friedland's faith in his basic assumptions was unshaken. After the wounds inflicted by his turf-racing system had healed, he began exploring a new possibility.

He noticed that horses who came from California to New York in the early spring seemed to run very well. This was no illogical: the quality of racing on the West Coast during the winter is very high, and horses who come East are taking a drop in class. Friedland punged into research on the performance of these shippers and found that, indeed, a system centered on California shippers did work.

Friedland made money with his new system in 1977 and 1978 and looked forward to the 1979 season with intense excitement. "Around February 1 I started getting very introspective, very withdrawn," he said "It washit another system play at 30 to 1, and he was rolling.

By the time the California horses had stopped arriving in New York, Friedland had amassed a solid profit. He was already looking forward to 1980 and thinking that maybe, with this system, there would be no repeat of his 1975 debacle. Maybe, this time, he had truly found The Answer.