CH-- for the third or fourth time:
You are WAY underestimating the level of analysis I am putting into this. I used winning percentages because that\'s what the lay person understands, but we have set up a function here that lets me pull all a trainer\'s starters for any time period I want, and look at the sheets on all the horses. I do this to keep me from making the kind of mistake I made in having clients buy two horses from the Dutrows.
The move-up pattern is easiest to see with those who get lots of horses from others, or lose them to others-- Dutrow, Amoss, Norman, Mullins, Lake, Vaders, Pino, Mitchell, etc. It\'s also easy to see with another group, when all their horses with established tops get faster at the same time-- Frankel, McLaughlin, Schettino for a while last summer, etc. I do NOT make decisions about this kind of thing based on small, statistically insignificant samplings-- but when I see an unusual move-up from a new face, I keep an eye on it.
What I also do, and what several others within the industry who are trying to stop the problem do (I\'m talking organizations like TOBA), is to try and see if there are cause and effect relationships. It became clear very quickly that Allday was the vet for many of the above, as well as for Byrne when he won the 15 straight at CD and had the two 2yo champs the same year, as well as Paulson for a long time (don\'t know if he still is, but some of their trainers have done a whole lot better while training for them than before or after), as well as Stronach (he went there with Byrne, was stable manager there for a while, I don\'t know about now). One of Allday\'s more endearing traits is his inability to keep his mout shut-- he has directly told THREE different people I know that he is moving horses up, and that he developed use of EPO while working for Paulson.
So when I hear that a trainer who doesn\'t claim or lose horses also is using Allday, I also draw certain conclusions. For example, Allday is as far as I know still working for Pletcher-- and my guess is that if I went back a couple of years and started looking at sheets, I could pinpoint pretty closely when he started.
Does this mean that these guys are doing something illegal, or are even using drugs? Not necessarily. Does it mean that they have something that instantly moves horses up? Yes.
By the way, Kev-- I agree that Kentucky is not one of the worst offending states in this regard, the reason being what I said yesterday, that the drugs permitted there but not elsewhere are not performance enhancers. Having said that, Amoss and Romans come to mind as move-up trainers, and there are others who I\'m not sure about since I don\'t watch the circuit year round that closely.
