday season!