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2013 Prognostication Quiz: Question 7, Horses

7. Horses (May 4)

The 139th running of the Kentucky Derby will have America's finest three-year-old thoroughbred horses challenge each other in the annual Race for the Roses. Working from a list of over three hundred aspiring entrants, I have split the horses into approximately equal groups. This takes into account horse naming psychology, which seems to lean toward S names.

What letter will the Kentucky Derby winner's name start with?
a. A or B
b. C or D
c. E, F, or G
d. H, I, J, K, or L
e. M, N, or O
f. P, Q, or R
g. S
h. T, U, V, W, X, Y, or Z

Orb, Goldencents, and Verrazano were the favorites going into the Kentucky Derby. Orb started out near the back of the pack in sloppy track conditions, but came out on top with a time of 2:02.89 to win a purse of $1,414,800. In case you're slow with the math, that's $11,512.73 per second of racing. Golden Soul finished second and Revolutionary came in third. Orb's win means that the answer to Question 7 of the 2013 Prognostication Quiz is E. M, N, or O.

Only three entrants dialed 6 on their touch-tone phones to pick MNO. D and H were the most popular answers, with nine entrants each picking the answers with the most initial letters. Before you claim that human psychology prefers larger lists as answers, though, the third-most popular answer was G, with seven people picking the single initial.

The Web-Slingers
Valerie
Rachel F.
Nadir

13-15. Death

Esther Williams passed away earlier this month. Olympic swimmer turned Hollywood swimming star, American audiences could not get enough of watching Williams underwater in the 1940's and 50's. One answer to Questions 13-15 is therefore T. Esther Williams.

Only one person picked Esther to join the ether this year, and it has an outsized effect on the leaderboard.

The Million-Dollar Mermaids
Liz

Leaderboard

 No one near the top of the leaderboard played the horses correctly. The biggest impact of the answer to Question 7 was Valerie moving up to join the third of the field with two or more points. The four-way tie at the top of the leader board was broken instead by Liz correctly deducing that Esther Williams was probably on her way out this year. That prescience pushes her into sole possession of first place, leaving Larry, Pete C., and Chris M. nipping at her heels, a point back in second place. This is particularly bitter to Chris M., who has been in the lead the whole year, atop the leaderboard from the very first question in this year's Quiz.

4    Liz
3    Larry
3    Pete C.
3    Chris M.
2    Marcus
2    Jan
2    Dave
2    Stephanie
2    Grant
2    Valerie
2    Chris C.
2    Keila
2    Tina
2    Stacey
2    Mary
2    Cameron
2    Katie
1    Jeff
1    Rachel F.
1    Russell
1    Matthew
1    Janet
1    Ron
1    Ellen
1    Ben
1    Todd
1    Peter B.
1    Adrian
1    Zhiqi
1    Sarah M.
1    Collette
1    Eric
1    Nadir
1    Gloria
1    Leanne
1    Paul
1    Michael
1    Melissa
1    Miriam
1    Ekrem
0    Sarah T.
0    Ryan C.
0    Megan
0    Ryan M.
0    Rachel H.

The race to the bottom is shaping up, now that perennial last-place contender Nadir guessed the Kentucky Derby correctly to score a point and move out of the cellar. That leaves one-ninth of the field on the bottom, with Rachel H. at the nadir (Hah hah. See what I did there?) due to her market pessimism in what has been a great year for stocks. Sarah T., Megan, Rachel H., and the two Ryans had better step it up, or they're up for an embarrassment that they will never live down. (I should know: people stop me on the street every day to ridicule me for finishing last in the inaugural Prognostication Quiz in 2008.)

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