Drug-busting

[Dougie Sal]

This board seems to be a radically anti-juice trainer and anti-Allday board. I\'m aware of the widespread cheating (drug use) that\'s going on, and i\'m hip to the fact that vets and trainers are way too aggressive---but I\'ve done so well betting over the last few years, that I\'m starting to worry that a clean game might not be in my best interest.

the latest casuilty in the milkshake incident is Adam Kitchingman. I\'m really upset about that--because I\'ve been looking forward to betting Kitchingman at Del Mar later this year. He has a lifetime training record of 7-for-20 (35% wins) at Del Mar. Kitchingman won at a 29% clip in the rookie season of 2003 going 12-for-42. Last year he went 21-for-94 (22% wins) Since the trainers have come under scrutiny in 2005, Kitch is just 2-for-22 (9% wins) overall, and a dismal 1-for-15 at Santa Anita. He seems to have lost his magic wand.

As for Jeff Mullins, he\'s lost 18 consecutive races as of today. His longest losing streak of all of 2004 was just a 17 race slide that ended on March 5th of 2004. It\'s getting bad for us when someone as invincible as Mullins has been reduced to being a near throwout type trainer.

If all horses ran on hay, oats, and water- the trainer would go from being one of the central factors in the handicapping process- to being only a factor in instances dealing with First Time Starters, or layoffs. I can only speak for myself, but I don\'t really know if I would want that to happen.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I don\'t know. If a betting style is slanted towards trainer betting, its probably going to suffer. A much more sound betting style is to work at ascertaining which horse should be best in the spot that day.

I also think most of the big winners for the huge juice boys, go off at fairly unrenumerative odds. Occasionally you\'ll get the jump up juice horse at 10-1 plus but not that often and when you do its generally a \"I\'m just betting the trainer this race\" score. Its harder to do right now, but theres still value in beating the \"Frankel Cheaters\" but you have to pick your spots.

What will happen of course is that the horse will matter more and the medicine will matter less and picking the horse will become a bigger part of the game again.

I like that.

CtC

[NoCarolinaTony]

It doesn\'t seem to be affecting the trainers at the MAGNA tracks in MD and FL yet! Is Magna providing safe haven for certian trainers (especially those that train for Mr. MAGNA?)

NC Tony

[kev]

Ok here\'s the problem I have with knocking trainers like Bobby F. You have these so call jump up trainers, and we know who they are, if anyone is using the juice it\'s these guys, getting a 15K runner and in two races he\'s winning a stake. With the big boys like Bobby and others, ( and they might be using something, but not as strong of the others, who knows ) but they get the good bred horses also. If their owners buy a 300,000 horse and it\'s winning G1\'s and 2\'s, can you really say he\'s using the juice. I think some people just don\'t like certain trainers. It\'s funny people will only knock a few trainers and leave the others that are batting 22% and up alone.

[NoCarolinaTony]

K. McLaughlin  also trains for Mr Magna. Look at his GP%...........Most have come on the turf and off layoffs as well.

Overall Statistics
From 01/03/2005 To 02/24/2005

Current Meet Leading Trainers
Name        Sts 1st 2nd 3rd Win% $% Purses
Pletcher     68 19 16 6 28 60 $764,580
William I. Mott 52 10 14 9 19 63 $298,440
Daniel C. Hurtak 59 9 10 5 15 41 $102,370
Mark A. Hennig 32 9 3 3 28 47 $273,770
Richard E. Dutrow, Jr. 25 8 7 2 32 68 $636,300
Kiaran P. McLaughlin 31 8 6 2 26 52 $298,980
Nicholas P. Zito 43 7 7 4 16 42 $320,510
Wesley A. Ward 31 6 4 4 19 45 $152,050
Stephen R. Margolis 25 6 3 0 24 36 $180,970
Maria Virginia Pascual 19 5 6 1 26 63 $66,350

Dougie Sal,

I\'ve been saying the same thing for awhile.

Most of the posters here are geared primarily towards final time figures as the definition of performance and don\'t spend nearly as much time on trainer issues (other than the TG stats that relate to the figures) and the things that can impact final time.

There is more than one path to profits.

I suspect that a serious crackdown on the trainers is actually going to make the game more difficult to beat. Everyone has access to pretty good speed figures. Very few people study trainers very carefully.

[twoshoes]

Kev,

I agree Bobby F. has a lot to work with but I think some suspicion had to be aroused when he took Spoken Fur, a decent filly, and in her first start for Frankel she jumped - if memory serves - about 4 or 5 Thorograph points and then stayed at that level (typical Frankel)until the wheels came off in The Alabama. That is just one example that comes to mind and I can see why some folks qustion that type of improvement.

Mark

[TGJB]

Yeah, taking a look at what his private buys have done would be interesting. But I want to remind everyone about what I said here several times-- in the spring of 01, every horse in Frankel\'s barn moved to a 3-4 point new top, at the same time. These were older horses, many of them turf horses, with established tops. The chance of one horse doing that is small, the chance of several really small, the chance of all of them (Aptitude was one) statistically impossible. We heard later that was when he hired Allday.

It\'s easy to tell with the claiming trainers-- you can see the figures move up. But you can also tell by what % of a trainer\'s horses run big numbers, and what % of the time they do it-- not by how often they win.

And you can also tell by correlating that with which vet they use.

I\'m heading out of town for a couple of days, you guys are on your own. Play nice.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

kev wrote:

> 300,000 horse and it\'s winning G1\'s and 2\'s, can you really say
> he\'s using the juice. I think some people just don\'t like
> certain trainers.

First off, 300K really isn\'t that much for a horse. It\'s almost slumming as hard as that is to comprehend. Look at the number of Great Trainers that have to wait years for another horse. Drysdale had A.p. Indy in 1992. It took him until 2000 to get another with some abilitiy. (FuPig)

Shug ran good horses in the Derby in consecutive years 1988 and 1989 with Seeking the Gold and Easy Goer. A couple years back he had one named Accellerator that was close to Derby good, but I think he missed it. I can\'t recall now.

Look at Charlie Whittingham\'s Derby record. Ferdinand in 86, Sunday Silence in 89 and Strodes Creek in 94 and that was a pretty good string.

Bottom line is you just don\'t come up with good horse after good horse in this game. It doesn\'t happen. Rather, it didn\'t happen until the last five years. Frankel has been getting hand me downs from Juddmonte and others and improving them trememdously. He\'s always been a good trainer, but he never moved horses like he\'s currently doing.

According to Delmar Deb, he\'s complaining about the milkshake positive impositions and threatening to race elsewhere. I don\'t know it that is true and honestly I can\'t point to what he\'s doing and say: \"There it is! There\'s the proof of his shenanigans!\", but he is cheating.

Everything seems to be leaning towards oxygen pick up and lactic acid inhibitors. Supposedly this vet \"White Mercedes\" stated he worked with \"Titrations\". (Allday is Frankel\'s Vet). I\'m not sure what Titrations are but from my glancing at medical (lab) reports they have a Ph component (Acid/Base) and involve identitifying an unknown substance by the quantitative remainder of a known substance introduced into the compound. I\'m speculating, and I don\'t like to do that, but I think Allday is playing word games with the neutralization of lactic acid by administering a buffer.

[Delmar Deb]

CTC:

Frankel signed the agreement for testing and milkshakes for the current SA meeting without any quibbling.  It was last year (SA winter meet & HP spring)that he and Mullins threatened to take their \"toys\" and leave.

I\'ve always thought that the performance enhancing medication used by Mullins, Avila, Mitchell, & Becerra was different from whatever the Allday trainers used (assuming anyone is using anything - don\'t want to get sued here!).  The typical \"treated\" Mullins horse would either look like Man o\' War coming around the far turn and maintain a sustained drive for as much as 1/4 mile; or re-break at the 1/8th pole when it looked like the whole field would pass him.

Horses trained by Frankel, Pletcher & Romans who ran to or above their tops always looked the part from the paddock to the starting gate and throughout the race.  This could be the result of just the difference between claiming v. stakes horses, or perhaps Allday is keeping the horses at a \"level\" 3 or 4 weeks prior to the race with a little bit every day.  And Mullins (et al)just give their horses the booster shot on race day.

Don\'t know - but until the rulemakers find out what it is that is being used and can identify it and test for it, the best chemists will continue to win.



Post Edited (02-25-05 14:17)

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

Delmar Deb wrote:

> Don\'t know - but until the rulemakers find out what it is that
> is being used and can identify it and test for it, the best
> chemists will continue to win.

Biology and chemistry are ascertainable. Its why the chemists have been able to move the horses of late. Chemists can also be employed by the oversight folks. They\'ve always feed horses secret things to get a fitness edge. Dickenson still gives his horses Guiness. (I like foreign beer, but that stuff is swill.) I was naive about milkshakes. I really thought they were making the horse peppier and came to realize the predominant benefit is to stave off fatigue. So I\'m coming to the party late, but I still think its ascertainable.

I\'d like to see all of TGJB\'s opinions implemented and I\'d like to see all the jurisdictions adopt the very same drug policies and have a national oversight body that employs at least one top bio-chemist.

[miff]

DEB,

I have noted the exact same pattern between the claiming juice trainers and the stakes trainers.I go to the track fairly often and note, for example that ALL of Pletchers horses look grand!!barrel chested, thick  bowed neck etc.They sort of remind me of Bonds, Sosa, Giambi et al,post steroid use.

[jbelfior]

My feeling is that most of these \"super trainers\" would be eating crackers for dinner if American racing was confined to turf races only. This does not, of course, extend to Frankel or Pletcher who train million dollar animals bred on both sides to be stars on the grass.

My theory on this is the fact that grass racing is all about late pace which may detract from the advantage gained by \"juiced-up\" horses on dirt.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[kev]

twoshoes,
         Are you talking about S.Fur back in 2003?? I don\'t have the TG numbers for that, but Beyers had her running a 91 before BF got her and then ran a 104 and after that a 88-91-94-89......the wheels came off in the Alabama 03\'???(maybe she ran in 04\' I don\'t know ) she was 3rd by 7, Island Fashion won by 6 that day and then came back to get beat by 1/2 in the Gazelle. Before BF 7-3-1-2, after BF for the year 2003 5-2-0-2, again I\'m not saying BF is not using anything I don\'t know, but my point is he gets alot of good horse, unlike others.
CTC, Look at BF derby wins, oh none and his BC win record not that good either, I know some will say well thats because he can\'t use the juice at those places ( bull ). Let\'s look at all BF horse\'s for the year 2003, that won atless a G3 or better
1. Aldebaran  2. Betty\'s Wish  3. Chiming
4. Continuously  5. Denon  6. Empire Maker.
7. Final Destination  8. Ghostzapper.
9. Heat Haze.  10. Lilac Queen  11. Medaglia d\'oro  12. Megahertz  13. Midas Eyes  14. Milwaukee Brew  15. Peace Rules  16. Sea of Showers  17. Sightseek  18. Speak in Passing  19. Spoken Fur  20. Tates Creek  21. War Zone  22. Watchem Smokey  23. Wild Sprit  24. You....Any of these jump out at anyone, that might be a jucie hoss, jump up out of their skin?? What about the old horses of old......looking back at some of them, they held on to their form very well also. If there was some way to stop the jucie, you would see people like Jeff. M and Richard D. and others fall big time and the big trainers like BF and Todd P. would keep getting the good horses cause of their names. Thanks for all the input, this is a real good topic.

[kev]

Here is some stats that were run on the so-called super trainers ( not by me )
1. When the ST claim\'s a horse, or it has changed hands to them ( within 60 days ) 24% win and 41% w/p
2. On the grass 21% 36% w/p
3. Any trainer with a first time starter (FTS) wins at about 8.5% and with the ST 28%, purse was set at 10,000 and up...and also sprints only.
4. ST and a horse coming off a 6 month layoff, 17% and 32% w/p purse 10,000 and up.