I read the discussion about Mullins in a previous thread, but I decided to start a whole new one dedicated to juice.
As i have stated before, I am a Raggie, and I have posted a few different times on their board about Mullins, and it was funny that a few people had the twisted frame of mind to defend him. It\'s a joke. It seems as though Mullins sometimes goes through a strange slump every now and then. During the 03 Hollywood spring meet, he went through a 3 week slump in which his horses very running terribly; no bounce lines or anything, just not running. Had this been 1960, I would say that such a streak is inevitable even for the top guys....but when you habitually win 30% of your races and go through stretches only winning 6-7%, something is wrong....especially when those stretches come on the heels of drug related situations. For instance, in that Spring meet slump last year, I believe his barn was raided (nothing was found interestingly). I could be wrong, but I remember his slump came right after some conflict involving juice.
Quite frankly, I am sick of juice guys dominating the game....just freakin sick of it. From a bettor\'s perspective it\'s lethal to bet them or against them. Betting against them doesn\'t work because they win 30% of their races, and in a lot of races, many different juice guys are represented. It\'s murder. Worse, horses from the typical juice barns (Frankel, Pletcher, Norman, Mullins, Gill et al) get pounded at the windows, so you have no value. Basically at best you can hope to lose a little less than the take (which is why high takeouts are becoming more of a problem). From a horseman\'s perspective (I am not one).... suppose you actually play the game \"fairly\" and don\'t use anything, what are you supposed to do? You cannot afford to risk suspensions, fines, broken down horses. It isn\'t fair. Worse, the people who should be legislating to stop this, aren\'t in your corner. Why would the CHRB want to get rid of Mullins? They raid his barn last year, and amidst a severe horse shortage, find nothing. Of course, he\'s one of the few guys filling your races. If you play by the rules in this game nowadays, the deck is stacked against you. I applaud the efforts of the CHRB (quarantine with video cameras, pre-race milkshake tests, etc.) but if the powers that be do not want to catch anyone, than no one is getting caught. If they really aren\'t serious about cleaning the game up, then these moves are just nothing more than cosmetic posturing. Only time will tell.
I RARELY bet So cal anymore. Short fields + rampant drug use does not = good betting opportunities. You want to know why Maryland racing stinks? Same problems...every race is a 6 horse field with 3 horses owned by Mike Gill, 1 trained by Capuano, 1 by Wolfendale and the other by Lake. Who needs that? Kentucky offers a much better product with lower take and fuller fields. Don\'t tell me that lack of slots is why Maryland racing is horrible. Delaware Park is just as bad, and they have slots.
I was just venting here, and I apologize for the length of my post. I urge anyone who feels strongly about this to chime in. Seriously, when a guy like Asmussen starts 1500 horses through the end of August and has won 25% of them...something\'s wrong. What\'s worse are the cheerleaders who defend them and claim there is no juice. I\'m not stupid and I don\'t need my intelligence insulted by articles like the one last Sunay about Asmussen, claiming he wins more races than anyone cause he is more demonstrative, more organized and works harder than anyone else. PLEASE!!!!
support your frame here...see my previous post under \"Frankel & Lukas\"
If I recall correctly, upon returning from the Belmont, you posted that you had had an interesting conversation with someone from the graded stakes committee about their new testing program and said you would have more to say later. Did you ever finish that story?
yes, and does it explain why frankel can\'t win gr I\'s anymore?
except that one he just won.
So what is your problem with these cats?? Cause their horses are not bouncing for you and your not cashing?? I can see if a horse looks real bad and they get ahold of them and they jump up right, thats cool, but like Booby F. whats the big deal with him, if I recall most of his horses are top of the line anyways. Give me a name of a horse that you think their horses should not be running well before the race and I will use my capping style and you use yours and see if we come up with the horse should run bad. It seems like every trainer that hit high % is always getting knock for juicing, whose out there that has high % that you think is NOT juicing?? Ok let\'s look at MASTER DAVID today ok, tr. by Frankel 10-1 ML I think will go off lower. Anyways, Master David I think might have a shot to hit the board, if he wins today will I say damn BF, no. What will you say if he wins??
First of all, the way to tell who is moving horses up is to look at figures, not win %. Especially, the figures trainers get compared to the guys before and after them-- there is no normal training method that can consistently move horses up quickly, or cause them to quickly deteriorate when they leave the barn. Master David is not an example of anything, no matter what he does today-- Frankel\'s had him for a while.
I have been told that there will be an article in the next BloodHorse about the California positives. Don\'t know whether it will have more info than the DRF article of last week, but it feels like the tide may be BEGINNING to turn. Long way to go yet.
Well, as far as Frankel and Pletcher go, they don\'t claim horses, so it is difficult to determine. As TGJB said, the sudden improvement in the numbers is what tells the tale more than the win%. I agree with him whole heartedly there. I was only illustrating Mullins 30% clip to compare it to the strange slumps he goes through, not as proof of juice. And the Asmussen 25% comment was just to relate it to the DRF article. My post was less about offering proof, and was more of a rant designed to generate some discussion.
There is a reason why I post about Mullins, Gill and Norman all of the time. These guys just get such a large immediate improvement from average older horses, it makes you wonder. A lot of the horses Frankel gets privately are young and have a right to improve, so like I said, it\'s tougher to tell with him.
The problem is, once a newly claimed horse gets the juice and improves for the new connections, you have to assume he is continuing to get the juice. How do we know? There could be new laws pending or a barn raid or something to strike fear into the hearts of these cheaters...enough to cause them to lay off of the \"stuff\" for a few weeks. How unfair is that to bettors? I wish the Form would just come out and tell us who is getting the juice and when. Imagine seeing a horse claimed by Dutrow Jr. off of some nobody and see the notation (EPO 1) next to the Lasix symbol to show first time EPO. That horse gets claimed by some nobody again and we see no (EPO) notation and the horse reverts back to his old numbers. Wouldn\'t that make things so much easier???
Also, does anyone find it interesting that some of these juice guys in the claiming ranks (Gill, Mullins) are now starting to change their focus to 2yo\'s and trying to develop stake winners on their own? It\'s a little tougher to tell you\'re using juice when you\'ve had the horse the whole time....just as TGJB mentioned with Master David. It looks a whole lot worse when you claim an 8yo and he starts running new tops for you than if you develop the horse yourself, using the juice all the while. This process is much tougher to decipher since there is no previous form to compare the improvement to.
Overlays to all and to all a good night!!!
One of the reasons I started focusing most of my betting on Graded Stakes is that I got tired of trying to keep track of all the suspected juice trainers making moves in the claiming ranks. However, I know people that have had betting success just studying the suspected juicers\' patterns. Apparently, you can find overlays that way. Form, speed figures etc... are less useful.
I know some people believe there\'s a lot of juicing going on on Graded Stakes also, but I am less certain.
Some of the guys with great success in recent years are clearly getting much better stock because of their success. It feeds on itself. There\'s nothing suspicious about getting a barn full of young tigers or imports, patiently developing them, spotting them in races where they can win, and allowing them to move up the ladder as they mature. For as long as I\'ve been around the game, there\'s been guys like that with great win percentages.
There\'s nothing wrong with getting a horse from another barn and moving him up sharply after a couple months.
It\'s not hard to imagine how one of the best trainers could figure out how to improve a horse coming from a barn where it was not getting the best care for minor injuries, not using proper equipment, or not getting other proper training.
What is suspicious is when the horse moves from one trainer that is highly regarded to a suspected juice guy and it moves up sharply within a couple of weeks. That\'s tough to explain, but it really doesn\'t happen that often in Stakes.