I will never support anything Lukas does after going wild that poor horse deserved better after the KY derby.

The Big Horse
 

I read ,The Big Horse , a couple of years ago about the trainer PG Johnson. It was about Volponi. I seem to recall a similar take on Lukas in this book, on working both sides in buying horses. It didnot paint him in a very complimentary light. Sorry, I can't provide a page number for you to look it up.

I am gonna get that book

Thats allright you have no idea if i have taken, passed or scored on the GRE test but i am sure you already know.:D cause your the smart one here

Once again this is a freedom of speech and you bother me i didn't tell you write back on what i posted you took that upon yourself cause you talk to Lukas and all, you can use the PM all you want buddy but keep my name out your dental!

OK see ya!!!:D


LUKAS stole PADUA'S $ IMO

We've debated about Lukas many times on this board. The fans have a totally different perception of Lukas than anyone in the business. The fan see him smiling on television and they know he won all these big races. That's about all they know. They don't know that he's broken down so many horses that many of the insurance companies will not insure his horses.

I don't know one person in the business that thinks Lukas is a good trainer. He had about a 4 year head-start on everyone in terms of pharmocology back in the 1980s. He would put his horses on steroids when they were yearlings. His 2 year olds were like 3 year olds in terms of physical maturity. That's why Lukas was so dominant in the 2 year old races. Lukas always had great assistants. He was a great salesman. He knew how to talk to people and not only that he was having huge success. Before you knew it, he was getting $70 million worth of horses every year while the other top trainers were lucky to get $10 million. Many good trainers were lucky to get $3 million worth of horses. Anyway, before you knew it all the other trainers were doing the same thing as Lukas in terms of steroids and all the other stuff. He still had a huge advantage because he had such good owners. At that point he was still outspending most trainers by 30x. Anyway, everything eventually caught up with him. He still gets great horses but obviously not as good as he used to. He still gets better horses than 99% of the guys out there, yet his win percentage is usually around 10%. I think the guy is a horrible trainer. I know that sounds crazy to people who aren't in the business. They can't belive that a guy who had that much success is not a good trainer. You don't need to take my word for it. Ask anyone in the business what the lowdown is on Lukas. They'll all tell you the same thing. If you even mention his names, most guys will just roll their eyes.

To this day everyone just shakes their heads in the morning when they see his horses train. His horses are so sore that it is unbelievable.

Finally someone who knows lukas is a bussness man and not a horseman!
You da man!:D

Even his own employees think he's a terrible trainer. I've heard so many stories about them being happy when he leaves town because they can finally give the horses a break. They'll just jog them or pony them for a few days while he's gone and Lukas thinks their following his instructions. When he's in town, he won't listen to his employees. They'll tell him a horse is sore, or has tendon, or whatever and Lukas won't listen. He'll say, "Oh the horse is fine. He's not sore. That's just the way he moves. Go gallop him two miles". Or if the horse has a tendon, "He'll say, "No, he doesn't have a tendon. That's just a cosmetic thing. Go work him 5 furlongs."

Thats a champion trainer for ya Da Hoss:D

In terms of percentages, his number of breakdowns is astronomically higher than any of the other guys. That's why so many insurance companies won't insure his horses. No other trainers have that problem.

In addition, he has more horses that ease than anybody else. They keep stats on that type of thing and he had something like 4x more horses ease than the average trainer. That is incredible. How often do you see a Bobby Frankel, Todd Pletcher, Bill Mott, or any other trainer's horses run dead last by 30 or not even finish the race? It is incredibly rare. The only way a horse will run dead last by 40 lengths is if the horse was either so sore that he shouldn't be running or he was so hopelessly overmatched that it is was ridiculous. A competent trainer will rarely have a horse ease. It happens with Lukas horses all the time.

Trust me. He is at a totally differen level. I've honestly never seen anything like it. Nobody even comes close to him. His horses just hobble around the track in the morning. There is no trainer out there with horses that sore.

I'll tell you one thing that hurt Lukas quite a bit. His son was actually a great trainer and his son would run his whole East coast operation at times. Anyway, his son had a terrible accident and had to retire. I think that certainly had an effect. When you lose a great assistant, it hurts. Wayne was always an excellent judge of talent when it came to not only hiring assistants, but picking horses out to buy. When you have great assistants, it make a huge difference. Even back in the day, his assistants oftet times would not listen to him if he was out of town. They would back off the horses when Wayne went out of town.

We can say what we want about Wayne, but I have to hand it to him for what he was able to accomplish. He was way ahead of his time.

Rupert you are one of the few people that actually know some good insite, i will listen to what you have to say from now on!