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Originally Posted by DaHoss9698
This is what I was trying to get at last night Rupert. You say all of these things about the methods in which Lukas trains, yet you make no mention of Baffert's name when referring to Forest Camp. Surely Baffert, Pletcher and probably every trainer have had horses run when sore, puffy ankles, etc. Why is Lukas any different than these guys? Lukas doesn't hide the fact that he is a businessman and a trainer. He is given the job to try and get the most out of his horses, so they can be sold, become broodmares, or get syndication deals.
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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.