Great Trainers

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Is anybody else feeling their estimation and regard for the respective trainers changing?

So much data is available now with TGraph and some of the other concerns that keeping track of Trainer Stats is no longer a good investment of time. In the \"new era\" my views of trainers is changing. I don\'t like Frankel, because I think he\'s bad for the game, but he\'s top dog, you can\'t deny that. (The new Tom Smith of the post Seabisquit era...maybe just as eccentric.) Pletcher has moved way up. He may be the top ranked challenger. Dutrow is obviously a trainer with a future. He needs to get better horses and I think he could contend for the title. John Servis is suddenly on the national stage with one hit play after another. Zito seems to be on a roll, despite some client falling outs.

Wheres the icons? Baffert has been on a couple year drought. Lukas is not the Lukas of old. Shug can\'t find a colt to run in the Crown to save his life. Drysdale had Fupig and then disappeared. Mandella has been steady. (Pleasantly Perfect was a big part of that.) Theres top quality horsemen out there that we haven\'t heard of in years.

What happened to Patrick Byrne? Wheres Scotty Schulhofers son? What became of Stewart Elliot? Wheres Tiznow\'s trainer? Robbins isn\'t it?

Whats going on here?

CtC



Post Edited (11-30-04 14:54)

I wish more time was spent on the topic of trainers. Even after all the years I have been handicapping, some of which was spent studying trainers, I rarely if ever use any of my trainer insights in my betting. (I usually only bet high level races these days)

The only real exceptions are:

1. When there is a trainer change - especially to or away from one with a history of moving horses up.

2. There is evidence a particular trainer has all his stock ready (or not ready) for a particular meet. Usually, this means off layoffs in the spring when the top horses return etc...

I have found that many so called trainer patterns come and go over time as the trainer\'s stock changes. I suspect that much of it is actually random. As I accumulate evidence it is not, it gets built into the  horse\'s price so I can\'t make any money.

I\'m sure there are other patterns related to class changes in the claiming ranks, first and second time starter etc... but I have never made any money that way except for Frank Wright second time starters a very long ago. (a few very major scores)

I\'d appreciate any uses/insights that are clearly profitable.



Post Edited (11-30-04 22:10)

[kev]

Has there ever been and how many ( I bet there hasnt been too many ) trainers that has had soild year after year. One day these trainers that you talked about at first will go down for a year or so and come back. I have no problem with any of these trainers, they don\'t brother me at all. Does their horses keep jumping up and beating your picks?? Hell their only winning around 25 to 29%, it\'s not like their at 50%. You really think that Bob B and Lukas are gone for good??

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

No, I don\'t think the icons are gone for good. But, in my handicapping days theres rarely, if ever, been a period where so many of the top names were displaced en masse by new names. Though its been a two to three year gradual process. Don\'t get me wrong the old men can still train. Didn\'t McGaughey just win a Grade I turf race with a colt out of Heavenly Prize? My point is had that colt been in the hands of the other guys, we might have seen him in the Classics, but then he might also be permenantly on the shelf as well.

CtC

CtC,

I think a lot of it is stock.

There are some trainers that have had outstanding success at the racetrack, but I\'d like to see some of the financial details of how their owners made out after shelling out fortunes for a lot of horses that never did a thing. You can win a lot of major races and still slowly break some of your big owners.

Some of it is probably random. It\'s also clear that success or failure often gets the attention of owners who then might be tempted to go with whomever is winning lately. Success breeds more success even if it started out partly as a favorable lucky run (and vice versa).

Shug is probably more tied to stock than anyone. Plus I believe he has had some personal problems that might have impacted his results from time to time.

[HP]

I think the TG trainer stats are great and very useful, and I have been leaning more towards the \"figure based\" stats. If the sample is big enough, the trainers that get 30% new tops in a relevant category are definitely worth noting (this comes up about one or two out of every ten races). There are ocassions that the standard trainer stats are useful too -- again, for me the trick is not getting sucked into good stats with smaller samples.

HP

[jbelfior]

My personal top 5:


1. Allen Jerkens

2. Dick Mandella

3. Graham Motion

4. Todd Pletcher

5. Wally Dollace

I think Shugs horses occasionally will run well despite him. Ditto my feelings for Mark Henning, Carl Nafgzer, and Niall O\' Callahan.



Good Luck,
Joe B.

[marcus]

I\'ve found the new run based data very interesting and for me thus far the most profitable  when using them when enough # \'s to form a comfortable opinion on a horse\'s pattern are not available due to the number of races run or other many factors like lay off angle\'s , route to sprint , 1st turf etc .

 I don\'t want to use the run based pattern stat\'s to limit or set paramiters for viewing or accessing a horse\'s pattern - and not to try too guess exactly what number will be run but rather how good , will the horse run - how well ? The ever pertinent and relevent question for the age\'s ...

 Presently I\'m using the new stats more in formulating wagering stratigies to use lets say a borderline horse on patterns or numbers over ( if a short price ) or in a box ( if a big price ) becouse the run based data trainer stats for the horse look excellent - similar to using or not using a runner based on projected ground loss or ground saved when trip handicapping a given race .

 Someday and it\'s probably not to far off , I\'d like to see run based pattern stats that use a sampling of \"all\" horse\'s and also for sire + dam run based pattern stats to be included in profile data - though it might not have the utillity as a professional handicapping tool that the  new data offers at present .



Post Edited (12-02-04 02:20)

[Michael D.]

joe,
share the feeling on shug and henning. shug has so many nice horses in the barn it\'s scary. something tells me he might have a decent 2005 though. henning also has a lot of well bred horses (many from the evans operation). i don\'t think he gets the most of his horses either. right now, it\'s clearly pletcher and frankel. say what you want about their vets (i don\'t know a thing about their vets), but their horses are performing well above those of any other trainers.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

jbelfior wrote:

> My personal top 5:
>
>
> 1. Allen Jerkens
>
> 2. Dick Mandella
>
> 3. Graham Motion
>
> 4. Todd Pletcher
>
> 5. Wally Dollace
>
> I think Shugs horses occasionally will run well despite him.
> Ditto my feelings for Mark Henning, Carl Nafgzer, and Niall O\'
> Callahan.
>
>
 
Thats a fab five thats hard to argue with. (Have to say I\'ve caught Dollace talking b.s. a couple times though) I think a little bit more of Shug and Nafgzer than you I guess. But they are old school. I don\'t think they have any non-deck aces up their selves.



Post Edited (12-02-04 05:22)

[Michael D.]

CtC,
i think there\'s more to shug than just not having any of the modern tricks up his sleeve. seems to me, many of his horses train themselves into shape on race day, while pletcher and frankel have their horses wound up and ready to go. not all of the blame can be put on shug however. he is in a way part of the huge phipps breeding operation, and they don\'t want a daughter of personal ensign wound up like a quarter horse in the morning......again, i think shug is in for a decent 2005 though. the phipps have done some nice breeding work with ap indy, unbridled, and danzig over the last few yars. those colts and fillies might be ready to pop in \'05. look for at least a few graded wins from shug in \'05, maybe even a few early in the season.

It would be nice to see Shug do really well again. He had some incredible years awhile back. I never felt like he was doing anything suspect. About the only think I could complain about was that it seemed that any Belmont bias that existed during the week would somehow magically change overnight whenever Shug had major horses entered on the weekend...always in a way that helped his horse. :-)