[pba1817]

Originally Posted by Merlinsky

There's no need to be the Jerry Jones of horse racing, and sometimes I think it's hard to tell which owner's gonna win the Eclipse for Outstanding Trainer in Their Own Mind. If you don't trust your trainer to do the job you want, get a different trainer. I've heard that Barclay Tagg would sooner tell an owner to go jump than put up with that behavior for very long. I think it was some book or article on Funny Cide where he admitted to telling some owner that they'd be better off using a different trainer.

Well, it could be worse. Zayat could be micromanaging Asmussen & Blasi over a horse named Z Nehro, expressing concern about Pimlico's turns vs. Churchill's. (I haven't heard anybody say Pim's turns are tighter yet. It doesn't feel like Preakness time til someone starts swearing up and down that they are.)

I can understand if it's really just an effort to feel useful rather than acting as a silent partner of sorts. The less you're around the horse, the less fun you might feel you're having. Show up, give the horse a snack and pat on the neck (unless your horse is Midnight Interlude, in which case stay a safe distance away), talk to the trainer in person after the work instead of on the phone, then go home. Maybe throw in some thoughts on types of races you'd like to run in so the trainer knows you're more interested in as far as your overall operation's concerned, but you're paying the trainer to condition and point to races, so let them do it. Ask for options where you make the final call if you want, but let them pick the options.

When you are the one signing the checks, you do whatever f*ck you want...