Hey Vic Stauffer..........

[Honu]

Originally Posted by SCUDSBROTHER

Would you say the substantial increase in speed figure(compared to the effort he got the day he was claimed) is due to the change to dirt? He switched from dirt to Synthetic before, and didn't get the huge drop in performance these people's line of reasoning would suggest. It's not like he ran poorly when he switched from dirt to the synthetic in May of 07. That's not the poor performance (going to synthetic from dirt) that they keep suggesting he has. That figure is about the same as the previous race on dirt. Then, he was off a year, and never showed the same level of ability he had shown. If he had run poorly in that 1st race on synthetic, then I would understand that line of reasoning. To me, it's a mask for their cheating. Mandella gets nice horses, and trains them in a conservative/traditional manor. When they aren't as good as they were(or the owner wants out,) then they get claimed or bought by a cheater, and get moved up to stakes wins. One cheats n' the other doesn't. You've seen this happen twice in the last 5 or 6 weeks.

I think the switch to dirt made a huge diffirence with this horse because he is big and heavy and thick winded. I think the drop in class shipping to Turf Paradise helped him also because even when you run for optional claiming in California it still beats the **** out of any good stake horse they have in Arizona ......still to me the switch to dirt was the biggest help , that being
said Im sure whatever else Doug does to get a horse to a race doesnt hurt either .