Funny read out of Hong Kong

[Boscar Obarra]

http://racing.scmp.com/freeservice/news/news20130107aa.asp

Do we have anyone here doing work like that? Not many.

[magicnight]

Thanks, Boscar. And that was done on deadline! I think our guys who could have done that are mostly dead.

[miff]

The subject of posting a horses medical record in NY was strongly opposed by many trainers.They argued that players would \"run for the hills\"(lower handle) if such info was regularly posted.Concerns that the Loons and Joe Dope\'s of the world would negatively spin this was also discussed.

Vet records on many horses are scary as these athletes have lots of issues they are regularly being treated for.It was also thought that the claiming game would be negatively impacted.

It seems that there are some new rules that require trainers/vets to report certain medical procedures to the NYSRWB within a certain time frame.A request to have such info made available on the NYSRWB\'s site was made.

A transparency issue, tough one,but I would like to see the players get all the info and let them sort out what is relevant or not.A suggestion to only release the vet records of any horse off for 60 days or more was also advanced as a compromise.

Mike

[TGJB]

This one brings back a very unpleasant memory.

One of the problems when you buy a horse privately is that vets\' first concern is to cover their asses-- they report everything they see, meaningful or not. If you are a layman a lot of it sounds scary, but if a pro (meaning a trainer, preferably one who has worked with that vet before) looks at the same info and talks to the vet it may be completely benign.

A few years ago I found a fast maiden at Turfway (ran a 6 1/2 going long in his second start), the bloodstock agent got the owners to agree to a price of 55k, and I recommended him to a new client that Eliot Walden had sent me. We got a deal signed, and Doc Baker (a top guy who did all the Prestonwood work) vetted him. The owner decided to read the vet report himself, and killed the deal.

A few days later that gelding, still a maiden, won a 100k stake. Baker heard that and called Eliot to congratulate him, only to find out we didn\'t buy him-- to which Baker said \"Whaaa? That guy didn\'t buy that horse\"?

Anyway, that was Brass Hat. I think he earned close to 4 million, and beat horses I was involved with (including Super Frolic) several times.

[Boscar Obarra]

Reminds me of something that happened many years ago at CRC, when you had to actually go to Florida in the winter to play horses.

 I loved a horse off my personal speed figs, and came to bet.

 Decided to visit the paddock and was horrified to see a knee the size of a basketball on this aged claimer.

 Not knowing what to make of it, I passed. Horse jogs at 5-1.


 New, misunderstood information, can be worse than knowing nothing at all.

[covelj70]

JB, that is a crazy story, I didn\'t know that one.

I have to say that as someone who has bought maybe 20 horses privately and vetted maybe 75, these can be tough tough judegment calls.

I completely agree with JB that vets are in this to cover themselves but what I don\'t think alot of people who don\'t go through this process understand is that nearly EVERY horse is dealing with some kind of issue at any given point in time.  We don\'t hear about the issues unless it causes a big horse to miss a race or end a career but if you go down the shedrow of any top trainer in America, more of them are dealing with some level of physical issues than not

The questions in a sale situation are can those issues be managed and then what is the value you are getting vs. those issues.

JB found me a horse a few years back that looked great, a 3 year old filly that looked like she could run in the Oaks.  The vetting was cut and dried on that one as my vet called me and said \"absolutely no way\" as he had taken xrays on her at the sale and compared those x rays to her new xrays at that time and saw the deterioration in her knees and said she wouldn\'t last more than a few races.  She won her next few starts and I was a bit bitter but then she tragically broke down in the Black Eyed Susan, presumably as a result of her knees although I don\'t know that for sure.

That one was clear cut but most of them are much tougher judegment calls with the vets saying that \"they could be fine but you never know\"  Well, the truth is that you never know anyway.  They are all one bad step away from having a major problem and it\'s impossible to predict that.

The best situations are ones where you can find a horse that is structurally sound but just hasn\'t been taken care of very well because some connections understandably don\'t have the money to spend on regular vet care and maintenance and more expensive feed programs.  

Alot of people know the story about how Rachael failed a vet exam as a young two year old because of an ankle chip.  She was under contract after one of her early races but the vetting failed because of the chip.  The owner took the chip out after that exam and the rest is history.  If they hadn\'t done that vet exam and she had continued to train or race with that chip, the chip could have done enough soft tissue damage before it was apparent without an xray (i.e before she showed any outward signs) that it could have effected her class.  We will never know but it\'s very possible that that failed sale saved the career of one of the greatest race horses in history

This is one crazy game we play.

[TGJB]

Yeah Jim, I remember that filly. Not her name, just that she won a few stakes after the vetting, and that there was no way you could have overruled the vet.

A partial list of deals of mine that have been killed by vets: Glitter Woman (as a 2yo, 200k), Xtra Heat (2yo, 250), Magic Wiesner (100k, right before he won 7 in a row and ran second in the Preakness). I could also come up with a list of ones that passed but broke down anyway.

It\'s not that they\'re always wrong, it\'s just that there\'s a ton of randomness. But if you don\'t get them vetted or don\'t listen you can get sued.

[covelj70]

Jesus JB, that\'s quite a list.

I just remembered another one from last year that we passed on because of a physical issue but then the owners didn\'t believe what our vet said and they keep running the horse and it ended badly.

Our vet found a slab fracture.

It shouldn\'t have been a huge issue, just that the horse needed a few months away from the track to let it heal so we obviously didn\'t buy the horse

Well, their vet insisted our vet was wrong and they ran the horse back the next week.

Unfortunately, he then missed a whole year right after that and he hasn\'t been the same horses since.

This is one of the things that makes betting so tough in my opinion.  It\'s very difficult for anyone not close to a barn to know what kind of physical issue a horse is dealing with before any race, even the good ones  The patterns can be helpful in this regard but sometimes the pattern looks fine and the horse is dealing with a real issue.  Two years ago before the Breeders Cup, I happened to be in the barn where the favorite for one of the races was stabled.  It was obvious that she had a minor eye injury but that it was really bugging her.  She looked very uncomfortable.

She was a great bet against that day as she didn\'t run well at all but how was anyone suppossed to know about that?  BTW, I threw her out but still whiffed on that race.

[kencbs]

This reminds me of what happened a number of years ago in SoCal.  A public handicapper named Aaron Hess started a column in Today\'s Racing Digest where he listed his observations of physical conditions of horses based on what he saw in the walking ring and after the races.  Ex.- Horse A has a bad knee, Horse B looked lame coming out of his last race, etc.  Some trainers got really angry with him.  It was even reported that Laura Pinielli (now Mrs. Lukas) punched him in the face.  He quit doing it after a couple of months.  I still miss it - it was a great way to eliminate favorites who had problems I otherwise would have never known about.

Ken

[miff]

Jan Rushton at Nyra tracks was very good at eyeballing in the walking ring.Maggie gives an abbreviated look/opinion on firsters and a few runners,good eye.

Obvious to many that the Clueless Clowns running the main venues/HRTV/TVG should give much more time to pre race looks/warm ups/connection interviews by an informed person.Something they would never think of, they prefer to feature boring blowhards/shilling on camera,trying to be clever.

[covelj70]

Miff,

Agreed that everyone would be better off with more informed commentary on pre-race physicals and less blow hard stuff but there are really very few people who are qualified to make an informed opinion on such things (God knows I have no ability whatsoever to do that) and that information is far too valuable for anyone to give it out on TV.

The main issue is that one always has to evaluate a horse\'s physical appearance or behavior on the track in context to what that horse normally looks like and or how they normally act pre race.

The obvious recent examples are the pre race wash outs of D\'Tara and Shackleford in the Belmont and Preakness respectively.  If you didn\'t know that those horses tended to get washy in the mornings during their workouts (which I did not), then you would have thrown both of them out.  The fact that they typically did that in the mornings was critical to know.  

Same deal with how Boedmeister moved when he galloped.  He was an awful moving horse so a knowledgeable person can and did (in the case of Mike Welsh) try to talk people off of the horse because of how poorly he moved but that\'s just how he moved.  When a horse moves that inefficiently, it doesn\'t mean that they can\'t run fast in their next race or two, it just means that they are more likely to hurt themselves (especially when they are putting in big efforts) which is exactly what happened in the case of Bode.

So, I totally agree that I would like to see more empahasis on the pre-race physical stuff but when I am playing seriuosly, I typically have the one guy in the world I trust to give me a read on that stuff right next to me to give me his read on the physicals before I make the plunge.

[sighthound]

Like Miff said, releasing the findings of the daily vet exams on horses entered that day would sound exactly like what this author wrote, and mean nothing to punters. They wouldn\'t have a clue if the information was important or not.

Covelj70 and others have pointed out that horses are, like professional football players, filled with the accumulated wear and tear of their careers upon their bodies, and the importance of such is indeed based upon what the horse has to do, percentages, subjective experienced assessment, and the medical management abilities of the trainer (in good ways).

Plenty of horses with awful documented pathology move sound, run sound, do just fine.

[sighthound]

>>> Well, the truth is that you never know anyway. They are all one bad step away from having a major problem and it\'s impossible to predict that.

Truer words never spoken, when it comes to horses.

>>The best situations are ones where you can find a horse that is >>structurally sound but just hasn\'t been taken care of very well because >>some connections understandably don\'t have the money to spend on regular >>vet care and maintenance and more expensive feed programs.

Which can, indeed, move some of those lower-level horses up 15-20 Beyer points. Wish the public could understand that it\'s not all \"doping\", it\'s often just good horsemanship.

That said, there are fewer and fewer \"real horsemen\" on the backside nowadays in the trainer ranks.  Some of these trainers pass their licensing exam, but wouldn\'t know a horse from a hole in the wall.

[miff]

Hi Jim,

Thing is,the people in charge have no idea what a sophisticated player is in a quandary about before plunging, as you say.In the case of NYRA,they have Maggie and The Mig who should get MUCH more pre race prattle time,imo

When possible,will never gamble on a horse who looks poorly,they rarely run lights out.Good that you have an eyeballer.Some very sharp eye guys around NY and elsewhere.

Mike

[TGJB]

Physical appraisal in a vacuum has limited usefulness. But placed in the context of past appearance it can be very useful-- and that\'s exactly what Maggie stresses except in the case of first time starters.

The logical follow up therefore is to try to create a product that does exactly that-- how they looked in the past, not just for the few horses she has time to mention, but all of them. I will modestly say that I have a better idea how to put that kind of thing together in a useful format better than anyone else, and I approached Maggie about doing it a year and a half ago at Saratoga. She was interested, but a certain other NYRA employee (actually a friend, no less), killed the idea.

I\'m not done with it, just too much other crap to work on right now.

Sight-- what\'s a Beyer point?