Dead Horses Tell No Tales

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

I was hoping to tune in tonight and find the TSheets for the 4 subject horses I mentioned earlier, (Lawyer Ron, Left Bank, Freedom\'s Daughter and Warners), unfortunately they were not provided, but I\'d like to make an educated guess about what those sheets would indicate to buttress the point that performance enhancing drugs were involved in their demise.

Lawyer Ron was a precocious 2YO and an active 3YO. He had established a level of performance and was a good horse. Plech took him over and struggled a bit with him but in the Whitney ran him as fast as a Negative 5 or better, far exceeding his previous level of performance even though that level was fully established by frequency. Plech was going to run him in the new Breeders Cup Dirt mile, but immediately after the Whitney spoke of pointing him for the Classic.

Left Bank, was a fast shortish winded horse, until his 5YO year. Suddenly he jumped up to performance levels in his last 2 races that were in the TFig category of Negative 3. I believe that at the time, such a figure would have been the fastest TFigs ever assigned. After that remarkable Whitney, Left Bank sickened almost immediately and was dead in 2 months.

Freedom\'s Daughter was a 2YO filly and only had 2 starts. She died undefeated, but if I don\'t miss my guess her last win a Grade II was her career top. It was a slow raw time race, though TGraph could clarify the Figure.

Warners was a 3YO colt. He started a total of 6 times and once again was dead in about a week after winning his last race. A race which I believe was probably a career top. Once again, Tgraph could clarify that issue. The following site says he died of \"laminitis\". Obviously, it was much more than that:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/warners

It may be that the subject horses did not all run last race career tops. If they didn\'t it wouldn\'t change the fact that their deaths were Not random. But a finding by Tgraph that they were career tops would add even more weight to the issue.

[Barry Irwin]

Clown: the track that Lawyer Ron earned his negative number on was one of the strangest surfaces seen in a long time. For you to keep trotting this up shows that you just do not want to face facts.

You also don\'t want to hear anything about the horsemanship that brought about improvement in that colt after he was no longer ridden by an incompetent exercise rider.

Like all conspiracy theorists, you just want to twist reality to fit a nice, tidy little theory.

[spa]

The surface was the difference between Lawyer Ron\'s last two races. This is a fact that could save you money in the future.

[Street Sense]

Barry Irwin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Clown: the track that Lawyer Ron earned his
> negative number on was one of the strangest
> surfaces seen in a long time. For you to keep
> trotting this up shows that you just do not want
> to face facts.
>
> You also don\'t want to hear anything about the
> horsemanship that brought about improvement in
> that colt after he was no longer ridden by an
> incompetent exercise rider.
>
> Like all conspiracy theorists, you just want to
> twist reality to fit a nice, tidy little theory.


And you give yourself a hole in the sand, enabling you to use a trainer believed by handicappers and horsemen to be a cheat?  How do you explain Left Bank and the two other horses in his barn who dropped dead after running lights out a few years ago at Saratoga?

[JR]

Mr. Irwin,

I\'m not sure if I posed this question to you earlier. Could you please share with us your knowledge of the use use of anabolic steroids in thoroughbred race horses. Is its use nonexistent? Isolated? Widespread? And, do you attribute any improved performance due to the use of anabolic steroids? Finally, can you identify any trainers who administer anabolic steroids to their horses?

Thank you.

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

A conspiracy is an inchoate or incomplete crime. What we are discussing is \"fait accompli\".

The track played well to the right type of horse in two races. It was able to produce a fast time for a fast horse, but it was not a crazy speed track. Plech\'s post race comments that he was taking Lawyer Ron Breeders Cup Classic is additional evidence it was not a pure \"carrying\" track.

\"Horsemanship\"? hmmmm, As soon as he made the Derby in 2000 with four entries they\'ve been fawning all over him with \"horsemanship\" comments. He was 32 at the time. I\'ll state again, his \"horsemanship\" appears to have developed when he took on \"Dr.\" Steve Allday.

I\'ve heard a lot of reasons to play ostrich about Plech\'s antics, but I have to tell you claiming the exercise rider ruined Lawyer Ron\'s regimen is by far the most comical. Where did you come up with that crazy conspiracy? The doper himself I bet. And some accuse others of believing anything.

I\'ve put some good stuff on the table, but here we are without much of an interest in digging deeper. Barry you are in a position to discreetly ask the man when he took on his star employee and Tgraph has the data to shed light upon the \"allegations\" that I am leveling.

To Catch a Crook, you have to investigate him.

CtMC

Barry Irwin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Clown: the track that Lawyer Ron earned his
> negative number on was one of the strangest
> surfaces seen in a long time. For you to keep
> trotting this up shows that you just do not want
> to face facts.
>
> You also don\'t want to hear anything about the
> horsemanship that brought about improvement in
> that colt after he was no longer ridden by an
> incompetent exercise rider.
>
> Like all conspiracy theorists, you just want to
> twist reality to fit a nice, tidy little theory.

[lfe2211]

JR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mr. Irwin,
>
> I\'m not sure if I posed this question to you
> earlier. Could you please share with us your
> knowledge of the use use of anabolic steroids in
> thoroughbred race horses. Is its use nonexistent?
> Isolated? Widespread? And, do you attribute any
> improved performance due to the use of anabolic
> steroids? Finally, can you identify any trainers
> who administer anabolic steroids to their horses?
>
> Thank you.

JR,

I know you posed this question to Mr. Irwin and I as well as you would like to hear his answer. Perhaps you missed my post where I excerpted 2 quotes from a recent DRF article. Here they are again.


The American Graded Stakes Committee, which is overseen by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, moved to add the anabolic steroids to the post-race testing regimen after receiving reports that anabolic steroids were present in at least half of the post-race samples of horses that won 30 graded stakes last year, according to Andrew Schweigardt, the secretary of the committee and an official of TOBA.


The regulation of steroid use has become a major topic of discussion in the U.S. racing industry in the past 18 months. The U.S. is the only major racing jurisdiction in the world that allows the unregulated use of anabolic steroids, which can build muscle mass, restore a horse\'s appetite, and help horses recover from strenuous exercise.

[fkach]

>I\'ve heard a lot of reasons to play ostrich about Plech\'s antics, but I have to tell you claiming the exercise rider ruined Lawyer Ron\'s regimen is by far the most comical. Where did you come up with that crazy conspiracy? The doper himself I bet. And some accuse others of believing anything. <

Are you trying to create controversy or are you actually trying to understand Lawyer Ron\'s ability and performances this year and last?

I strongly suggest that you watch the replays of all his races leading up to Derby last year. With few exceptions, you\'ll see a series of races where LR was on the rank side and/or the jock moved prematurely and then had a difficult time with him. It was so clear he was a tough horse to relax that on the one instance he actually did so, it was a major part of the discussion on TV by Jerry Bailey etc...

No explanation was ever given for why he was a little rank, but Barry has given us a very logical one. Even if he\'s wrong, it doesn\'t change the fact that the horse was probably not performing up to his potential.  

I can probably still get my hands on a series of high quality pace figures for some of those performances if you\'d like. Then you\'ll be able to see some evidence that he was running better than it looked based on final time figures alone.

The potential for that horse to improve because of that issue alone was apparent and the reason for the purchase. Throw in the typical development to be expected from a high quality spring 3YO through his 4YO campaign and his early form this year is no shock at all. Neither is one peak performance with a controversial speed figure.

Humor me a little.  Let\'s not look at speed figures at all.

The Whitney field was a solid, deep, and evenly matched field, but none of those horses was a legitimate Grade 1 horse before that race. Most of them were Grade 2/3 types with occasional decent performances in weak higher level races. Beating that group (Wanderin Boy?) by 4-5 lengths was hardly a breathtaking performance. It was a legitimate Grade 1 performance against a less than stellar but deep field.

Regardless of whether LR\'s performance was illegally enhanced or not, this is about as bad an example of evidence for cheating as you can find.

[Silver Charm]

Five years ago Pletcher had horses at Saratoga dropping dead at the rate of one a week.

This last weekend Pletcher had THREE horses ridden by Johnny V. and Garrett unable to hold leads and passed in deep stretch.

Red Giant
English Channel
Sunriver

Something that was absolutely impossible to do even once much less three times back then.

The verdict is in. Pletcher is NO LONGER doping his horses.

[miff]

CTC said,


\"It may be that the subject horses did not all run last race career tops. If they didn\'t it wouldn\'t change the fact that their deaths were Not random. But a finding by Tgraph that they were career tops would add even more weight to the issue\"



....run a top on TG and risk dying!! Hee Hee. Chuck, surely, you had too many beers when you posted that.The idea that horses that run fast figs breakdown or die more often than slower runners is only opinion with no facts to support it. Most breakdowns/injuries, app 20 to 1 at NY tracks,occur during training, breezing, jogging etc as opposed to during a race(natch,they train far more often than they run).To what extent the PREVIOUS race/races plays in breakdowns is subject to widely varying opinions.

It makes sense that powerful drugs could add up to death/breakdowns but that has not been proven yet.On a related subject, there are all sorts of RUMORS with regard to the case involving Patrick Biancone.It seems the KY racing authority has gone to unprecedented lengths to ensure their legal position before proceeding with their findings.Sounds ominous for the frenchman.



Mike


Mike

[alm]

There are some weird ideas on this series of posts...here are a few insights about them.

First, horses have been on steroids a lot longer than human athletes.  I\'ve been breeding for 25 years and the first broodmare I bought off the track went from muscle-bound to frail in a few weeks.

The steroids were legal, so no one was cheating.  On the other hand, steroids do some nasty stuff to some horses, beginning with building their body mass beyond the strength of their skeletal structure.  Producing breakdowns.

The good trainer knows just how far to go with steroids or he ends up with no horse.

Second, none of us really know if certain trainers are using drugs, but suspect it, based on the performances of their horses and in certain cases, the times they\'ve been caught operating outside the rules.  When Assmussen was questioned about his 19 violations on the HBO special, all he could claim was that people were jealous of his success.

Still, one might say he was just pushing the envelope, training on drugs that did not clear his horses\'s systems by race day.  OK.

Regardless of what we know or don\'t know, our suspicions can be very helpful as betting guides.  For example, I suspect a crooked trainer can get away with a lot more at some tracks as opposed to others.

That\'s how I tracked the Triple Crown with uncommon success this year, believing it would be made harder to cheat at Churchill than it would be at Pimlico or Belmont.  

Several years ago, knowledgable about the differences in legal painkillers allowed at the Triple Crown tracks, I predicted Charismatic\'s Belmont breakdown.  I reasoned he became a different horse in Kentucky because so much more was permissable there (as opposed to California), maintained it in Baltimore where no one would know any better and finally feel the pain in NYC, where the restrictions were the tightest.  Feeling the pain, I reasoned he would misstep at some point in the race and he did.

The fliperoo of leading trainers from recent seasons at Saratoga makes me suspect that something is being done there that was not done at Belmont, by the track, to chill out the super trainers and I factor that into my handicapping.

I predicted to friends (not on a post here) that English Channel would flatten out in the stretch run of the Sword Dancer.  Does that make me a genius or just lucky?  Well, maybe somewhere in between, but I will predict this horse will fire bigtime at the Breeders Cup if he is entered in the Turf, because I know Monmouth and don\'t believe they have the capacity to do anything more than hand out blankets of flowers to the winners.

For my part, this will be my last post on the subject.  I think Jerry Brown\'s recent post amply described the current state of affairs in racing and no one on this website has anymore insight than does Jerry.

[miff]

ALM wrote;

\"The fliperoo of leading trainers from recent seasons at Saratoga makes me suspect that something is being done there that was not done at Belmont, by the track, to chill out the super trainers and I factor that into my handicapping\"



.......Pletcher has been leading trainer, dominating the last 5 years,what are you talking about,Saratoga Harness?


Mike

[alm]

He\'s dominating this year??  Excuse me.  Check the actuals.

[miff]

alm,

you wrote:

The fliperoo of leading trainers from recent seasons at Saratoga makes me suspect that something is being done there that was not done at Belmont, by the track, to chill out the super trainers and I factor that into my handicapping.



... now check again the \"Recent Seasons\"(your words)who dominated, breaking many training records. If you claim something was being done, the question is: to whom? Not TAP, he won the title the last five straight years.


Mike

[alm]

Sorry, but I think you misunderstood me.  I suspect (the operative word) that something is being done differently by the track management in how it is approaching testing, detention, whatever...to the effect it has a chilling effect on the super trainers.  

I don\'t KNOW anything, but the outcomes at Saratoga seem substantially different this season.  A 25% trainer has become a 15% trainer.  Historically speaking, you would expect 15% from a top barn with top horses, but not from TAP.

Maybe he\'ll get hot as the season goes on...maybe not.  Meanwhile, I\'ll bet him differently at different tracks.