Bruce Levine
 

Any opinions on Bruce Levine being 8-82 in NY over the last 90 days with an ROI of $0.66 while he's 26-82 at Monmouth during the same period. That number in NY includes the 0-15 he currently is at Saratoga.

I wouldn't bet Go Go Shoot tomorrow even if Levine was his usual 25% but those stats are ugly.

NT

I posted about Levine's 'disappearance' in NY a few days ago. His horses still appear to be getting (wiseguy) play, nonetheless, however. Check out Dragon Fi the other day, going off at 7:1 in the sprint. I liked him a bit going in but at that price, I'd need the old Levine.

I'm at the point where I think ALL of these guys (with the exception of the inept ones) are using.

I was thinking the same thing for Mike Mitchell out west.

I mentioned on Kasept's show before the meet how brutal Levine always is at Saratoga.

Since 2004: He's 28 for 202 with a $1.01 ROI at Saratoga.

Since 1994: He's 45 for 423 with a $0.84 ROI at Saratoga


When you're losing 58% on the betting dollar over a span of 15 years ... you really suck. That's more than triple the takeout.

Saratoga is a good place to avoid him.

Like you say, Monmouth is his place. Since 2003, He wins at 34% with a $2.20 ROI on the Monmouth dirt from almost 600 starts.

I'm sure he'll turn it around soon.:D

The numbers dont lie, so why is this even being brought up ?

Do you know Motion's stats? I always thought for his good reputation he was one of the worser flat bet profit betting prospects for Trainer's at the Spa, his stats however will be no doubt boosted after today.

When the inner track opens.

didn't Levine had his barn raided last year?

I've been waiting for Levine to at least return to the type of trainer who can move a horse up, watching for certain things. Thought I saw it with a filly called Rosie's Promises outside duel (july 5 r2), but nothing followed up.

Even Driven to Success couldnt win, and that was a pitiful field he got to take on. That was suppose to be his prep for the Forego too.

Jerry Brown said Sheppard is juicing.....:wf

That's even more ridiculous than the guy sitting at the table next to me at the track yesterday that told one of his friends that Sheppard was an "up and comer."

NT

Oh definitely, he's been brutal at Saratoga for years. I suppose I kind of expected him to move up a bit off of a terrible Belmont. He was 9-84 with an ROI of $0.83 at Belmont, which is a track that he's been 23% at over the past five years with a $2.01 ROI.

Clearly the Spa air, like it never has been, was not the elixir that his barn needs.

NT

:D

Gin and bitters maybe?

See that, 2nd in a Grade 2. He read the thread.

And nearly won. What a race by an up and comer. I cant say I was shocked. Surprised, but not shocked. Levine said on the OTB show he was going to send hard and run as fast and as far as possible. This horse did come off 2 very sharp races. He didnt know who was behind him.

This is a race I liked Benny for betting purposes but was rooting for Fabulous Strike for "the story." Love this guy, glad he got there!

There are a couple of things going on here. First, over the course of many, many years, Bruce has never done as well at the Spa as he's done the remainder of the year and in NJ. That's just a simple fact and there are numerous reasons for it. Early on, a majority of his owner were "upstate NY" people and they wanted to race at the Spa. It's their heyday and what they really live for in this game. Some of these guys would rather pick up a check at the Spa than win in NJ. Me, I was always the opposite and let Bruce race our horses where they could win. We play the game aggressively and never really disagreed as to where to classify the horses.

Second, very often many of the horses that Bruce had racing here were coming in from out of town. The West Coast claims from Roddy Valente were often brought here for the Spa meet. Not exclusively because they fit or would be spotted great, but because Roddy loves racing at the Spa. He loves winning at the Spa so by no means are the horses poorly placed. Roddy plays the game as good as any owner in the business. I have the utmost respect for Roddy and how he runs his business.

Bruce also campaigns a lot of NY breds which in the spring/summer/Spa ain't no walk in the rose garden. It's the toughest meet, pretty much in the world. There's also a new dynamic going on here in that Bruce has many more horses than he used to and many more non-NY bred babies than he used to. When an owner had a NY bred and was looking for a trainer, Bruce's name would come up. If it was a non-NY bred, Bruce's name would not always come up. So there are a lot more babies and a lot more horses. Instead of having maybe 60-70, I think he probably has 100. His usual year end number of 25% will be much harder to hit this year -- with many more starts. I would think that Bruce used to average about 400 starts a year with about 100 wins or so. I would think this year already he has closer to 500 starts and there is still another, what, 35%, maybe 40% of the year to go. There is also the factor at play where certain owners want to race horses where they want to race them, not where the trainer suggests they race them. I won't get into details, but sometimes a trainer is hand-cuffed.

Bruce is a top trainer. That said, there are often reasons why numbers change, even drastically. Two years ago Bill Mott was on fire at the Spa, and then at Belmont he started off something like 0 for 18, 1 for 20-something, etc. Horrendous. You had to really look at the horses he was brining over in order to see what was going on. He blew through every condition that virtually every horse in the barn had. Sure, 1 for 20-something wasn't accurate, but Mott was not going to be able to duplicate his Spa #'s. Do Bruce's Spa #'s look pitiful? To some I guess they do. I think there are often meanings behind the numbers.

Eric