Today at Big A

[moosepalm]

Or there\'s this:

\"Here comes the blind commissioner
They\'ve got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants.\"

[miff]

\"Working with my memory of events of the 1980s, \"testing did not confirm\" that much of an advantage was being taken by Oscar, the Pistol and the Gas Man. I do not
recall any of these men being set down for large chunks of time. I certainly can
not recall any of them facing what amounts to a lifetime expulsion from Racing\".

Bee,

In case you are not aware, testing has come a very long way since the 80\'s as perhaps the chemists as well.Comparing the 80\'s testing to now is not a fair comparison,imo.Incidentally, Pistol and Gasper were amateurs next to Oscar(designer cocktail of cocaine/morphine, blood dope)

Stand by Tricky not being capable of orchestrating an ongoing illegal drug thing for many reasons.Think too many bought into the politics behind the Tricky lynching.This is a major collaboration between the Clueless Clowns,the politically appointed stooges, disgruntled blue blood millionaire owners with slow horses and lastly unsuccessful trainers alibiing that they don\'t win cause Tricky,TAP and others are doping.

Back to Tricky,if you look closely at his latest run and peel thru EACH race, you may find a couple, at best, of eye raising performances.Recall a fair number of sharp droppers also.Also recall quite a few life and death wins by some of his very short priced runners that had there tails ridden off by Ramon Dominguez.

If they find something real on Tricky or any other guy, I\'d hope they ban them for life.


Mike

[TGJB]

Tricky doesn\'t have to be capable of orchestrating anything. That\'s what Allday and others are for.

I\'ll post all his November runners in a few days.

[miff]

\"I\'ll post all his November runners in a few days\"


JB,

Think you missed the boat. Mike Mitchell from Del Mar meet was really out there, move up wise. Not as great a percentage as Tricky but quite a few very lofty performances.


Mike

[TGJB]

Mike-- Didn\'t miss anything. Pointing out one guy is moving horses up in no way means I think he\'s the only one.

[plasticman]

To assume any trainer is cheating with illegal substances is to also assume that the trainer they got the horse from is not only incredibly competent, but almost as good as the \'cheating\' trainer. This is something we can\'t assume. Its like assuming that Norv Turner is only a small level below Bill Belichick. If Belichick took over the Chargers tomorrow and then they went on to win the rest of their games, would you think that Belichik was somehow \'cheating\' or would you think \"of course, Turner is a clown, Belichick is a genius, predictable result\"?

You wouldnt ever think Belichick cheated if he took over a team tomorrow from a \'bad coach\' and \'exploded\' them into orbit and made them a super bowl contender overnight. You\'d just think \"idiot to genius, no cheating was happening, its just a major upgrade in coaching\"

You could use the same logic when a horse goes from Joe Blow to Dutrow. (if you wanted to).

[TGJB]

Seems to me there was some evidence Belicheck WAS cheating a few years ago, and hasn\'t done as well since.

[magicnight]

Also takes a genius to throw guys who are worried about keeping their jobs back into games and practices right after they have suffered concussions.

[plasticman]

True about the cheating. The reason i brought up Belichick is because he has cheating allegations surrounding him and yet, if he replaced a bumbling idiot tomorrow and his new team went on a monster roll, most people wouldnt think he\'s winning because of cheating, they would just think that \"idiot to genius\" equals a major turnaround. People won\'t think that Belichick\'s doctor was in the locker room injecting the players with undetectable substances...you would just think its an Xs and Os thing. In racing, nobody things its an \'Xs and O\'s thing\' they just automaticall assume \"undetectable drugs\" and my point was that doesnt always have to be the case.

[richiebee]

Never a big fan of Belichek, so was gratified when two of his acolytes who were
elevated to positions they did not deserve (Weis and Mangini) bombed in a big
way.

JB-- congrats on the big year, but bar fights are so Twentieth Century.

[TGJB]

Richie-- afterward I started thinking that making figures with a concussion wouldn\'t be easy.

[jma11473]

That\'s an interesting philosophical point, though I think the key part you\'re missing is that people can be motivated with words or threats or changes in game plans. All those actions by a coach can bring out the best in players without \"cheating\". However, you can\'t yell at a horse or threaten its job or to bench it and have it say, \"Gee, I better run faster today!\" You could change its racing \"game plan\" to some extent, but there are a lot more ways to improve human performance through \"coaching\", which is why people think trainers are drugging horses and NFL head coaches aren\'t necessarily drugging players.

[TGJB]

The other key point is that when evaluating team sports we only have relative statistics to use (how they did against someone else). When I talk about move-up trainers I\'m not looking at wins, even though eventually it will become that-- I\'m looking at performance measured in absolute terms, through performance figures. When Frankel\'s entire barn-- mostly older grass horses, and Aptitude--  moved up 3-4 points at the same time in the spring/summer of 2001 it wasn\'t because he suddenly became a better trainer. Turned out later that\'s when he started using Allday.