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Originally Posted by Benny Leger
I'm most likely looking at this bass ackwards, but doesn't it seem like these guys could afford to be patient with young horses because they "do" continually get big crops and can send a lot of runners to the gate.
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Trainers, to a great extent have to do what owners want. Sure, some can say "Hey this is what your horse needs, take it or leave it" but most (if they want to keep training horses) do what the owners want. Most owners (yes, even the very wealthy ones) want to earn money and or glory with their stables and want to do so fast. They want to win races like the Derby and the associated preps (Champagne, BCJuvie, Wood Memorial, Blue Grass) and guys like Zito, Baffert and DWL have proven that they can do this. If the owner wants to run in those races, that's the track the trainer points them for.
If guys like these say to these owners looking at their 2yo's at Saratoga, "he's a nice colt, I think he might be a nice turf router at age 4" they won't be training for that owner for long!
As for "butchery" a trainer that is a media magnet/media seekeer, is bound to be reported on when one goes bad. It gives the impression that the closed mouth guys (I include Pletcher in this category) never have a horse go bad or fail to live up to promise.
In the last 3 years, two of the most prominent breakdowns were Barbaro and Chelokee, yet Matz is a "fine horseman" and Zito is a "butcher?" Do explain.
Some times we tend to see beautifully bred babies and assume that if they don't pan out, that they were "destroyed" by the trainer. Many of them are just slow. They are not as good as their pedigree and looks would indicate. Hey, Jalil cost $9.7m and was just third at Suffolk to Judith's Wild Rush. Maybe he's just slow!