A different Breeders Cup Topic

[jimbo66]

Jerry,

With all this talk about the Rags figures and other stuff, something I don\'t think we have touched on is the performance of the \"move up\" trainers. (at least I didn\'t see much on this).

We have 8 Breeders Cup races, and if you throwout the Turf, that leaves 7 races with representation from the \"move up\" guys.

Dutrow wins 2, Doug O\'Neill wins 1 and Frankel wins 1.  Besides that, Pletcher\'s Flower Alley runs his race and Frankel gets a 2nd place finish in another race.

There were detention barns and this was supposed to be \"better than Lone Star\" with regards to security.  What happened?  

On a larger scale, you mentioned or implied at various times during the past 12 months that you and others were involved in discussions with the \"right people\" about the problems in the sport.  Is there being any progress made that you know of?  Mullins still wins at an incredible rate, Mitchell claims run through their tops out west, the same with Dutrow and his 43% win rate \"off the claim\".  And now, on racing\'s biggest day, where previously the move up guys had struggled for the most part, they dominated this year in NY, where the security is supposed to be superior.

Any thoughts on this?

Jim

[richiebee]

Jimbo:

     What we have heard is that these \"move up\" trainers will hasten the demise of thoroughbred racing. In this years BC, I think they set a record for number of entrants (no one is afraid to run against the move up trainers) and I know they set a record for total handle (we continue to bet the races even though we are aware of the presence of these move up trainers and their vets).

    The unholy trinity (Pletcher, Frankel and Dutrow) marches on, but I don\'t think any of them maintains a winning percentage in excess of 25%; they still lose 75% of the time. There is still a plus side to finding spots to bet against these guys (like betting against Frankel runners at the fall Belmont meet, or betting against \"Dutrow droppers\" which are always heavily backed at the windows but rarely seem to win).

[EDIT]. The conclusion might be, unsavory to some, that these guys are employing a vet who, like him or not, is getting tremendous results within current testing protocols. Dutrow has a blacksmith (Alex Leaf) who works only for him, his brother Anthony, and Tom Bush.

To me, the most reprehensible thing about R Dutrow is that he has had many opportunities to thank or remember his late father. I never heard him say \"Gee, I wish my dad was here today\" or \"I owe a lot of my success to my dad\".

For all the years I was in business with MY father, I always tried to deflect the rare amount of praise given to me towards my dad. I would always say something like \"I\'m just doing what my father taught me\". Sometimes I was doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what my father would have done, but people enjoy and expect to hear deference to the father. I\'ve heard none from RD, Jr.  

[bobphilo]

Rich,

Perhaps the reason Dutow is not thanking his father for his success is that his father is not the one who taught him to cheat and “juice”.
Seriously though, you have a point about Dutow’s character flaws and these and other factors lend support to the charges that this is a man who cares only about winning at any cost, including drugs.
 I refer to what he did in the Woodward. No, I have no problem with someone who enters a rabbit to improve the performance of his own horse if he is a closer (which St Liam is not) and needs a realistic pace. The problem is he got a third party to enter two so-called rabbits to mess up the chances of his competitor. This smacks of conspiracy and collusion. I say so-called rabbits because only one of the horses was a rabbit - the other was more of a “goon”, like some hockey coaches use to neutralize a superior opposing player. If you watch the race you will see that only one horse set the pace. When it appeared that Stevens was initially able to get Commentator to rate off the pace, the other horse hung right off of C and crowded, attempted to box him and generally harassed his rival. If you look at the head-on from the backstretch, you will see that C had to bump the “goon” to get clear. It wouldn’t be surprised if the rider had not been told to foul if necessary and be DQed, since he wasn’t in the race to win anyway and was under separate ownership than St. Liam. The owner and jockey of the goon would take the rap. That’s why none of the established jocks in the NY riding community wanted any part of these horses. They had to get a couple of struggling unknowns.

Bob  

[richiebee]

BOB:

  I played the Devil\'s Advocate on that one; the \"goon\" and the \"rabbit\" earned a combined $45,000 in purse money for their efforts that day-- not exactly a \"sacrifice\" on the part of owner Goldfarb.

[bobphilo]

richiebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BOB:
>
>   I played the Devil\'s Advocate on that one; the
> \"goon\" and the \"rabbit\" earned a combined $45,000
> in purse money for their efforts that day-- not
> exactly a \"sacrifice\" on the part of owner
> Goldfarb.

Granted, and Dutrow made out damn good as well. That doesn\'t make it stink any less. In the Whitney, we had one of greatest races of the year with 2 fast horses at their best. In the Woodward, instead of a repeat we had a non-event with one horse prevented from running well and the other not having to. Sure, Dutrow made a lot of money but the sport was not created solely for Dutrows enrichment. Racing was the big loser. Not much of a betting opportunity either when everybody knows only one horse has a real chance of winning.

Bob

[TGJB]

Jimbo-- yeah, you ain\'t kidding-- Mullins won the Sport Page that day, too.

I\'ve been in contact with several people, the ones who seem most serious about getting something done are the ones at TOBA.

As I understand the situation, the problem has to do with specific testing issues. I have been told by several people that there are trainers that come in EVERY TIME, WITH EVERY HORSE, with well over the level of bicarbonates that are naturally recurring in a horse, but below the threshold level set for a positive. Those levels were set at a very high level (\"3 standard deviations\"?) so that there would be no chance to argue against them if a positive ever got to court. The tracks are trying to protect themselves, since you can\'t do split samples-- the bicarbonates won\'t keep, can\'t be frozen.

This situation is also complicated by other factors-- supposedly the bicarbonate level in the blood goes UP in the hours AFTER the sample is taken, and up further after lasix is given. And, as I said here once before, there are now ways to administer bicarbonate without tubing-- making it harder to catch someone in the act.

And on top of all that, you have tracks that don\'t WANT to catch anybody, and have a scandal.

Other than that, cleaning it up will be easy.

[Wrongly]

Maybe a player boycott is in order.  How else can \"we\" the players effect a change.  The current punishments for the cheaters are a joke.  Heck, Pletcher still hasn\'t even been punished for cheating after getting caught at Saratoga LAST year.  

[NoCarolinaTony]

 3Std Deviations is the 99.% confidence level 2std Deviations is the 95% confidence levela nd 1 std dev is 68% confidence level.

This is classic six Sigma stuff

FYI

NC Tony

[TGJB]

Tony-- it strikes me that you are exactly the right guy to ask this question. If  a horse (or a group of horses) is 45% to do something, what is the chance of it happening in 12 of 13 cases?

[xichibanx]

Jerry,

Mullins didn\'t win the SPorts Page.  He ran second, Roger Stein won it with the horse that ran 2nd in the Pat O\' Brien.

xichibanx

[TGJB]

Right about Mullins. My mistake.

[Caradoc]

My calculator tells me the chance of 12 of 12 doing it is approximately seven one-thousandths of 1 percent (.000069 to be precise).  Anyone else get a different result as to the twelve?

[miff]

How accurate is the 45% that the horses will do something? Are there multiple sources/figs confirming the 45%, or just one, perhaps, self serving source?

[nonight]

1. It should be pointed out that the trainer of PLEASANT HOME [since mid-year 2005] uses the same veterinarian as Todd Pletcher. PLEASANT HOME\'s instant \"move up\" was the eye-popper of the afternoon. Add him to your list.

2. People shouldn\'t see this merely as a \"level of bicarbonates\" problem. I\'m amazed how people harp on this, to the exclusion of the real problem: steroids [see that recent article by Bergstein]. The 8-hour detention barn does nothing to stop a Dutrower that\'s been steroided during a layoff - many days or weeks before the race - and has been growing into his enhanced new levels in bullet work after bullet work. [See Dutrow\'s BC Sprint winner. Textbook Dutrow. How many times have we seen that from him?]

3. I also think that it\'s hypocritical, on one hand, for certain people to complain about the problem, and then on the other hand, to give horses to the Mike Mitchell\'s of the world. [Jerry, how \'bout you? Have you ever used trainer Mike Mitchell? See the ThoroGraphs of those Mike Mitchell move-ups at last year\'s Gulfstream meeting. Sheesh. Move Up City!] Also, I have a vague recollection of Team Valor\'s Barry Irwin coming out a year or so ago in some celebrated editorial in the racing press and, in an effort to self-police the way his horses were trained, take away horses from certain trainers he suspected were using clenbuterol or other move-up pharmaceuticals. I forget the specifics, but, after his editorial, I think he took horses away from who...? Ralph Nicks? And gave them to... DRUM ROLL... trainer DALE ROMANS!!! Seems hypocritical to me. Heavy sigh.

JohnTChance

[TGJB]

Miff-- I\'ll get into all that when I discuss Ragozin\'s BC figures, but it\'s based on HIS data-- all the races the fillies in the Distaff had run this year, and the % of those figures that were more than 3 points off the horses\' previous top ON RAGOZIN, the data he himself uses to make the figures. They had made 74 starts this year, and 33 of them were more than 3 points off their tops going in-- 45%. And as I said in a previous post to Steve about this, of those 33 off races, 12 were from only 2 fillies that had isolated tops a long time ago and couldn\'t get back to them-- Hollywood story and Island Fashion. The other 11 have a much higher % of figures close to their tops.

But we\'ll go with the 45% figure, it\'s good enough.