Uh, Richie-- don\'t know if you remember, but there was a stretch of about 4 months last year where all Scettino\'s runners were getting blasted on the tote, and running their eyeballs out. Then he went cold-- think he just became a worse trainer overnight?
The reason that some trainers use the riders they do is because they don\'t have the stock to attract the better riders-- agents are handicappers, and want to line up with the stronger barns.
It was amazing how much better the Dutrow brothers got right after their father died, like, overnight. In fact, it happened so fast I got caught in the switches-- we bought two horses from them with good numbers that went to Elliot Walden, and then pretty much fell apart physically (and remember, these were horses that passed the vet). About a year later, in desperation, the owner sent one back to Dutrow, and it reeled off two or three wins. Heckuva trainer.
Pino is another one. The guy won at about 10% for a while, then at about 35% for about a year, then became a bad trainer for about 6 months, like 5%. Then he became a good trainer again, and last I looked was winning at about 40%. Heckuva trainer.
You guys, especially CH, are missing the point. If we were making decisions about a horse, the fact that one horse could move up, or that there is subjectivity involved in measuring performance, would be significant. But we are talking about large groups of horses, over large periods of time. Anybody who uses any figures can see that Dutrow\'s horses ran differently at Saratoga than at the following Belmont meet, that Zito\'s horses, for two years, ran out of their minds in Kentucky. And yes, I would love to have this conversation in a court of law-- I can\'t tell you what they are using or how, but there is no doubt at all that a significant number of trainers are moving horses up abruptly, a lot.
