JERRY,MY QUESTION WOULD BE DIRECTED AT YOU SINCE,YOUR INVOLVED IN THE NUMBERS ON A DAILY BASIS,JAIME NESS IS CURRENTLY 12-25 WITH A WIN AVERAGE OF 48% AT DELAWARE ,HE WAS JUST AS HOT AT TAMPA BAY DOWNS ARE HIS HORSES JUMPING OUT OF THERE SKIN NUMBERS WISE,OR IS IT SOMETHING IN THE WATER,THE SAME CAN BE ASKED OF TODD PLETCHER ,HE WAS WINNING EVERYTHING AT GULFSTREAM AND IT HAS NOW CHANGED SINCE HE CAME BACK NORTH ,IF I CAN PICK UP THESES ANOMALIES,NOBODY IN THE RACING HIERACHY CAN ASK THE SAME QUESTION ,WOULD LIKE YOUR INPUT OR ANYBODY ELSES INPUT INTO THE SAME...THANKS STELLA
JB is out of the office. He\'ll respond when he returns.
Ness is the biggest crook in racing. Seen a Ness horse at Oaklawn a couple months ago go off at 11-1, had no business being in the field and he romped. If you get any kind of price on him, play it. If you try to beat him, It better be one of your top plays at a decent price.
The guy runs all over the place, so unless he has a twin brother, it aint just him.
sekrah Wrote:
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> Ness is the biggest crook in racing.
Is it OK to just say this about Ness, and anyone else who is winning at a high level?
I don\'t suppose you have any compelling evidence...other than the guy wins alot.
Suspicion is one thing -- and who isn\'t at least a LITTLE suspicious -- but just flat out calling anyone \"the biggest crook in racing\" with no supporting evidence? Doesn\'t seem right. We\'re still in the USA, aren\'t we?
Jaime came up right here in MN. Used to work in the press box at Canterbury. Then got into training. He started slow, but by year two things were cooking for him. I know 2 people who have had him train their horses. Both of have nothing but good things to say about him. I also know someone who has had horses with Jaimie\'s ex assistant and gf, Tammy Domenosky (not sure if I spelled that right), who does a lot of the same things as Jaimie with her stock. Again, I\'ve heard nothing but great things from the owners have something to say about her.
Also, know a young kid that works at Canterbury who used to claim a horse every year and give them to Ness when he was stabled there. They would usually get a cheapie from Chicago, give the horse some time off, fix whatever the issue was and get them primed for a couple of good efforts. Sometimes when they were done, at the end of the Canterbury meet they would just give the horse away. Never lost with these moves.
Couple of things. I am not saying Ness does or does not play by the rules. What I do know firsthand is that the stable spent a lot of money on vets and a few other treatments to get some of these cheapies ready to go. That\'s something that not every outfit will do. They would also tend to spot these horses right where they belonged so as not to waste a good effort once they had finally put them back together. That usually meant low odds, but what Sek said is dead right. If you see a recent claim by Ness you cannot discount the horse based on how they look on paper as he often moves them up and usually runs them where he thinks they will fit.
I looked at Ness\'s results over at bains site, and it\'s 90% heavy chalk.
Either they are all spotted as best in race, or they get bet as if they will run that way.
When you\'re winning at a 40% clip like he was at Pimlico this spring, everybody piles on. Number wise, most of his horses figured to be odds on.
When you say \'compelling evidence\' don\'t you think that winning at this incredible pace is \'compelling\' enough evidence?
if you were as white as a ghost and felt as sick as a dog and went to the doctor and said \"doc, i feel absolutely terrible\" do you think the doc would say \"sorry, but until i see the blood panel, there\'s absolutely no evidence at all that you\'re sick\"
No, he would have plenty of evidence you\'re sick even without seeing any blood or urine tests. Now, he might not have the exact CURE, but he would know for sure something is wrong.
plasticman Wrote:
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> When you say \'compelling evidence\' don\'t you think
> that winning at this incredible pace is
> \'compelling\' enough evidence?
Not when his horses are almost always placed correctly and then run well at short odds -- what a surprise! -- and certainly not compelling enough to call him \"the biggest crook in the game\".
If there is still one thing that accurately categorizes t-bred trainers as a group, it\'s that they tend to overclassify their horses; there is hardly a \"slow\" horse around that wouldn\'t benefit from an immediate two or three level class drop, or a move to a lesser track or circuit; but nope, there they are, running in the same relative class every 4 weeks and getting their heads ripped off.
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, Ness places his horses where they can win -- now, none of this \"3rd start off the layoff\" BS from 50 years ago. It\'s no wonder to me that he wins at such a high percentage; I only wonder what is taking his competition so long to figure it out.
Didnt Ness claim a bunch at Oaklawn and explode them into orbit? I cant imagine all of his horses are monster dropdowns, there has to be some where he claims and just moves them into a different stratosphere. (like that Jacobson horse who ran in the Met Mile)
Anyone who doesn\'t think Ness is cheating is plain and simple, naive. You are in la-la land Rick if you think Ness is on the up-and-up. Him and guys like Rudy Rodriguez, Juan Carlos Guerrero, and Cody Autrey will get 3 point tops out of 6 year old claimers. You MUST be delusional if you think they aren\'t using undetectable, designer drugs.
You\'ll have to wake up pretty early in the morning to convince me that Ness is just that much better at taking care of his horses than everyone else.
sekrah Wrote:
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> You MUST be delusional if you think
> they aren\'t using undetectable, designer drugs.
Ah, the old \"X-Files\" argument: \"undetectable\" drugs.
How can I possibly argue against such a thing? The scientific argument that all matter is made up of atoms and molecules, and therefore has specific chemical markers and is in fact detectable, is lost on the \"something is out there\" crowd.
I\'m sure there are substances which may be \"unidentified\" at the moment; when these are detected and isolated, another round of work begins to identify just what the substance is, how it works, its contraindications, and so on. But undetectable? No. Not anymore.
What is more likely is that testing procedures and policies are underfunded, and / or somehow not effective...but absent any hard evidence, such as drug positives or a smoking needle (what did they find when they raided his barn? Nada), it simply isn\'t correct to call Ness \"the biggest crook in the game\" based on mere suspicion and high win percentages; if you tried to take Ness to court on that alone, you be summarily rejected in less than a minute.
None of this stuff really keeps me up at night; there are guys who win alot, there are guys who never win, and there\'s everyone in between. My job as a handicapper and gambler is to stay abreast of who makes what move, and when. If the powers that be can\'t or won\'t do anything about cheaters after umpteen years of huffing and puffing about it, my choices are the same as they\'ve always been: play on or quit. Bitching about it is a waste of time.
Ness barn \"raided\" twice, nothing found, doesn\'t necessarily mean he\'s clean though. Hear that he runs a great outfit,spots them a class or two below and does not care if they get taken.Spends lots money on vets and probably uses serious amounts of legal in between stuff(some soon to be banned).
The above model describes many of the so called move up trainers. Separating the thieves from the \"legit\" heavy vet users,joint tappers, users of lots of in between legal stuff, very very difficult to discern. Thats what has the powers that be scratching their heads in trying to identify the real bad apples.
Sekrah identified the right way to analyze this question-- look at whether trainers are getting a lot of unusual figure move-ups, not whether they win races, which can be a function of lots of things, as people have noted here. Also look at whether they get hot and cold doing this.
As to \"undetectable drugs\" and all related issues, I can not say this enough-- it\'s a mistake to make ANY assumptions in this area. Can\'t assume horses are being tested at all, let alone properly, let alone positives are being announced, let alone punished. I\'ve given many examples of this before, here\'s another-- a poster on this site happens to be both a NYRA owner and the guy who was in charge of drug testing for the NCAA Baseball World Series. About 7-8 years ago NYRA was listing a certain test being done, he took one look at it and called Cornell, which was doing the testing, and said there\'s no way you guys can be doing this test in the time frame you are claiming. They said no, we just throw the samples away.
Rick, the X Files was a TV show-- but paranoids have enemies too.
TGJB Wrote:
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> Sekrah identified the right way to analyze this
> question-- look at whether trainers are getting a
> lot of unusual figure move-ups, not whether they
> win races, which can be a function of lots of
> things, as people have noted here. Also look at
> whether they get hot and cold doing this.
Well, Ness tears it up wherever he goes; someone give me a holler when he cools off.
So that I understand the premise of what is being inferred from \"unusual figure move-ups\": is it completely unlikely that a trainer can regularly get, say, 3 point new tops out of older claimers simply by exercising / swimming them into shape, having (legal) leg work done, then placing the animal in a spot where he can compete and win?
Or must it automatically be that something illegal is going on?
Several people here have correctly pointed out that Ness almost always places his horses where they can win right now, and I have to believe that alone can be a big factor in reviving a racehorse\'s competitive spirit. Really -- how many other claiming trainers do this (besides whoever is training for Frank Calabrese today)?
I was once sitting with the top pro player on this board, talking to the then head of Del Mar (now of the BC) about the drug problem. We came up with 30 plus names in 10 minutes, literally, of people who either were or had been doing something.
I went through exactly the question you asked with the Jockey Club committee, using Frankel in spring/summer 2001 as the example. The chance of one older horse running a 3 point new top in any specific start is let\'s say 5%. The chance of two in a row doing it is becomes 5% of 5%. By the time you get to a whole barn-- as was happening then-- the numbers are astronomical.
I posted the sheet of a Scott Lake horse here a couple of years ago. That was extreme, but you get the idea. When a trainer has just one horse do the extremely unlikely it\'s no big deal-- unless his other horses are doing it too. When it happens with a second one I start paying attention.
TGJB Wrote:
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> The chance of one older horse running a 3 point new
> top in any specific start is let\'s say 5%. The chance
> of two in a row doing it is becomes 5% of 5%. By the
> time you get to a whole barn-- as was happening then--
> the numbers are astronomical.
I won\'t get into a numbers tussle with you, JB -- that would be foolish AND disrespectful -- but I have to ask: how does a statistical anomaly such as what you have described *automatically* indicate illegal activity?
Ness trains on the \"lesser\" circuits: lesser horses, lesser trainers, lesser owners. IMO, he could run rings around his competition at these places simply by spending money on legal stuff that other connections simply can\'t or won\'t pay for. Add in aggressive placement of horses by a guy who sleeps with the condition book under his head, and voilà: 40% wins and new tops by the cartload.
Impossible?
(Last post from me on this topic. I know you have real work to do. Thanks for responding.)
You keep on looking at win %-- it\'s a secondary indicator, based on a primary one, how fast they run. I look at only the primary one.
Maryland is anything but a minor circuit when it comes to horsemen, and Lake (historically) and Ness get tons of jumpups. The circuits where the Ziades and Nick Cananis and Catalanos of the world have been operating are not the minors, and they have gotten tons of huge jump ups. Last year it was Divito (sp?), but only in Chicago, they didn\'t run in Florida. Now, does this prove these guys have been doing something illegal? No. But they\'re doing SOMETHING.
I was at a track 4-5 years ago when one of the above said to a good friend of mine, \"They\'ll never get me, by the time they figure out what I\'m doing I\'ll be doing something else\". About an hour before he won a graded stake.
The super-trainers achieve winning percentages that defy all the traditional norms of their profession. In the past it was extraordinary for a trainer to win with as many as 25 percent of his starters. Of the top 35 race-winning trainers in 1980, only one (future Hall of Famer Bud Delp) reached that figure. When the great horseman Bill Mott had the best year of his career, operating an exceptionally powerful stable that included Horse of the Year Cigar, he won with 24 percent of his starters. But such a performance would represent a mini-slump for many of the contemporary super-trainers, who dominate race meetings by winning at a 30 or 40 percent clip.
-drf.com
Even more amazing than the results of these trainers is the desire by some to hold out hope that it\'s just \'better housekeeping\'. Or should I say horsekeeping?
Speaking of SoCal, three names worth discussing in this vein are Mitchell, Mullins, and O\'Neill...these barns don\'t \"behave\" Sheet-wise like most others...they are always a threat to magically find that back fig...or more...it feels \"chemical\"... how far can cleaning teeth properly take you?...try not to be didactic.
The uncoupled entry is an angle that many barns here use to advantage...track them as best you can...good one for JB to include in his trainer stats...the \"lesser part of entry\", or LPOE as noted in my Form...Mitchell put over a beauty last week.
gteasy Wrote:
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> Speaking of SoCal, three names worth discussing in
> this vein are Mitchell, Mullins, and
> O\'Neill...these barns don\'t \"behave\" Sheet-wise
> like most others...they are always a threat to
> magically find that back fig...or more...it feels
> \"chemical\"... how far can cleaning teeth properly
> take you?...try not to be didactic.
>
> The uncoupled entry is an angle that many barns
> here use to advantage...track them as best you
> can...good one for JB to include in his trainer
> stats...the \"lesser part of entry\", or LPOE as
> noted in my Form...Mitchell put over a beauty last
> week.
. . . and Baffert\'s an absolute Life Master, in this area.
Gteasy wrote:
\"the \'lesser part of entry\', or LPOE as noted in my Form...Mitchell put over a beauty last week.\"
What is the horse\'s name?