Why Lukas went downhill

Rupert Pupkin · #12 09-19-2006, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Linny

As for the JCGC, my point was that the margin of loss was a product of the early pace and JV knowing that he want a contender at the 3/8 pole. He wrapped up. I don't think he could have been within 4 lenths, Borrego ate him up. The point was that the margin itself was meaningless. He proved it by running very well in the BCC.

I also find it hard to believe that if Todd knew after the Whitney that something was seriously wrong with his "HOY candidate" that he'd run back in the Woodward. You do that sort of thing with the claiming stock you refer to not the horse that you think could still get you an Eclipse. I'm sure that Melnyk is trying to sell FA for stud and any subsequent poor efforts with no announced reason cuts the price. If they know he has a particular serious issue they'd say so (to own the excuse) and not run him back. You don't wiat til the price is cut again and again by poor efforts, then announce why he ran so bad.

I know most of the lesser horses (and many of the top horses) have issues to one degree or another. They all have something that's not right. lesser stock gets patched up and sent over. Horses with residual stud value are handled with kid gloves.

You are wrong if you think that they won't run great horses when they know someting is wrong. As I said, I think they did it last year with FA in the BC Classic and it worked. The ethical trainers won't run the horse if they think that he might break down, but if they think that they can treat the problem(the ankle or knee or whatever the problem is) by injecting it, they will usually do it. This is especially the case if the horse is being retired at the end of the year any way.

I've been in the business for over 20 years. I only work with the most ethical and conservative trainers and even with these guys, sometimes they have to make a decision whether or not to run a horse who has a slight problem. They would obviously never run a horse if they thought that he might break down.

I'll give you an example of a decision that a friend of mine had to make just in the last couple of years. He had a horse who was going to be a legitimate contender in one of the BC races. The BC was only one race away. He was going to have one prep and then run in the BC. He started to have problems with one of his ankles. They could have injected the ankle and gotten at least another race or two out of him. He would have been in no danger of breaking down or anything like that. The problem was that they were not going to retire him at the end of the year. They were planning on bringing him back the following year. If they injected the ankle and ran him 1 or 2 more times, there would be a risk that permanent damage would be done to the cartilage. If that happened, then they would be screwed for the next year. Even if they turned him out and brought him back in May of next year, he may not be the same horse any more.

I thought the decision was a no-brainer to turn him out immediately. If they turned him out immediately, he would probably come back better than ever because the injury was just begining and was not that serious yet. At this point, it didn't look like there was any permanent damage. Anyway, they ended up turning him out. I can tell you that most trainers would not have turned him out. Most would have run him. My friend would have even run him if they were going to retire him at the end of the year because they would have had nothing to lose. If his ankle got a little worse it wouldn't matter since he was being retired any way. If they thought the horse had no chance of winning they wouldn't run him because it could hurt his value for breeding. But with a lot these little injuries, you relly don't know how the horse will run until you try. The horse may seem ok in the morning when he's not all-out, but when he's all-out in a race it may be a different story. So they inject the ankle and run him and see what happens. If he runs lousy, then they probably retire him. That's probably what will happen with Flower Alley. They injected the ankle or whatver problem he had and ran him. He ran bad so now they will probably retire him.

Look at Bandini. A good friend of mine who is one of the best horseman in the business saw Bandini right before the Ky Derby when the horse was being lead over to the paddock. He said the horse had a huge ankle on him. Pletcher obviously knew the horse had a bad ankle but he took a shot and ran him any way because if he would have won he would have probably been worth about $40 million. They took a shot and it didn't work. Then they had to give the horse an 8 month vacation.