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[moses]

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

I hate golf as much as anyone -- but guys like Tiger Woods, Michelson, etc. are guys with exceptional skills.

Chantal Sutherland is a terrible judge of pace and tactics ... and she can pass as a top level rider.

I know you're a sharp guy, NTamm. If you tried to work with an avg mid-level circuit jockey -- you'd want to kill them in less than two weeks.

I remember the first time my rider was on a post-time favorite in a race. The horse was 8-to-5 on the morning line, went off at about 4-to-5, and was lone speed from an outside post in a paceless race at a time when a huge inside-speed bias was in play.

The trainer, Mike Rodgers, told the jockey he wanted to rate the horse -- because he thought the horse ran its best races from off the pace.

I told the jockey that the trainer has no idea what he's talking about. Just make the lead, get to the rail, and you'll crush them. The jockey agreed with the trainer and he told me not to 'worry about telling me how to ride' -- he got the horse off slowly, raced wide throughout from off the pace, and finished 4th by about 5 lengths.

A 15/1 shot who looked hopeless on paper and had no early speed wired them from post #2.

That night, when I met the jock upstairs, I asked him "how many lengths would we have won by if you rode a smart race?" -- he blew up on me and claimed that the horse wouldn't have won no matter what he did.

This was a guy who was a top 10 jock at Del Mar and Hollywood Park when he had his bug. He seriously didn't know anything about anything.

Do people really consider her a top level rider? Not saying she is bad or good, but I always thought she just got a lot of attention because she's attractive. Which really is true of a lot of athletes in all sorts of sports -- Anna Kournikova wasn't a great tennis player but she wasn't bad and she happened to look like a model, Danica Patrick is a solid racecar driver but obviously stands out among the other male drivers (and even the few fellow female drivers), and guys like Tom Brady and David Beckham are more marketable because of their appearance.

Originally Posted by Calzone Lord

Yeah.

Kent Desormeaux and Calvin Borel both have 3 Kentucky Derby wins -- the former won 598 races in a year as a bug -- those two intellectuals would probably be jockeying a cash register at a gas station in Louisiana along with Robby Al if they weren't as small as they are.

I think if you look around at a lot of jockey colonies across the country -- the best jockey in the room and the 10th best guy in the room aren't separated by much...if anything at all.

But you do make a good point -- a whole lot of money gets tossed around in the game -- and they do actually take health risks.

I feel like this unfairly takes a lot away from the jockeys. You could arguably say the same thing about a majority of "big men" in the NBA. They're there because they happen to be tall. Or left-handed pitchers in baseball -- they're left-handed and can throw 90 mph. Or offensive linemen in football -- where would they be if they weren't 6-3 and over and 300-plus pounds?

Every jockey gives a bad ride and every jockey gets lucky at some point in their career -- which could be the case for Gutierrez right now -- but there is a small group of elite jockeys (I won't even begin to get into exactly who belongs on the list). Whoever mentioned Ramon Dominguez at Delaware and Maryland parks offered a prime example of this. (edit: Oh, it was you that mentioned him. Note: I do agree that somewhere there just isn't that much of a difference but I do think there are at least a few who stand above the rest -- and even more who are clearly worse than most.)