pletcher

[Michael D.]

caught using mepivacaine? i think they got dutrow for this a few year\'s ago (farmer jake?)
....

dutrow got a $3g fine and 45 days.

[bdhsheets]

DESCRIPTION

Mepivacaine hydrochloride is 2-Piperidinecarboxamide, N-(2,6-dimethylphenyl)-1-methyl-, monohydrochloride.

The molecular formula is C 15 H 22 N 2 O · HCl.

It is a white, crystalline odorless, powder, soluble in water, but very resistant to both acid and alkaline hydrolysis.

Mepivacaine hydrochloride is a local anesthetic available as sterile isotonic solutions (clear, colorless) in concentrations of 1%, 1.5% and 2% for injection via local infiltration, peripheral nerve block, and caudal and lumbar epidural blocks.

Mepivacaine hydrochloride is related chemically and pharmacologically to the amide-type local anesthetics. It contains an amide linkage between the aromatic nucleus and the amino group.


 

[Michael D.]

jerry,
any chance of seeing the #\'s for tales of glory? i think the pattern after the positive will be interesting. i have tried to support guys like pletcher who have never had a positive. news like this makes it very difficult.

I\'m obviously a big Pletcher fan. I\'m going to wait for some details. The DRF article said the drug is sometimes used when a horse is given stitches and it can stay in its system for a long time. I\'d like to see that TG sheet also though.

[HP]

Michael D and class,

(1) Pletcher has had positives before.  Here\'s a link to a court brief involving one of Pletcher\'s suspensions (in Fla.).  

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/dawson/cases/racing/donk.htm

(2) This was from a bulletin board thing I found:

\"In 2002 at Saratoga, as some of you may remember, three Todd Pletcher trained horses died in a week, all after running devastatingly impressive races. Left Bank stretched out to 1 1/8 miles in the Whitney, sat off a fast pace and blew away Street Cry, Lido Palace and Evening Attire. Warners, a promising but so far disapointing 3YO, won by 10 ( while dropping from 2-1 to even money as the field left the gate ) and a 2YO filly dueled through excruciating fractions in the Adirondack, only to draw away and win by 5 or more. All three of these horses were dead within days.

Coincidence?    

Whether it was a coincidence or not, I wonder how the press and folks on this message board would have treated this tragic occurance if the trainer had been D. Wayne Lukas and not Todd Pletcher (yes, I know Pletcher was an assistant for Lukas, so maybe this is a bad example)

It infuriates me when certain trainers get a pass when their horses are injured or die, but others get put on the hot seat time and time again.\"

HP

[HP]

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/dawson/cases/racing/donk.htm

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/dawson/cases/racing/donk.htm

This is the link (I see it might not have come out in previous post).

HP

[HP]

tarlton.law.utexas.edu/dawson/cases/racing/donk.htm

That should work..., just put http:// in front of it.  Sorry for extra posts...

HP

HP,

Very interesting stuff.

I think Lukas takes more heat than most trainers partly because of his past success and partly because he has run a handful of VERY HIGH PROFILE horses well past the point where even casual fans understood that the horse was done and should be retired. He also has had at least one very high profile horse that was rumored to have problems before an important race that broke down in that race.

IMO, there\'s another high profile west coast trainer that breaks down a lot more horses with potential than Lukas ever did because of his aggressive super fast workout style. It\'s tough to link WOs with physical problems though. It\'s just an opinion (mine).  

When you run a horse into the ground people notice.

[HP]

Pletcher is a smooth operator and a good interview.  He\'s not an abrasive guy.  This is not even the first time he\'s been suspended in NEW YORK.  

I\'m not the greatest handicapper in the world, but I have been looking at sheets for a long time, and sheet readers know what typical horse patterns look like, and what exceptional horses look like, etc.  I don\'t know how else to put this:  Pletcher\'s horses don\'t do what they\'re supposed to do.  Frankel\'s horses don\'t do what they\'re supposed to do.  I know this is ridiculously subjective, but they just don\'t LOOK right.  There are others...  

This is why I blew my top over Class\' whole \"lightly raced\" stock thing.  Pletcher has been suspended, several times.  There\'s plenty of evidence that he\'s dirty, over and above my subjective view of the sheets of his horses.  

There are lots of trainers that haven\'t had positives and they might not win as much as Pletcher, but they may be more worthy of \"fan\" interest.  

HP

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

HP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> This is why I blew my top over Class\' whole
> \"lightly raced\" stock thing.  Pletcher has been
> suspended, several times.  There\'s plenty of
> evidence that he\'s dirty, over and above my
> subjective view of the sheets of his horses.  
>
> There are lots of trainers that haven\'t had
> positives and they might not win as much as
> Pletcher, but they may be more worthy of \"fan\"
> interest.  
>
> HP
>

HP I agree with you entirely. Pletcher\'s horses shot right through the roof at the same time the other suspects began running lights out. Anecdote tells me he\'s cheating, I fully expected the tests to pick up something in the future, though I didn\'t know about this Saratoga issue until yesterday and didn\'t realize he\'d had other positive cases. The substance involved doesnt seem to be the jumper we all assume is out there, but it does ring a bell. Isn\'t it the same substance Dutrow is serving his suspension for?  Or I\'m I all alzheimers fogged out again.

Also, I though Left Bank died after colicking and surgery and a longish illness. Am I mistaken about that too?

HP,

I hear where you are coming from.

If you leave the drug aspect of the discussion out of the equation just for the moment, there\'s still a lot to be said for getting high quality stock, developing it properly, and spotting it well. The latter two are clearly desireable skills in a trainer and the first one often comes from demonstrating those latter two skills because they produce lots of winners.

A handful of trainers have been demonstrating those spotting and development skills for as long as I\'ve been around the game.

Both Pletcher and Frankel are very conservative at spotting their horses (IMO Frankel is too conservative) and seem to have a very keen ability to move them up the class ladder at approximately the right pace. If they experiment and it doesn\'t produce good results, they adjust quickly. That\'s why they have such a high win percentage overall. IMO at least \"partly\" why they don\'t win as often at the Breeder\'s Cup is that those races are loaded with contenders relative to the typcial stakes race - which automatically translates into a lower win percentage - and they give up their \"spotting\" skills just by entering. They have to take on horses they do a great job of avoiding all year long when they go to the BC. THere may be other reasons , but IMO speed figures alone are not proof because tons of horses run sub par races in those elite Grade 1 races because of the depth of quality, race development etc...  

IMO, it\'s OK to be suspicious about what else is going on and still bet on their horses when they going off at overlaid odds in a situation where they usually have excellent results.  

I am suspicious when a trainer moves a horse up by a real lot very quickly and  took him from another highly competent horseman. I am suspicious if the horse is running new tops at the age of 6 etc....

I am less suspicios when a trainer improves a horse he took from a trainer with a terrible overall record or when he takes a horse that has long showed potential to a farm for two months before turning him around.

I don\'t disagree with any of you guys in general. I just think there has been an occasional jump to judgement.

Every time a horse runs really well it doesn\'t he must have been drugged and every time he misfires it doesn\'t mean it must have been the new drug screening. IMO, once you start playing horses with that mindset, you\'re gambling is going get really screwed up and you are going to start making all sorts of excuses for your own errors in information and/or understanding.  

[HP]

I haven\'t seen any jump to judgement and this stuff just confirms what I\'ve said.  Spotting horses my ass.  Pletcher\'s a cheater.  He \"spots his horses carefully\" meaning he probably puts them in the places where he thinks he can most likely get away with cheating.  

He\'s been caught before (in several states).  Now he\'s busted again.  He had them dying like flies at Saratoga (bad batch?).  He wins a lot BECAUSE HE CHEATS.  It\'s a fact!  Please let\'s call a spade a spade without all the obfuscation.  I don\'t care if I cash tickets or not.  Yeesh.    

As for his training skill:  How can anyone judge his training skills?  His success is based on cheating.  You\'d have to see him train without cheating for awhile to have any opinion on his abilities.  For all we know without the juice he\'s like Gaylord Perry without the spitter.    

HP

[TGJB]

I would be very interested to hear what SJU5 has to say about the drug in question, since he knows more about this stuff than the rest of us put together. Off the top of my head I doubt it\'s the magic bullet-- discussions I have had with people in the industry indicate we may be closing in on that, and that it is far more dangerous because it is simple, effective, and legal, at the moment. The problem with using the kind of stuff Pletcher had a positive with is that there is a test for it-- hence the positive.

I do remember when those Pletcher horses died, although I thought it was just two of them. Yes, it was just when the move-up stuff started getting extreme, and his horses were moving up a lot.

HP,

Drugs or no drugs, the lightly raced high quality stock he gets slowly moves up the ladder while running progressively faster over time. That\'s the clear cut profile of a good horseman and always has been. The pure drug guys tend to move their horses up dramatically and quickly.  

Spotting horses is a skill even if you are using super duper high test. You still have to accurately assess how much ability your horse has relative to the competiton. You have to know what distance/surface etc... he prefers and put him against horses he can actually beat at that time. You have to map out a schedule that makes sense. If he\'s not doing well, you have to back off. If an experiment fails you have to change gears etc.... You have to avoid horses that can beat you.  

Let\'s assume he is using something illegal 100% of the time. Now let\'s say he stops and all of his new horses start running 5 lengths slower. IMO, he would still win a ton of races because he\'d run them where they belong - it would just be at a lower level than they run now. He might not win as many Graded Stakes etc... but he\'d be winning listed stakes at second string tracks, allowance races, etc... instead because he knows what he\'s doing and knows how to spot horses.

On the flip side take a look at Nick Zito\'s record. Here\'s another guy that gets great stock. IMHO he has less of a clue about how much ability his horses have than the average fan that can read the DRF a little. His horses are often spotted horribly. Their performances are up and down all over the place. Some people are suspicious of his activities too. They may be right, but his lowly 10%-11% win percentage is the result of his lack of skill. If he\'s using drugs it doesn\'t help him win a lot because he is lacking skills that guys like Pletcher and Frankel have.

IMO you have to seperate the skill and the illegal activity. You can be a cheat and still be highly skilled and vice versa.

[HP]

IMO...forget about it.  You\'re right, he\'d win a lot anyway.  I\'ve never heard of say, on the flip side...Nick Zito getting a positive, but I guess you won\'t that stand in the way of your theories.  Zito wins less because he doesn\'t know how to spot his horses and Pletcher wins more, not because he cheats, but because he spots his horses better.  Have it your way.  HP