Carlos Martin

[TheBull]

Gotta love this guy......habitually an 8% trainer.....now firing on all cylinders. Wins a sprint with Greyjoy 5 days ago, now stretches him out to a mile and an eighth right back. Horse looks hopelessly beaten and magically kicks on and finds a way to get up. Guess that sprint effort 5 days ago was a good tightener and had him fit for today lol. With him and other notoriously cold Spa guys like Rudy and Jacobson having big meets (and getting pounded at the windows), makes you wonder what\'s going on upstate.

[FrankD.]

Bull,

A strange meet for sure, my 44th and I\'m seeing things I\'ve never seen here before. I\'m far from a conspiracy theorist but there is a lot more than hay, oats and water going on up here this summer. Much of it is very legal, supplements, shoes, pools, chambers,acupuncture, dental and chiro care, no doubt. Big purses, many are willing to spend big money on the best for their stock. Much of it has to do with sharp Aqueduct claiming trainers being able to read a condition book and take advantage of the garbage they have to write daily up here to fill 63 races in the 6 day week that ends today.

Not crying sour grapes because I\'m losing a few bucks at this meet. Quite honestly I do not know a person who is in the black this meet and I know a lot of people!

Why would NYRA worry about chasing people away who put up 6 figure handles into this 40 day meet when they have Pokecoins to hand out?

[jbelfior]

Brings back memories of Oscar, Pete, John P, etc. Claim them, sprint them, then stretch them out right after.

Brings to mind a story from a retired NY jockey about Pistol Pete and a mare he claimed at Philly Park at the time. This was actually the reverse. Prior to the claim, the mare couldn\'t get within 5 lenghts of a :49 half in routes.The Pistol enters her in a sprint on the Big A inner and the guy telling the story thinks Pistol P is wasting their time. Gate opens and he nearly flies out of the saddle after she zips the opening quarter in :22 and change and crosses the wire in 1:11 on the engine the whole way.

That was 30 + years ago. Makes you wonder why we still do this.

Good Luck,
Joe B.

[FrankD.]

Joe B.

Today\'s motto is claim, tap, inject, drop and BET!!!

[richiebee]

TheBull Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gotta love this guy......habitually an 8%
> trainer....

According to Equibase, Carlos Martin has won 635 races in 4,894 starts. My
ciphering puts him as a 13% lifetime trainer.

When you make a post with one fact, and get that fact wrong, why should I even
consider the innuendo that follows?

But I will play along: Did you ever consider that by running a horse back in
five days, a trainer would probably only have to administer the snake oil once?

[TheBull]

And if a couple % points makes you disregard the innuendo, despite the abnormal performances and even more abnormal amounts of money that get bet on his stuff, seemingly overnight, then just dont post on the topic. Did correcting the stat from 8% to 13% somehow refute anything I said and make it less viable? Or did you just want to look smart?

I have skin in the game, and not just the significant money I bet. The game being played as fair as possible is important to me and my bottom line. If it\'s not important to yours then write wistful poems and lyrics about the game instead. I will continue to point out suspicious stuff like this whenever I can and whatever outlets I feel will make it visible to important people who share my concerns (this board included).

[Boscar Obarra]

More interesting to me are the barns that suddenly cant catch a winner, where they had no trouble before.

 Other side of the same snake?

[richiebee]

No, I took the one stat you cited and pointed out that it was incorrect, and
not by \"a couple of points\". And the sample size is not insignificant. And I
did not make it a personal attack.

There are so many ways you could have made your point. The TG \"last 90 day
stat\"? The National Racing Commissions website where you could have retrieved
all rulings, medication related and otherwise, against a given trainer? Carlos
Martin is training for an owner named Matthew Shera (I think); they have been
active at the claim box. Is Carlos Martin getting abnormally good results
(especially with older horses) first time off the claim? Maybe I am not aware:
has Carlos Martin, 13% trainer over a career consisting of almost 5,000
starts, been an 8% trainer at the Spa over the years? You mentioned the horse
came back in 5 days. Did you look at Carlos Martin\'s TG 1-7 day stat?

Then there is the condition book. The horse in question is doing well, and
maybe this was the only spot to run back in. I do not know.

With regards to RudyRod, it is rather obvious to me that thanks to Michael
Dubb, RudyRod now has racing stock, particularly turf horses and maidens,
which fit the Saratoga racing program a little better than in previous years.

You mention fairness (\"The game being played as fair as possible is important
to me....\"). What is fair about sliming a trainer based on the result of one
race and citing one statistic? A statistic you cited incorrectly?

\"Looking smart\" is overrated, but being smart is kind of cool.

Good luck. The facts are out there.

[TGJB]

Martin is suddenly one of the guys to watch. As I said at Sunday\'s seminar, I\'m handicapping Saratoga like it\'s February at the inner track right now. And the scary thing is that the board has been an absolute indicator of who is going to run well, and not just with the 5-6 guys to watch. For just one example, take a look at the betting for the 16 claimer Sunday, how unbet the two dropdowns were.

[mjellish]

This is absolutely spot on. The race you pointed out, it\'s not just they weren\'t being bet, its knowing they probably were being bet by the crowd as per usual and it\'s the other money on the other horse(s) that are making the droppers look dead on the board.  So you see horse that you figure should be 10-1 and it\'s 4-1. Normally i discount a lot of that stuff unless i know the action is coming from a stable that bets, \"Smart\" money isn\'t usually that smart, etc., that type of thing.  But that has not been the case this year.  No doubt about it.

[TGJB]

It also happened the race after the Lake Placid. I played the winner of the stake (who was crushed late) with two in the next, those two were ice cold and neither fired. I think the doubles ended up being less than the parlay would have paid with both.

Word is there are some private clockers up there, but I think it\'s more than that. Baker\'s horse opened up 6/5 in the feature today-- off the claim, in a stake.

[Boscar Obarra]

The Baker had no published works in almost 4 weeks (in the pp\'s I use), which I thought a bit odd.

[Strike]

Ritchie,

I am not taking sides but wow do you have a way expressing yourself deftly. My daughter just got into USC Film School for Screenwriting -- she also has a way with words. Love it!

[TheBull]

Please Richie, you had your mind made up that you were coming at me. You don\'t go out of your way to look up someone\'s lifetime stats and calculate their win percentage and then respond with it as your first line, for no reason. Your tone was \"your stat was wrong so your thesis was wrong.....look at my stat, I proved you wrong, Im so smart\". Like I said, let me know how him being a 13% trainer as opposed to 8% makes my conclusion any less viable. So wait, he is 13% now so these results are consistent and in line with the norm? Please stop. And I offered way more than \"one wrong stat\". I mentioned abnormal performance and betting patterns, not to mention the prescence of usual ice cold Spa trainers having very similar type activity and results as my logic. Youre asking questions about horses first off the claim and his stats in that category. That\'s irrelevant. This horse wasnt off the claim. It\'s horses he has had, running abnormal performances combined with suspicious betting. That\'s a huge red flag. It\'s not one wrong stat.  

I know Matthew Schera......and that wasnt his horse. Greyjoy is owned by a lawyer and this is his only horse. Like I said, Im worried about my bottom line, the health of the game and the health of the horses (both my own and otherwise). It seems like you are just worried about trying to be right and coming off smarter than everyone else so you can feel good about yourself. Again, that can go in a different thread than this one. Your response brought nothing to the thread other than the \"hey look at me\" tone of correcting a stat and then ripping my argument because of it.

If you want to be snotty and criticize red boarders or bad beat complainers, just so you can feel good, that\'s your business, but if you\'re going to come at me like a know it all and put that trash in one of my threads, bring a little more meat then the \"Your stat was a few % pts wrong, so you must be an idiot\" garbage from today. I assure you sir, Im no idiot, particularly when it\'s matters like these.

[firmturf]

I noticed on Saturday Disco Partner (12/1 ml prior to scratches) was the favorite in double pools with the lower odds horses in the 4th.