3YO Stakes Races Today!

[Silver Charm]

Sounds like there were some Major winners on this Board today! Congrats to everybody!
I wanna give a shout out to my good friend D Wayne Lukas who won The Trainer Title this Meet at Oaklawn.

Lotta people have written him off, criticized his methods or style but its gotta be rewarding for anybody at that to know you can still compete at a High Level and Win!

[martoon]

That\'s cool for D Wayne.  On a similar note can someone who follows the Cali circuit  explain to me deal on Jack Van Berg?  A hall of famer and legendary revered horseman who is literally a 0% trainer right now!  How can that be?  Even if he doesn\'t have top stock anymore he\'s not racing against top stock either.  Someone please explain.

[Silver Charm]

That\'s tough to hear about Van Berg! Alysheba was a bit of head case early on but he made him into a Great Horse! He knows what he is doing.

The thing these guys using Wayne as an example is that when your in your mid-70\'s you have proven to people and most importantly to yourself you can still \"DO IT\"! That you can still win!

Believe me it gets into the Competition side of things with a guy like. He told me stories about how he left Basketball Coaching and slept in the back of his truck on cold Montana nights racing his horses wondering \"Did I make the right choice\"! Where you needed the purses to pay the Bills and Eat!

I can assure you this is a proud day for him! Oaklawn isn\'t Santa Anita in the winter or Belmont in the Summer but its still a Good Meet. At a point in persons life when most people are pushing you away, he can wake up today and say

\"I\'ll let ya know when I\'m ready for that to happen\"......

[miff]

Jack VB has slow horses, races them cold, a recipe for disaster!

[martoon]

What does that mean \"races them cold\"?   It\'s funny I hear a lot of trainers say, you just have to keep them happy and healthy and they\'ll win for you.  Maybe not. I would understand a legend going to 10% or so but it is literally like 0% to 1% for him in Cali\'s six horse fields.  I know he has slow horses but he\'s racing at the bottom claiming ranks against other slow horses and no-name trainers.  Does horsemanship matter anymore?  Or is it a California thing?

[richiebee]

Silver:

I can not think of DWL without thinking of his son Jeff, one of the great human
tragedies I can remember in racing.

By many accounts a better horseman than his father, and by almost all accounts a
more well rounded human being who realized that there was life outside the
racetrack.

But congrats to DWL, who always was certain to promote the sport of Racing while
promoting himself.

[FrankD.]

Richie,

Great reflective post about Jeff.

I know you were on the backstretch in those days and he is in our age bracket. He used to stay with some friends of mine on Saratoga Lake back in the early 80\'s.
Bopping around on jet ski\'s, in the day when The Rafters wasn\'t a condo complex and when we used to go out at a time we now go to bed !!!

He did have the goods as a horseman and handled his Dad\'s Florida & NY strings before the Tabasco Cat incident.

[Silver Charm]

Ritchie and Frank, kind words about Jeff!

Wayne has been pretty candid. Jeff lives peacefully in the midwest and works for a bank. Not what he once was but does his best everyday.

Jeff I guess is what you call a survivor. And I guess you could say he got that from his Dad!