Level Playing Field
 

My trainer ran a horse at Penn National tonight. She ran 4th and was claimed. Not a problem as claiming owners expect to get claimed. She was taken in a 3 way shake. Has no conditions, knocked out her N1X back in Dec, so now she's in jail for 30 days and must move up if she runs back in less than 30. Kind of interesting there were 3 people in for a horse with no conditions.

The 2nd place horse was also claimed - she knocked out her N1X last time out so she has no conditions either - yet she was taken and has to move up if she runs back in the next 30 days.

The winner of the race has the N1X yet she wasn't claimed. She won in 1:09.86 - a pretty sweet time for a $C5k claimer. Won by 8 and wasn't even asked. Now here's the sour grapes portion of this - I owned this horse 45 days ago. Lost her to the magic man - Jamie Ness. I don't use a chump trainer yet Ness, who has probably never even seen or touched the horse, moved the horse up off of my trainer by 10+ lengths tonight. Having recently owned her, I know her problems and what we did to help her. There simply wasn't 10 lengths extra in this horse just on helping her breathe, or helping her aches - we did that - yet forward she went tonight.

When I see stuff like this, I certainly don't feel like I'm playing on anywhere near a level playing field. I think I'd get more enjoyment out of riding down Eutaw Street in Baltimore and throwing $500 out my car window and watching the mad scramble vs. racing against Jamie Ness' horses. Hell, I'd save money by tossing the $500.....

I sure wish I had an explanation to help me understand why I should continue to compete against this guy and his owner.......

Try Edomonson Avenue instead.

Seriously though, I have no idea why anyone would get involved in owning horses any longer.

I was going to say Reisterstown Road. Same sh!t.

How can that improvement be explained? Better off taking the 5k up to the Borgata and taking a shot at blackjack.

Guerrero's ice machine is available on Ebay.

You have a most amusing view of the facts and reality. Anyone reviewing the form for the race in question (the 5th at Penn on 07/06/12) will immediately understand this.

This horse was running back for $5K, after being claimed for $5K in her last start, which she won by two lengths, after dropping from $12.5K. I'm honestly curious, why is it even remotely surprising there was a shake for her? To me, it would have been surprising if there wasn't. She's a 5YO with 47 starts, including 17 in 2011, thus if anything she has shown to be very sound.

Here are the forms of the top four finishers in this race.

The Jamie Ness trained winner went 22 1/5 -- 44 3/5 and drew off to win by 8 lengths under a hand ride in a sharp 1:09.68 for 5K claiming fillies. Finally, the Ness improvement came after a very disappointing win at Delaware first off-the-claim.




This horse was 2nd beaten 8 lengths:




These two horses were 3rd and 4th and both beaten 10 lengths:







The real question should have been... what took Ness so long! He didn't get the true Ness hop until the 2nd time out.

a better question might be did you ever hear of starter allowance races ? why would want to lose him anyway ? why did he take the fronts off right away?

I may be wrong but I think he has more of an issue with the trainer moving the horse up as much as he did rather then losing him in a claim.

fronts off, a radio in the stall playing dead shows from Boston 1991, happy hoss, faster hoss.

A little more background for you - I've owned this horse a few times before and we've won 9 races with her. So, I kind of know the horse. She's a solid $5k mare.

PennNat has a 30 day jail - you have to move 'em up 25% in claiming price, including starter races - can't even go in a $5k starter for 30 days. So, her next race within 30 days has to be for $C6.25k, $6.25k starter or higher - and the $C6.25k doesn't seem to go very often.

Take a closer look at her pp's. She ran for $C12.5k and $C8k at PennNat - and she really wasn't close. The drop was logical last time, and running back for the same tag made sense too. And it's not the claim I wonder about as it is not surprising the former owner/trainer came back and got her again. It's the shake for a horse with no conditions that confuses me. If she runs back in less than 30 days, she's got no spot to go in next time but back into a race she has been beaten soundly in recently.

Speed that doesn't appear to want a foot past a mile cutting back? That's Ness' wheelhouse. You should have been able to bet on how far, not if he won.

Did the guy who ran the 2nd place finisher want to lose his horse? She wins a statebred A1x, then an open A1x and next out she's in for $5k? Might be a good claim, might have a wheel coming off. Granted the A2x's might be too much, but $5k?

As for why the claim, I don't know. Maybe they are willing to wait out the jail or if they run her back too high someone takes her and they get more than they paid after 2 weeks. They run her back at $6250 (maybe wrong distance etc) and she runs slow and then out of jail and back to $5k.

As for Ness (and his ilk) it must be frustrating. Looking at this horse, the big change was using a leading jock rather than a 5lb bug. From the side of a handicapper and bettor, I find races with these guys in them to be inscrutable. What do you do when Ness, Vasquez, Robertson and Anthony Dutrow make up 80% of the field?

At small tracks guys like Ness just cause havoc because no one has the money to fight them and really you feel like the worlds biggest sucker claiming horses off of him so basically you either avoid him and scratch or deal with it. It hasn't dawned yet on track management across the country that the genius outfits are a huge negative for their racing programs. Witness tonights 5th race at Penn.

ness, dutrow, kobiskie, engelhart and kreiser a good start for a training hall of fame in 1 race. To answer the original question, no you should not be owning and running horses at Penn unless you have one of the supertrainers because they will be scooping most of that purse $