Trainer Quotes from Monday's action

Originally Posted by MisterB

I wouldn't talk to anyone about my horse. The public has no clue what it takes to train one, and I am not in the mood to school them. I would probrably say, go buy one, get a trainers licence, and then come back and see me.
Why is it that Luckas's past assistants still praise the man? Simple, they respect the Hall of Famer


Over $241,000,000 in eranings
Must have done something right

my 2 cents worth which is worth nothing i feel my job is to get the horse to the track in the best condition for that race. it is my jockeys job & responsibility to study the race & to know track conditions.
After the race i will listen to what the jockey has to say & not comment at all to the jockey or tv untill i have had a chance to study the Replay.
There are so many varablies that can happen that it would be impossible to comment & believe me there are times when ive wanted to drag a jock from the horse but sometimes you have to remember we are all human & there is no benifit blasting anything after the race has been run.Best to save it for the Stewards

[packerbacker7964]

Yeah but my god post 9 at Oaklawn Park is not anything close to being as bad as post 14-19 at the Hill in May. Horse plain and simple has had everything his way so far. Show me something in a race where you had to overcome and then we'll talk Mr. Jones.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by pgardn

He had the outside post. Should he have scratched? I watched that race a few times, I would like to know how Hard Spun was supposed to get to the rail before the stretch run in which he was very tired. From my view it would have been very difficult.

Believe me, the pace was so slow in that race, that Hard Spun certainly could have cleared.

To really get an idea of how slow the fractions were, go take a look at Uptothesky's form in race 3. He's basically a slowpoke, coming off of a 7th place finish in a 7.5K N2L life race last out--and a 8th beaten 23 lengths in a 5K N2L life two starts back.

Also, in four of his last five starts, he rated in 4th early on while going a route of ground.

He won wire-to-wire setting faster fractions than the Southwest winner.

Hard Spun had won all four of his prior races in wire-to-wire fashion, and absolutely had the natural speed to get a much better position early on.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Two things
1. Trainers of beaten favorites often need to deflect attention to outside influences to try to distract the owners from firing them and giving the horse to Pletcher or Dutrow (when he returns from Carnivale)
2. I'll bet he wont be signing the same tune if he draws post 1 in his next race.

I hear ya.

However, it's so refreshing when a trainer is a straight shooter, and takes responsibility for a decisive tactical mistake that leads to a loss.

An example, with Rick Violette, who's 3-year-old filly Dream Rush lost an ALW race at 3/10 odds in late Jan. Violette took full blame for the loss, rightly saying his instructions "handcuffed" Bejarano and cost him the race.

Next time out, the Violette filly broke slow, was sent, and went wire-to-wire to an impressive score in the Old Hat Stakes, leaving Dreaming of Anna badly in her wake.

From a bettors standpoint, it gets pretty annoying when you constantly see jockeys and trainers blaming everyone but themselves, for tactical errors they make.

Originally Posted by The Indomitable DrugS

Believe me, the pace was so slow in that race, that Hard Spun certainly could have cleared.

To really get an idea of how slow the fractions were, go take a look at Uptothesky's form in race 3. He's basically a slowpoke, coming off of a 7th place finish in a 7.5K N2L life race last out--and a 8th beaten 23 lengths in a 5K N2L life two starts back.

Also, in four of his last five starts, he rated in 4th early on while going a route of ground.

He won wire-to-wire setting faster fractions than the Southwest winner.

Hard Spun had won all four of his prior races in wire-to-wire fashion, and absolutely had the natural speed to get a much better position early on.

Clearly, you do you homework, Drugs; and always offer support for your position. In most cases, the support is of the general case type.

If you watch the race again, you'll HAVE to notice that the horse breaks slowly AND takes a bad/funky step a few strides after. It takes him a bit to settle in stride. Wouldn't you think that the jock was wise to just let him settle and run on his own
RATHER than pushing him to get the lead before a very short run to the turn?

Throw the race out and, if you like him, give him another chance.

[The Indomitable DrugS]

The Pletcher/Velazquez horse was the one who missed the break.

Hard Spun, from what I could see, was kept quiet in the pre-race, and it was pretty clear that the plan all along was to take him off the pace and to try and drop in.

IMO, his break was consistant with a horse who was being rated from the moment he left the gate.

In fact, I give the Oaklawn Park chart caller credit for picking that up. He has him breaking 6th of 9 in the field...and the comment of Hard Spun's running line starts "taken in hand at the start"

Okay

Let me get to a more serious issue:

what I really find annoying is the lack of consistency between tracks in terms of information presentation.

for example, in most cases, there's no stretch fraction for mile races

OAK is an exception, however.

So I have to add code to cover this for those rare cases when I want to chart a OAK race