Lukas Handicapping Angle

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

With regard to the poster who said that Lukas' percentage of breakdowns is high because he has a lot of horses, that is totally inaccurate. A trainer that has a lot of horses will have a higher total number of breakdowns, but he will not have a higher percenatge of breakdowns. If one trainer has 1,000 horses over a 20 year period and 50 of those horses break down, that means that 5% of his horses broke down. If another guy had 400 horses and he had 20 horses break down, then that would also be 5%. These guys would have an equal number of breakdowns in terms of percentages.

Okay, but do you have the numbers for Lukas? What % of his horses have actually broken down? What's the average for Frankel, Baffert, Pletcher, etc? Lukas has been the focus of attention going back to before Union City. Once someone gets a bad rep, people tend to remember absolutely every bad thing that happens.

Someone mentioned in passing that Halfbridled and Sweet Catomine didn't have much success in their 3-yr-old seasons either. But no one thinks for a minute that Mandella and Canani are to blame. However, as soon as Folklore is mentioned, well, that's another data point against Lukas.

Rupert, I don't doubt your observations about the way Lukas treats his horses, but I question the conclusion. You are saying that a higher percentage of Lukas's horses break down. Do you have numbers to support that claim?

--Dunbar