Oh yeah I forgot that Gulfstream was a tremendous meet this year with very little bottom level claiming races. STUPID, CLUELESS ME!!!

It's just odd how they win at such an extreme clip in their backyard and how it drops dramatically when they go ANYWHERE else. I guess it's because they're smarter than every owner and trainer in Chicago. That's the only reason.

YET you have the audacity to say give their stock to about any trainer on the Chicago circuit and they would win with at least a 50% clip when the GOD DAMN numbers when their horses are claimed ARE SINGLE DIGITS.

JESUSTAPDANCINGCHRIST PEOPLE ARE ****ING NAIVE

Number of horses
 

I asked this same question a couple of years ago about the so called "Super Trainers" like Dutrow, Contessa (would also apply today), and the answer i received which makes some sense is that these trainers have so much stock that they generally have multiple horses that they can apply to different races in the condition book. So, they generally have choices on which horses that they can drop down in the claiming races whereby the average trainer generally either has one option or zero....

Given the huge amount of stock that these trainers have gives them a big advantage. Say, "Supertrainer" sees a race for 25K claimers in a certain condition they can choose whether to drop down a 30K, 35K or 40K claimer into that particular spot....

Not saying that something else isn't going on, but the math of sheer numbers gives these guys a huge advantage.

PSH

I'm not sure exactly what their Keeneland/GP numbers are, but they run only certain horses there and they're also always viable to win, when entered.... and normally at a pretty good price too.

You go tell me who they're beating that they shouldn't be beating.

So far, they've won, in order:
- An off the turf overnight stake (which eliminated the competitive form of nearly all the field) with a horse who had already won a Grade III over the track
- $10K claimer
- $40K maiden claimer
- $15K claimer
- $7.5K claimer
- $10K claimer
- $14K claimer
- $25K maiden claimer
- $32.5K claimer
- $10K claimer
- AOC $50K claimer
- $25K claimer

Very, very, very tough, as I'm sure you know, to win these types of races with horses coming off very competitive efforts at Keeneland and Oaklawn, when then stacked up against horses coming off of efforts at Hawthorne.

I am totally missing the point...obviously.

i don't know that bob, but something seems suspicious. maybe they're just better at this than anyone else, but I find that hard to believe.
i am counting on catching some of these early season winners when they race back the second or third time at 1-2 odds and running off the board.

he is the brains of the outfit thats for sure. i sometimes wonder how well they would do without him.

Leving is his name I think, he gets fired like monthly

Thomas M. Amoss $2,018,748 32%
Basically did at FG what Catalano does in Chicago.
W. Bret Calhoun $1,745,865 30%
This guy has always been suspect
Jamie Ness $1,129,774 35%
Same with this one
Stephanie S. Beattie $941,075 37%
Don't get me started
Brian A. Lynch $903,821 33%
Stronach's b.itch. Check the win percentage at non-Magna tracks.

The others have ridiculously high win percentages and he SMOKES them. It's not even close. It's outlandish. It's like Jesus is his co-pilot.



Wayne M. Catalano $849,249 43%

Holy s.hit!! He's the best trainer in America!!!

Since being disingenuous is sort of your thing, I get that I'm wasting my time responding.

But really, if this is all so outrageous, go find the horses that should have beaten them in their 12 wins.

I'd imagine, if you were for once willing to be intellectually honest, that you would be hard pressed to find more than a dozen combined.

yes Leving, as you would say its so comedy how many times they have a falling out then get back together.

here are the numbers I have for Catalano this year
Florida 23/65 35.4%
Illinois 12/18 66.7%

And by meet's end, the Illinois numbers will be only slightly better than the Florida numbers.

i'd agree with that, but still you're talking about a lofty batting average.

How about you find 10 trainers in the past three years that have a winning percentage that high.

If you don't, you can come back and tell me that this opportunity Catalano has taken advantage of only happens in Chicago, douchebag.

It sure is, but like Scav said, I think it has a whole lot more to do with the way they run their operation than anything else.

So many of their wins this year will come from claiming a horse, dropping it, winning, and then losing the horse. You're going to win a better percentage of races when you're putting horses either where they belong, or below where they belong and being willing to lose them to turn a small profit on the purse/claim.

Jesus, you're tired.

You're crying about numbers that a guy racks up. I continue to say that it makes perfect sense given who he is running his horses against.

So your question is terribly irrelevant to what I'm saying, and my question about which races exactly they shouldn't be winning remains terribly relevant.

I'm not particularly concerned with his final winning percentage as opposed to other trainers -- I'm concerned with all this hemming and hawing about the fact that he is winning so much, when nobody is taking the time to figure out that nearly all of these horses should be winning their races in the first place. That leads to the big numbers, obviously, which I've already covered.

since they have so much success, why do you think that nobody else has decided to run their operation in the same manner you described?

They're not the only guys effectively playing the claiming game out there.

How many people have the capital that Calabrese has? You realize how much that dude is worth right?

2ndly, he don't care about losing money, he just wants to be the big magaffer.....

What is odd is that even favorites only win 30% of the time. What is the ROI so far? Just seems llike this cannot go on or if it does, I got to believe it's more than great horses and management.

Spyder

This is true, but as Brian and others have pointed out, Catalano often drops a horse in class, wins the race, and loses the horse. Then the animal is often moved up in class with new connections in its next start. This is a big reason for the low % when one of their's gets claimed.

I dont know the answer to the question of what exactly they get away with here. Would I be shocked to learn that they have engaged in widespread activities that circumvented the rules? Absolutely not. But I don't think that it is completely outrageous (or naive) to point to their strategy in the claiming game as a BIG factor in their hig win %. Is it the only factor? Perhaps not, but I don't think we really know for sure.

Furthermore, they really don't lose that much money in that they claim for 10k and drop to 5k, but the purse for a 5k race is 10k, so they make 1k if they get claimed, and if they don't, they run back in the same spot and then make2k + the 5k once they do get claimed

The third is something I heard yesterday...He's making a ton betting on his winners and enjoying the IRS relief from losing claimers below what he paid

Wow we're on another level of homerism here, folks.

You're right. There is nothing odd about the 70% win clip because these horses were supposed to win. And, as we all know, the best horse on paper wins 70% of the time.

Who can argue with this guy? He's right all of the time!! He got you HRTV on Comcast, people!!!

Exactly. The dude sends it in.

I was in back of him last year a couple times, $500Win bets with $100 exacta box savers with his horses. he is no joke.

Coach, he is running better horses against bad competition in 6 horse races, how much trouble can they get into out there in a 6 horse race?

Have you see the horses that he has been beating, they shouldn't be at the levels that they are at.

Scav how many times have you seen a horse take a drop in class from a top trainer and run completely out of the money?

This guy has had two off the board finishes out of 17 starts. That's unbelievable no matter how big the class drop is. It's suspicious as hell.

Anyone have numbers for Bennie Stutts? I have my suspicions about the guy.

Again, you're entirely more concerned with taking pathetic, and frankly unclever, potshots at me than you are with actually making any sense or backing up what you're saying instead of just whining about numbers without worrying about how they end up where they are.

It's a time-tested tactic. If you've got nothing, call people names, make an eyeliner joke, and pretend that it makes you even remotely close to being right.

I understand 'your' suspicion because of your unfamiliarity with these guys. I have followed them for the last 6 years. I am not saying that these guys are saints, but Illinois does have testing, and from all accounts, it is pretty strong. I think they test all winners RIGHT after the race.

Every year Arlington puts up the silks of the leading owner in the lobby, for all to see, Calabrese has his picture taken in front of them daily :)

Trust me, keep on following it, because in about 3-4 weeks, all these horses are going to be running back, and there will be major scores to be had in the Tri's and P3's, where alot of their money goes in.....

any that you know of that are above 20%.

A sissy saying I'm crying and whining. Classic.

He's got the highest winning percentage by 6% and you're DEFENDING him. Either you're brain dead or you're planning on working in the industry...oh wait...you've already started in the industry.

NEVERMIND.

I have no love for Catalano being here and winning the way he's winning. I've been betting less this year because I don't enjoy playing his horses at short prices, and I've yet to be confident in playing against them.

I'm not "defending" him, I'm pointing out the bloody obvious facts that continue to elude you in regards to his horses mostly towering over the fields they are facing.

Scav..you should know that the testing available is not up to speed with advances in medicine.

But really this goes beyond suspicions of doping..it is unbelievable that they're winning at a 70% clip with all that can go wrong in a race, especially with claimers. It's simply naive and shortsighted to pronounce they're winning simply by reading a condition book properly and dropping horses in class. They aren't the only ones who do this and they're doing it with astronomical success that hasn't been seen by the likes of the greatest trainers in the history of the game.

And you're once again oblivious to the fact that they're not the only ones doing this and they are CRUSHING every trainer in the nation in win percentage.

Sorry but it's not black and white on every issue.

It doesn't need to be.

My take on this is no more black & white then seeing a huge number with limited starters who are for the most part legit, short-priced favorites grabbed up with essentially unlimited capital and nearly zero regard for whether they win or lose money at a meet, and assuming they cheat, which is what you've done.

I'll stick with backing it up with some logical analysis, and you stick with "43% OMGZ" and we'll just call it even.

KLesaris
K Ziade
Ness
S Beattie
Levine
Assmussen
Puype for Bone

they are out there....

These races aren't interesting,or competitive. Whether you like these guys or not, it's not good for this industry to be running races for trainers/owners (instead of for the players.) These races are about as useful as the qualifying races they have in harness. From an entertainment value point of view
( which doesn't seem important in this industry) they are nothing. That's a problem. You're not gunna grow a fan base if people are bored at the track. Their supposed to pay these people to compete. If they don't force them into a spot where they must compete, then it's basically giving money out for doing nothing useful.

I assumed he was talking about in Chicago, I know there are others that do it elsewhere.

Oh no, sorry, I was just talking about the game in general and that it can be played with the right amount of money and the right people. Autrey is phenomenal at it as well.

Where are the Bennie Stutts numbers?