Frankel Quotes

[spook_express]

Was JB feeding this info to Frankel in an earpiece (although I think he speaks to sheets numbers)?....Looks like 5 weeks in between races isn\'t enough for the greatest horse on earth??? CtC any thoughts???


Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel said that reigning Horse of the Year and Metropolitan Mile winner Ghostzapper came out of his sparkling effort Monday in good shape, but he would likely pass on the July 2nd Suburban.

\"He looks good and he\'s eating good, but I want to give him a little more time because he ran so hard,\" Frankel said. \"The Suburban would be coming back soon after he just had a long layoff. I want to do the best thing for the horse.\"

Frankel believes that in general horses are running faster now than in previous decades and that is one reason why they can\'t make as many starts.

\"It\'s not the weakening of the breed,\" he said. \"Horses are running faster now than they were 20 years ago. If you look at sheet numbers back then, horses like Seattle Slew ran 7s. Horses run so fast now that they\'re here and they\'re gone.\"

Better medication and feed are a couple reasons why Frankel thinks horses run faster now. The racetracks, he said however, were faster then than they are now.

\"In the old days the tracks used to have a 2 -inch cushion, now they have a 4-inch cushion,\" Frankel said. \"The horses are running faster and that\'s why I can\'t come back and run him too often. They\'re running so fast they\'re legs can\'t handle it. The faster they go, the better chance they have of getting hurt. It\'s simple physics.\"

The only thing that upset Frankel concerning the Met Mile was a lack of national television coverage.

\"You\'ve got the best horse you\'ve had in the last 20 years running around here and you don\'t have it on television,\" said Frankel, who added that the TV schedule for Ghostzapper\'s future appearances is lacking. \"The Woodward isn\'t even on television. The Whitney is on espn2 the next day.\"

\"He\'s the best horse in America and nobody knows about it. If you\'re not a hard-core bettor, you don\'t know who he is. I know he doesn\'t run that often, but if he runs three more times this year, those races should be on TV. This horse should have a huge fan following.\"

[gowand]

Maybe if he did something spectacular like carrying weight people would get excited.  Why was Cigar popular?  He ran a lot at many different tracks and carried some significant weight.  If he was trained by Frankel he would have run his winning streak to six and retired.

[TGJB]

spook-- where did Frankel\'s comments appear?

[miff]

Assuming Frankel said these things, what would you say if you stand to make a couple of million (syndicate bonus) and you knew that GZ is and has been fragile for quite some time.

Interesting that 20 years ago horses carried much more weight(handicaps) ran more often, had inferior nutrition/medicine and ran on a harder surface and did NOT break down nearly as often.DUHHHHH!!!

[Michael D.]

can\'t blame bobby for trying to build up GZ, but slew ran faster than that (7), and other horses around slew\'s time ran ten to fifteen lengths faster than that. interesting what he says about the cushion though. belmont is deeper, but how deep was the CD cushion when monarchos ran 1:59 and change?

....

and anybody think frankel would make that comment about medication while cheating? on the cutting edge, but i would guess he\'s doing things within the rules.



Post Edited (06-02-05 18:20)

[TGJB]

MIchael-- I would very much like to have complete and accurate information about the cushion depth, base depth, and composition of both, for CD and everywhere else. Problem with that stuff is you have to ask the right questions, and ALL of them, and you have to make sure the person answering has been around long enough to know, and is willing to give you the answer, not just get rid of you. Porcelli went back and looked up a lot of things going back to the 70s for me, and hopefully Miff will come up with more. I\'ve been trying to interest someone in doing an article on this for a while, to no avail.

Cigar was popular because Mott actually ran him and let \"the average guy\" see how good he was instead of just telling everybody how good he was.

I wrote a few paragraphs yesterday defending Ghost\'s record to date, but to be quite honest he has only beaten one good field in his career so far. I\'d love for him to finish out the year undefeated  - beat RIM, St. Liam, RHT, and the best 3YOs later in the year, but I already sense that Frankel is going to take the easiest possible path.

The problem today is not the horses as much as the attitude of some of the connections.

Who wants to bet that if Afeet Alex stays sound (no bad luck vs. just being worn out) he won\'t duck anyone and runs 7-8 solid races this year because his trainer is not afraid to actually go to the track?  

He\'ll get a break right after the Belmont and he\'ll be rolling again in August. A tough 2YO campaign, a vigorous work schedule, 3 Triple Crown preps, a grueling Triple Crown...... vs. one race in the Met against Grade 2 sprinters and already he\'s talking like a girly man. :-)



Post Edited (06-02-05 18:56)

JB,

One of things I\'m interested in is the composition of the track vs. moisture content. From what I recall of your write-ups, there\'s more sand now vs. clay in the past and that accounts for why today\'s sandy tracks often get faster when you add moisture and the clay tracks of the past got slower. That\'s consistent with what I remember and have seen in very old PPs.  

My question is this.

Suppose the cushion is deeper these days, but the moisture content is higher and somehow those factors offset.

I also seem to recall cushions of 3 - 3 1/4 when I first started going to the races (and had enough of a clue to actually notice something like that). The other day at Belmont it was 4 and 4 1/4.

[TGJB]

CH-- Interesting about the 4 1/4-- again, it was 3 inches when Najran ran 1:32:1 just a couple of years ago-- an isolated incedent due to miscommunication, they were mostly going with around 3 1/2.

Yeah, the moisture content becomes yet another variable, especially since it is adjusted artificially. When you sit down and look at all the variables you can see there are an awful lot of permutations. Bottom line, as I quoted Dr. Mick Peterson saying in \"Changing Track Speeds\", the way we do it (seeing how fast horses run over it), is the most accurate way to measure track \"speed\".

In practice, I don\'t have data on how much water is being added (and sometimes whether or when), let alone what\'s coming down in rain, or humidity. Tough question to address, although Porcelli was doing moisture content studies, and I suspect others are as well. It wouldn\'t hurt any if we had them, but we still wouldn\'t have them for 30 years ago, and would be looking at apples/oranges because of the soil content.

[TGJB]

CH-- you asked me a few months ago about current tracks that got slower with additional moisture. Well, I just did a day (5/28 Pim) where it rained from before the fourth through the fifth race, with the track listed as going from fast to good, and it got much slower (5-6 points), and stayed there. But to show you how complicated this stuff can be-- they floated the track for races 4,5 and 6. So which event slowed it down? And without knowing how much water was in the track before the day started, what conclusions would you be able to draw even if they hadn\'t done the work?

[TGJB]

Turns out Frankel\'s comments are in the press notes on the NYRA site. ROTW is now running in Thoroughbred Daily News, best guess is that\'s where he saw it. another possibility is that he\'s reading and posting here as Chuckles...




http://www.nyra.com/belmont/feature.asp?track=B&id=1345

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

spook_express wrote:

> Was JB feeding this info to Frankel in an earpiece (although I
> think he speaks to sheets numbers)?....Looks like 5 weeks in
> between races isn\'t enough for the greatest horse on earth???
> CtC any thoughts???
>

Yes, thoughts are fighting for expression over this issue, but pretty much already said them. The brave race was the Met, but he got weighted so favorably the risk was reduced and the primary competition didn\'t show up. Everyone was talking about the awesome Met. It was good, but what really manifested itself was vulnerability.

He\'s gonna run in the Woodward, Breeders Cup Classic and then MAYBE a turf start. (Gotta think the Turf race will be nixed. Whats he gonna do find a one mile turf event?)

Bottom line is if you have a good horse with an achilles heel you don\'t expose it to unknown or concerning variables, including: Weight and Distance, Weight, Saratoga (Beaten there) and Grass.

This is not a great horse. He\'s a good one, but even with all the Ghostdodging, he\'s still got one legitimate test on the so-called \"agenda\".

TGJB,

I couldn\'t answer any of your questions and agree with your conclusions. It\'s all very complicated. The good news is that at least you are aware that moisture changes/track rolling have an impact and can make adjustments to your variants as needed.

[jbelfior]

Also printed today in Jerry Bossert\'s write-up in the NY Daily News.


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[jbelfior]

SEATTLE SLEW ran 7\'s???

Did he get a 7 when he beat AFFIRMED in the Marlboro Cup in 1:45 and change? or when he ran a 1:20 4/5 as a 3yo going 7f.? or when he came back at EXCELLER going 1 1/2 after hitting the 6f mark in 1:09...?

IMO, SLEW would have dusted GZ....I could care less what the numbers say when it comes to this.


Good Luck,
Joe B.