[Cajungator26]

Originally Posted by oracle80

They send horses to these guys because they wanna win.
Quite frankly, its always been like this, its just the circumstances that have changed.
Steve and I both have written about the tax laws that were changed in the 80's that wrecked racing as we knew it. Prior to these changes owners could use racing operating losses as a loss against their other business ventures. meant they could play the game for free and spend as much as they wanted.
Funny thing happened after that, the sporting robber barons and their kids turned out not to be so sporting.
In the old days some damn fine trainers trained privately with a salary(ususally very good ones!!) for guys like Mellon, Tartan, etc etc etc.
But noone ever griped about the fact that every year they were sent the very finest bred horses and had a huge edge over the trainers who didn't have a private gig. How was anyone gonan compete with those guys exactly?
Yet we revere Mack Miller, Whitely, Nerud, etc. as we should!!! The fact that they had an edge with the bloodstock they got doesnt mean they werent great trainers. The difference then was that everyone couldnt just send these guys horse, they were private trainers. It kept some parity in the game because there were 10-20 of these top guys who basically battled it out with each other and all had their ups and downs. Noone ever "owned" the game like Todd does now or like Lukas did in the 80's or Frankel for a while very recently. Its because these guys were public trainers and could take as many horses as they wanted.
Owners like Todd not only because of his success, but because of his demeanor as a person. A family guy with a great wife and kids, never seen out carousing and acting with bad manners. Up every day early and always at the barn, sends em daily emails and faxes about the progress of their horses, a website that the owners can log into with a password to get all the info they need, etc.
Hes built a better mousetrap and its my theory that hes shown that being a horse trainer is about more than training, its about professionalism and salemanship as well. Its my theory that in coming years more trainers will pop up in his mode, and eventually some redistribution of wealth will occur. Hes raised the bar in terms of performance and job description, but its going to cause more guys to raise the level of their game and new trainers coming in will emulate Todd.
Its not gonna stay this tilted forever.

I agree with all of this, Mike.