Should we read anything into the fact that Pletcher is on fire at Keenland?

[Rick B.]

miff Wrote:
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> ...magic bullet

Rick B. Wrote:
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> ...no magic bullet

From DRF Results:
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Hawthorne 10/23/2010
3rd Race

Off: 2:35 | 1 Mile 70 Yards | 3 Year Olds And Up | Claiming ($17,500)  | Open | Purse: $11,484

# Horse Jockey Weight Win Place Show
3 Magic Bullet Razo E Jr 118 17.00 7.80 4.00
4 Sicomoro Perez E E 118  5.60 2.80
2 Gage Park Geroux F 122   6.60

Don\'t ask.

:::sigh:::

[sighthound]

True.  But you have to remember, that the only way to make a horse run faster (physically quicker - as opposed to having more endurance, lasting longer, etc) is to either eliminate pain or infirmary that was slowing it down (eliminate the things that slow it down, make it lose interest, etc), or giving it a stimulant.  

There are not any stimulants we can\'t test for, even when they are the type of stimulation that comes with another drug (like a clenbuterol excess)

Thus I attribute the vast majority of mucking (which I think is less than most gamblers seem to) to various methods - legal or not - of controlling the aches and pains these guys have.   JMO.

[Rick B.]

miff Wrote:
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> As far as certain guys disappearing on big
> days(assume you mean TAP), ya gotta have the horse
> to win, he hasn\'t.
>
> Mike

And the rest of the year, he\'s using? Or, is it that TAP has the horses to win all year long, except at BC time when they magically come up a wee bit short?

You are a man of many answers, Mike; a few of them are even consistent with each other.

[miff]

Rick B,

Re TAP, only Kool Aid drinkers believe that he uses. His stock is so superior he has to win his share.Many of TAP\'s derby and BC horses are usually over the top when they show up.


Mike

[TGJB]

Miff-- give me a list of the horses in the last 5 years that Pletcher has taken over from other trainers, and I\'ll pull sheets on them and post them.

Sight-- just to choose one example, EPO is neither a painkiller or stimulant, neither are broncho-dilators.

[HP]

So Miff, you are saying that on an annual basis, Pletcher can\'t train a horse properly up to a Breeder\'s Cup race?  He doesn\'t say at some point during the year, \"I\'m going to rest this one and try to get him to pop at the BC, because last year my horses were a little over the top and this year I\'ll do things differently.\"  Wouldn\'t an intelligent person make adjustments to try to win the big ones?  

TAP just keeps making the same blunder, every year, of pushing his horses too hard and having them come into the BC \"over the top\" every single year?  Wouldn\'t he have to be a complete moron to do this same thing over and over again?  

Either that or maybe he just doesn\'t care about winning BC races?  

If you are correct and it\'s just a matter of his horses being \"over the top,\" since he\'s doing it every year he\'d have to be a total dunce - and I don\'t think that\'s the case.

HP

[miff]

HP,

TAP\'s record for BC and TC entrants over many years is awful.Whatever he is or isn\'t doing training wise, his horses don\'t win anywhere near his normal strike rate on big days.


Mike

[sighthound]

EPO doesn\'t do much more than normal splenic contraction at racetime does in the horse.

The legend is much greater than the reality of so much of this stuff.

[alm]

I want to stay away from the drug speculation with TAP...it\'s almost pointless to comment on it anymore.

Regarding his putting horses over the top before the big days, however, it always seemed pretty clear to me that he did this and that he\'s trying to correct the pattern.  You might ask why it took so long.  One reason: because he works for owners who like winning the prep races...there\'s a lot of money in those races too...do you think an owner of a good horse has incredible patience in this regard, that he or she would prefer to lose a prep on the possibility that he might win the big race to follow?

That\'s a tough call for both the trainer and the owner.  In this business, there is a lot to be said for taking the easier money now.  You have no idea whether or not your horse will even stay healthy until the next race.

TAP has made a lot of money for people in prep races with good horses...but winning with Super Saver might be an example of how he is changing his approach to the Classics when he can.  I bet the horse because it seemed to me, clearly, that the horse was guided into the Derby with a very different approach than TAP had used with some better horses in previous years.  And Eskendreya\'s getting hurt makes my point more clearly.

[HP]

\"TAP\'s record for BC and TC entrants over many years is awful.\"

Everybody knows this Miff.  

\"Many of TAP\'s derby and BC horses are usually over the top when they show up.\"

Maybe it\'s because he can\'t get his horses the proper \"Kool Aid\" on the big day.  That\'s all.  

As far as I\'m concerned it\'s usually a positive because his BC horses take money and you can toss a lot of them, despite the fact that they look like real contenders.

[richiebee]

Good point about the preps, both in terms of purse money and the fact that a win
in a lot of the preps is good enough to \"make\" a stallion.

TAP has as far as I can recall had two positives in his career; one of them I
believe was Wait a While in the BC Filly/Mare Turf in 08.

[Ohlo]

Jerry,
Here\'s a list of horses he\'s gotten from other trainers in the last five years (it\'s not exhaustive, doesn\'t didn\'t include horses who only had a few previous races before the switch):
A. P. Arrow
Bad Mover
Ball Four
Bribon
Fleet Indian
Giant Mover
Go Go Shoot
Hilda\'s Passion
Hour Glass
Lawyer Ron
Le Grand Cru
McVictory
Quality Road
With Flying Colors
Z Humor

[Funny Cide]

TGJB Wrote:
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> The move-up guys aren\'t just keeping them firing.
> As Richie noted, Rudy (for example) is taking
> older horses with a considerable history and
> making them run a LOT faster than they ever have
> before.

What kind of drug do you think can make a horse do this?

I always hear about \"the juice\" but no one ever knows what \"the juice\" is.  Whatever it is, it\'s not nameless, faceless, and with unknown characteristics.  If someone knows enough about \"the juice\" to give it to a horse, then the guys whose job it is to catch them also know what it is.

It\'s like thinking Rudy can fix broken legs but Larry Bramlage has no idea how he\'s doing it.

[TGJB]

Nonsense. I\'ve posted here several times about broncho-dilators, red blood cell stimulators, lactic acid neuralizers, etc. If you don\'t get tired or get more oxygen performance improves.

I\'m not sure everyone realizes how small a change is required to make a BIG difference. A 1% improvement in time at a mile is a second. Think a second makes a difference in a horse race?

[FrankD.]

JB,

We spoke about lactic acid and more oxygen at the spa this summer and the comparison between Rudy R. and the Late Oscar B. and how their horses never got tired regardless of fractions, being pressed etc.. So many of the \" move up \" guy\'s just blast off wire to wire no matter who runs with them or how fast they go. They just have that extra gear to draw away in the stretch when they look beat ?

Look back at the Ferriola\'s, Scott Lakes, Parisella\'s, Bruce Levine, Shuman, Oscar and Rudy and there Mo\'s were always go to front and don\'t stop. Pletchers horses are different as they win and move up big figure wise from all over ?

I noticed this particularly last year as anything he sent from Palm Meadows to Gulf, Fair Grounds, Oaklawn, anywhere moved up big time. Quite a few were front runners but a lot came from off he pace etc.. You can also look at the difference in the Spa meet without the detention barn this year. Those numbers speak volumes ?

Granted this guy has as good or better stock given to him as any trainer in the history of racing ever has so it\'s a puzzle as to why he continually under performs at the big dances ?