You are wrong if you think that they won't run great horses when they know someting is wrong. As I said, I think they did it last year with FA in the BC Classic and it worked. The ethical trainers won't run the horse if they think that he might break down, but if they think that they can treat the problem(the ankle or knee or whatever the problem is) by injecting it, they will usually do it. This is especially the case if the horse is being retired at the end of the year any way.

I've been in the business for over 20 years. I only work with the most ethical and conservative trainers and even with these guys, sometimes they have to make a decision whether or not to run a horse who has a slight problem. They would obviously never run a horse if they thought that he might break down.

I'll give you an example of a decision that a friend of mine had to make just in the last couple of years. He had a horse who was going to be a legitimate contender in one of the BC races. The BC was only one race away. He was going to have one prep and then run in the BC. He started to have problems with one of his ankles. They could have injected the ankle and gotten at least another race or two out of him. He would have been in no danger of breaking down or anything like that. The problem was that they were not going to retire him at the end of the year. They were planning on bringing him back the following year. If they injected the ankle and ran him 1 or 2 more times, there would be a risk that permanent damage would be done to the cartilage. If that happened, then they would be screwed for the next year. Even if they turned him out and brought him back in May of next year, he may not be the same horse any more.

I thought the decision was a no-brainer to turn him out immediately. If they turned him out immediately, he would probably come back better than ever because the injury was just begining and was not that serious yet. At this point, it didn't look like there was any permanent damage. Anyway, they ended up turning him out. I can tell you that most trainers would not have turned him out. Most would have run him. My friend would have even run him if they were going to retire him at the end of the year because they would have had nothing to lose. If his ankle got a little worse it wouldn't matter since he was being retired any way. If they thought the horse had no chance of winning they wouldn't run him because it could hurt his value for breeding. But with a lot these little injuries, you relly don't know how the horse will run until you try. The horse may seem ok in the morning when he's not all-out, but when he's all-out in a race it may be a different story. So they inject the ankle and run him and see what happens. If he runs lousy, then they probably retire him. That's probably what will happen with Flower Alley. They injected the ankle or whatver problem he had and ran him. He ran bad so now they will probably retire him.

Look at Bandini. A good friend of mine who is one of the best horseman in the business saw Bandini right before the Ky Derby when the horse was being lead over to the paddock. He said the horse had a huge ankle on him. Pletcher obviously knew the horse had a bad ankle but he took a shot and ran him any way because if he would have won he would have probably been worth about $40 million. They took a shot and it didn't work. Then they had to give the horse an 8 month vacation.

Linny, I'll give you another example of a really good horse that ran with a pretty serious problem. One of my trainers was at Del Mar on Del Mar Futurit day back in 1999. He said that when Forrest Camp walked by him in the paddock, he couldn't belive he size of one of his ankles. He couldn't believe the horse was going to run on that ankle. Anyway, he won the race by about 5 lengths but that was the end of his career. He never ran again.

I'm sure they still made out fine. Because of the victory in that race, I think the horse was worth a few million dolllars for breeding.

Like I said before, Lukas is a million times worse than any of these guys. I'm not saying he is the only trainer that has ever run a sore horse. He certainly is not. But most of these guys pick their spots when they do this. These guys may run a horse with a minor injury if it's in a major race that they've been waiting for all year. They'll do it as a one-time deal type of thing. It's not their standard practice. With Lukas, it's his standard practice.

Bob Baffert may train his horses pretty hard but he is not opposed to turning a horse out if they need it. I see Baffert horses come back off 6-12 month layoffs all the time and do well. They will have successful campaigns sometimes after coming back off layoffs. Wat does that tell you? It tells you that he turned the horse out before the problem got too serious. If you keep running the horse after they get hurt, then a 12 month layoff won't do any good because permanent damage will be done to the horse. It's possible that ahorse like that could come back and runa couiple of mediocre races and maybe even win a race. But they won't come back and run as good as they were running before they got hurt. That is why you will practically never see a Lukas horse come back and do well off a layoff.

Lukas will keep running an injured horse over and over and over again until there is no way the horse can run any more. That is why Lukas has broken down so many horses and why there are very few insurance companies that will insure his horses. You have to remember that insurance companies keep very good records when it comes to this kind of stuff. Any time that a horse breaks their leg and dies and a claim is paid, there is a record kept of this type of thing. The record shows who the trainer of the horse was. This is a huge business that is very lucrative. These companies make a fortune. If you have a trainer that breaks down so many horses that's it's not even profitable for the insurers to insure him, then you know that there is a problem.

A trainer who has 200 horses will obviously have more horses break down than a tainer with 40 horses. The insurance companies obviously know this. They keep track of the percentages. The percentages are all that matter to them. Lukas is the only trainer that I know of that many insurance companies won't insure. I actually don't know if any will insure him. The ones that I know of will not.

If there is another trainer that trains like him, I'd like to know who it is.

There are guys who may train cheap claimers like that but I don't know any trainer that trains good horses like that. Some of these trainers are real butchers when it comes to cheap claimers. They feel that it's not economical to turn them out so they will just run them no matter what. If they have a $10,000 claimer that is damaged beyond repair, it is pointless from a financial point of view to turn them out because they will come back with the same problem. It's expensive to turn a horse out. So these trainers will just keep running the horse. They will drop him in class if they need to but they won't turn them out. Some of these trainers will do this with a claiming horse even if he isn't damaged beyond repair. They may figure that two in the hand is better than one in the bush and they may also gigure that's its not worth it to spend $10,000 to give the horse a 6 month vacation if the horse is only worth $20,000 to begin with. They'd rather just drop the horse down in class and hope to win the race and get him claimed.

I have heard that Lukas swindles owners by racking up day rates on horses that are just standing around in the stall, clearly injured and bandaged up, instead of telling the owners and sending them back to the farm. I think Overbrook wised up to what was going on, among others.

No, you misunderstood me. That's not what I was saying at all. I'm saying that the claiming game is very cruel. I think what goes on with claimers should be illegal. I think it's basically cruelty to animals. They just inject their tendons and joints over and over and over again until the horses are crippled. I don't condone it any way. It's a part of racing that makes me sick. I hardly ever even watch claiming races. I never watch cheap claiming races.

So claiming races are not something that I really pay attention to these days. I know what goes on and I want nothing to do with it. In no way do I condone it.

Yes, it's Richi.

Why are we going to put any of these MORONS on the friends and family plan? 1500?

Now tell them all how you tapped Citation.

Here goes some more real interesting news, like this hasn't happen 20+ times

http://chrb.ca.gov/Complaints/Complaint_06DM011.pdf

I didn't say DWL doesn't do that, I said he does do it. I said he does the same thing to good horses that guys do with claimers.

I think it should be totally illegal. I think there are plenty of horses out there running that should not be running.

I think they need to make major changes. I think that all vet work done on a racehorse should be made public. I know it will probably never happen but it should. They make it public when a horse goes on lasix. Why should lasix be the only thing made public?

I never said that is was always bad or always dangerous to inject a horse. It depends on the situation. I never said it didn't matter what was in the needle.

Yeah, the trainer who told me how bad those two horses' ankles looked is a real moron. He's only one of the best trainers in the country. And it obviously did mean something because the one horse never ran again and the other horse took 8 months off.

Anyway, I'm not going to bother responding to you any more It's a waste of time.

Love the line about the suits . But I have always felt DWL pounded his fancy stock like claimers . The man's record though is impressive, but rest assured, many of his big buck purchases are toiling away in obscurity . The man had carte blanche at the sales. However there was a reason for it . He is a fabulous judge of precocious stock . That got him there and he rode the gravy train . His barn and horses are impeccably turned out . And so is he . Great business . I thought his quarter horse background would keep him from making a splash in the TC and longer BC races, but though it took awhile, I was wrong Many of his horses, however, failed to train on in maturity---not that this does not happen to other trainers especially very recently ---and Steinlen is one who comes to mind that raced successfully as an older horse . But he only GOT Steinlen as a mature individual . Though I do not like the man or his training regime, I thought he did a very good job with Charismatic--recognizing an innate ability to go long, despite the colt's class jump . In fairness, the Belmont breakkdown could have happened with another trainer, so I will not lump this in with other D. Wayne catastrophies like Union City which was rumored to be unsound before his Preakness fatality . I have no knowledge about Lukas' insurabilty on his horses, but a vet friend who interned at a prominent equine clinic told me that when Lukas sent horses there they were significantly damaged .

Have any of you guys seen the big signs that D. Wayne has at his barns, the one that says how many world champs he's trained and how many derby winners and blah blah blah. Baffert has the same kind of signs at his barn too.
I wonder why they dont have a sign posting how many horses they trained that never made it to the races or that never started after their 3 yr old year, or that broke down in races and in the mornings? I guess that wouldnt be condusive to getting clients and bragging huh.

The same reason why you don't see Colleges put up banners indicating a losing season.

Exactly so .

I don't think most people even realize how extreme it is. Of all the yearlings and 2 year olds that Lukas gets, I would guess that no more than 1-2% of them are still running competively as 4 and 5 year olds. When do you ever see Lukas winning a race with a 4 or 5 year old? Practically never. I would guess that 98% of his horses don't last passed their 3 year old year. It has nothing to do with the horses being retired for breeding before they get that old. How many horses stand at stud? It can't be more than 5% of his horses. So that certainly doesn't explain 98% of his horses being retired ny the end of their 3 year old year.

If you look at trainers like Mandella, Frankel, Plethcer, etc. I'll bet that around 30-40% of their horses are still around and racing as 4 and 5 year olds. That's a helluva lot higher than 1% or 2%. It's possible that Lukas' number could be a tiny bit higher than my estimate. The number could be more like 5% if you count horses like Going Wild that are still running, but who aren't half the horse that they used to be. Going wild used to be competitive in graded stakes races. Now he can't even win an allowance race. If you count horses like him, then Lukas' number of horses still running as 4 and 5 year olds could possibly be about 5%. But if you are talking about horses that are still at the top of their game, then I think the number is about 1% or 2%.

Rupert's views on D Wayne = Brooklytracker's obsession with Jerry Bailey

Pletcher does very well with 4 and 5 year olds. He's winning stakes races all the time on both the turf and dirt with older horses. Pletcher has probably won 15-20 stakes races this year with older horses. Just this past weekend he won a $300,000 grass race with the 4 year old filly Ready's Gal at Woodbine. In addition, he's probably won 30 allowance races this with older horses. I think Lukas may have won 1 stakes race this year with an older horse.

The more I think about it, Pletcher has probably won more like 30-40 stakes races this year with older horses. Just off the top of my head, thinking about Pletcher horses that ran the last couple of weekends, Go Deputy(6year old) comes to mind. He's won 3 races this year, two of which were graded stakes races. Pletcher had a 4 year old filly this past weekend at Belmont named Ever Elusive. She's won 2 allowance races and a stakes race this year.

The main thing that I'm talking about is the percentage of their horses that are still around as 4 and 5 year old and still running well. You can't compare Pletcher to Lukas. Pletcher has a very high percent of his horses that are still around running better than ever as 4 and 5 year olds. Lukas does not.

That is true that Frankel, Mandella, and Drysdale are different types of trainers from Lukas. I agree with that. But even though they are different, they still do well with young horses. Mandella just won the Del Mar Futurity. He's won the BC Juvenille and the BC Juvenille Filly. The good trainers listen to their horses. Sure these guys want to win 2 year old races. Sure they want to win the Derby. But they're not going to push the horse if the horse isn't ready or if the horse is getting sore. That's my whole point.

I think Pletcher has more than 25 horses left out of 200. If that was all that he had left, he wouldn't be winning so many races with 4 and 5 year olds. He's won a ton of races with 4 and 5 year olds this year.

Baffert is somewhere in between. He is much harder on his horses than Mandella, Drysdale, Frankel, or Pletcher. Baffert works his horses very fast and they don't last nearly as long as the horses of those guys. But Baffert will stop on horses. You will see him turn horses out. He won't just keep running them after they have started to go bad. That is the big difference between him and Lukas. Baffert won't do nearly as well with older horses as Frankel and those guys, but he will do better than Lukas.

I think that Pletcher's numbers with older horses are just as good as Mandella and those guys. Pletcher is amazing. He does great in every category. He even does great with turf horses.

Frankel keeping Ghostzapper together was an amazing feat. I have never liked the guys from interviews, etc... but the guy can get them to run. BT claims its the juice. I think he is very patient and careful.

Even though Lucas is a hall of fame trainer and has so many records, I dont get the feeling he would be to upset if Barbaro or LITF were his horses. Next please kinda thing. Just my feeling about him now.

One more thing. Pletcher has won over 120 turf races in 2005-2006. I bet you Lukas didn't win 120 turf races in the entire 1990s.

I hear you.

Frankel rocks. If I had a horse in training it would go to him. I don't care about a trainer having people skills, it's horse skills that matter.

Frankel is a great trainer but his " people skills " have alienated him from more owners than you would believe.