Here's a sampling of some of the major recent Wolfson form reversals involving both his horses and himself.

* Here's the form of It's a Birds back when Todd Pletcher trained him. He ran away with last weekends $1 million Sunshine Million Classic for Wolfson.



As you can see ... the horse was pretty much non-competitive in small field allowance races and minor stakes. Pletcher tried him on all three different forms of surfaces and wasn't getting much from him.


* Here's the form of Ikigai, Rockerfeller, and Misque's Approval.

Ikigai dominated a Graded Stake at GP two Saturday's ago running a 113 Beyer. As you can see - he was a faint-hearted maiden for Pletcher. He was actually entered in a maiden claiming turf sprint the first time Wolfson got him.

Rockerfeller was a complete and utter bum with a 1-for-15 lifetime record before Wolfson got him. He consistantly ran Beyers in the 70's and had no talent at all. He was off the board in back-to-back N1X alw races at FG before being transformed into one of the nations best sprinters.

the old guy Miesque's Approval had been off the board in back to back claiming races for Bill Mott before being transfered to Wolfson. Just two starts - and less than 3 months later - he took the Sunshine Million Turf at 49/1. Two races after that he upset Artie Schiller in the Makers Mark. He capped the year with a lopsided blowout win in the Breeders Cup Mile.




It seems alarming that Wolfson is all of a sudden turning your typical maidens, claimers, and allowance horses into elite stake horses ... but what is far more troubling to me is the dramatic form reversal that Wolfson has made with his trainer profile and trainer stats.

From a decade long span between 1996 through 2005 - Wolfson has year in and year out been very consistant. His win % was between 15-to-23% - and his yearly ROI had never once risen as high as $1.80 in any of those 10 years.

Basically, the guy was just your solid 20% trainer who placed horses in spots they could win - but who's horses typically were overbet.

From '96 to '05 he was 374-for-1,869 (20% wins) $1.54 ROI.

Now, the same consistant guy who shows a 23% loss on the betting dollar over an entire decade - and never once raises his ROI as high as $1.80 for 10 straight years does the following....

2006: 44-for-168 (26% wins) $2.89 ROI
2007: 52-for-191 (27% wins) $2.15 ROI
2008: 62-for-204 (30% wins) $1.98 ROI
2009: 4-for-23 (17% wins) $2.69 ROI

From '06 to '09 he is 162-for-586 (27% wins) $2.32 ROI

A solid seven percent spike in win percentage and an otherwordly $0.78 spike in ROI!!

You ought not be a genius to see that something happened precisely between 2005 and 2006 that shifted Marty Wolfson from a solid dependable trainer into an absolute super trainer who's stable yields huge win percentages and spectacular profits from a betting standpoint.

He's obviously one of the trainers out there who has a real edge right now. Is it something illegal? Who knows. Is it something detectable? .. who knows. It would be extremely irresponsible to pretend that he doesn't.

As I said before, one of the things I'll always regret is that I never got a chance to see what Wolfson could have turned Cigar and Theatrical into after getting them out of Mott's incapable hands.

this thread had not yet seen the light of day (so to speak) when i went to bed last night.
but i had read on drf where dutrow had gotten his panties in a wad over beyers article, and expected something would show here soon. i find it amusing that a guy with his track record regarding positives, overages, etc, would be soooo hurt and insulted that someone dared question any of his amazing results. why do you think it might be, mr. dutrow, that anyone would raise an eyebrow when one of your horses runs a lifetime best? i'm sure it's absolutely because the horse gained 50 pounds and had a dental appointment. sounds perfectly plausible to me.

But no regret that Cigar's first trainer (Alex Hassinger) couldn't get Cigar to do more than hit the board in a Gr. III at Bay Meadows? What's that? Forgot that Mott authored the greatest move up ever of Cigar off Hassinger? And no regret about Cigar ending up sterile though? A healthy, strapping horse like Cigar ends up sterile? Imagine that... Strange reaction to 'hay, oats and water'.

you know one doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the other. plenty of big, strapping guys out there who shoot blanks.
BUT, we all have heard that certain things used in horses leads to sterility, sooo who knows? but there are a lot of big performing horses who did just fine in the shed....

Looking at It's A Bird's TG sheet, the corresponding races for Pletcher, mostly on turf and synth, were three 5's, a 6, and a 7. His one race at Bay Meadows, his only dirt try, was a 9.

With Wolfson, all on Florida dirt, he has run 4, 3, three 1's, and a 2, not including Saturday's performance. All this improvement was accomplished at age 5.

I have no problem with Wolfson's coming on Steve's show yesterday and defending himself, needless to say. It was his "blanket" defense of everyone else that I found questionable. Not to mention, he's the first person I have ever heard defend Scott Lake.

The attitude that Beyer's column is bad for the game, and therefore should not have been written, is something I completely disagree with. This pervasive attitude of when something happens, deal with it quietly and then sweep it under the rug, is the absolute reason we are having this discussion NOW.

Steroids have been in wide use for years and years in racing, and there was nothing remotely wrong with them being used on Cigar. Bill Mott moved Cigar up BIG TIME off Alex Hassinger, but that has been conveniently ignored in the dew-eyed frenzy of homage.

Turf to dirt ;)

That was from chasing Siphon

I'm starting my tennis season in two weeks. Is anyone friends with Mary Wolfson or Dutrow? I've got to improve to really take the next step.

I'm planning on going to the dentist next week and looking to put 50 lbs. on my a**.

Seriously though, looking at Drugs PP's, it would be interesting to see all Wolfson's horses PP's.

Spyder

I guess I'm the only one who's more interested in the fact that DRF ran this article and gave credence to disingenuous assertions like "Beyer should have gathered the facts".

Also, for what it's worth, many of my friends gamble. None of them gamble on horses because they INCORRECTLY think that everyone cheats. Beyer's column effectivley illustrates why.

Actually Mott did not move the horse up off of Hassinger originally as his first 4 races for Mott were actually far worse than his previous form had been for Hassinger. It wasn't until he ran the horse on dirt that he became Cigar. The sterility issue is very hard to blame specifically on Mott just as Lure or Saarlands issues are hard to place on Shug. I dont have skills like Drugs to post the pp's but he is probably not a classic example.

chuck wasn't cigar bred for the grass and that was why they kept putting him on the 'sod

who decide to try him on the dirt , did paulson ask mott to maybe try the dirt?

Cigar was bred for grass though he had broken his miaden on dirt with a pretty good number. His sire Palace Music was a turf runner though he never sired much other than Cigar. Cigar was running consistently in the upper 90's beyerwise for Hassinger and mid 70's for Mott. Interestingly enough he didnt race on Lasix when he came to NY but that excuse was blown out of the water by the two huge dirt races w/o lasix (the alw race and the NYRA mile)

The talk about the sterile-issues and Mott and Cigar has been mentioned before.

To me the larger consideration is Cigar was allowed to grow into a horse. Imagine that, a horse. Today they're yanked off the track at 3-years-old. Who knows how good (or bad) some of the start 3YO's of the past decade or so would have been if given time to mature and develop.

Not that development is the only reason behind his ascent, but certainly would have to play a role.

Disclaimer: I'm a Cigar homer. His '95 BC was my first BC in person, and he's one of the main reasons why I'm in the game today.

Chuck in your opinon what happened to make Cigar take off and become a champion after struggling , was it all due to a surface switch or is mott simply that much better than Hassinger

and did bailey blow the streak in del mar by cahsing too hot of a pace , letting Dare and Go come from behind

It certainly appears a case has been made that cheating is still rampant in the sport . Remember that the leading trainers at Del Mar all had numerous positives and that Shapiro called that "shameful."

That's a good point, in addition having Jerry Bailey coming aboard after Mike Smith rode him to his first dirt win no doubt helped. Bailey in his book made a point of mentioning he was a very different horse on dirt than when he 1st rode him in a turf race at Belmont before the switch was made to dirt for the remainder of his career.

The point has been made that Cigar was a drug freak turned sterile .

In recent years, we've seen high profile horses like Lure, A P Valentine, Saarland, Songster, and George Washington have fertility problems, and Lost in the Fog died of cancer. Are we implying, by logical extenstion, that Shug, Zito, Albertrani, O'Brien and Gilchrist aren't "hay, oats, and water" either?

Precisionist was sterile or nearly so. If these stallions are sterile then why are others trained by the same men (especially O'Brien, those Coolmore horses breed like rabbits) showing similar problems. If a trainer was send horse after horse into the shed and they were proving sterile, I can understand looking for connections but none of those leading trainers has shown a trend, that I know of.

I'm not sure what the infertility rate of the breed is, and I'm not sure it could be determined. Since a significant percentage of males are gelded and I'm sure that some "unknowns" are retired, bred, prove sterile and return to the races with no fanfare. When the horse is Georg Washington or Cigar, it's a headline. When it's a non entity, he just shows up in the entries and no one is the wiser.

A couple of thoughts on Grening's article:

1. Dutrow claims that training for a prolonged period of time over the Calder surface tends to screw a horse up. If that's the case, then what Wolfson is doing is even more remarkable.

2. Sallusto is correct in saying that "not all trainers are created equal." However, the PPs above in this thread, as well as the work Dutrow did with horses like Saint Liam and Silver Train (amid countless others), each of whom were with pretty respectable horsemen before they went into his barn, force one to reach either one of two conclusions: (a) Dutrow, Wolfson and the like are either 10-15 lengths better than any other trainer on the backstretch; or (b) they have some "edge" that no one else does, which causes their horses to run that much better than everyone else's.

Obviously, the biggest "transformation" with Cigar was that he wanted to run on dirt. He showed that early in his career, but his connections were very stubborn or very stupid.

Exactly CJ... which is part of my point. Generally, since few know the details of what went on with horses before they moved, it's impossible to know why or how they responded better in the care of others. We can analyze PP's till the cows come home, but won't know what was going on to unlock potential or restore lustre in specific horses.

Cigar made his first two career starts on dirt for Hassinger and I believe his Beyer figs were 90 and 95 ( or something close ). It doesn't feel like Mott performed any miracle other than transfering him to his preferred surface.....finally.

I think one thing that is being overlooked in all this is that a lot of these guys, and Dutrow definitely, bet, and they bet a lot.

If they are cheating, they are stealing from everyone, whether you bet on him or against him.

how do we know rick beat on sat though?

also didn't he have a horse in the next race that was the favorite and was off the board?

didn't know they overturned it. Thanks Steve.

Right...and when do you think he would bet? A favorite or an 8 to 1 shot? Who would he be more likely to juice? A favorite, or an 8 to 1 shot?

again explain to me how you know Rick bet this race?

I don't. But I know he bets, he says so. I really don't care if he bet on this particular race. What does it matter?

That said, I'd be shocked if he didn't bet on the race. What makes you, oh wise sage, think he did not?

we all know he bet St Liam in the BCC at a short price in the BCC , so why do you think he didn't bet the favroite in the next race?

i don't think you or i know when any trainer makes a bet on a particular horse or doesn't bet a particular horse , that's all i'm saying

I never said I did. I'm just saying they have the ability to bet or not bet, and also control whether a horse is at its best. Of course, all trainers do this, but those that move horses up suspiciously are probably more likely to bet when they perform whatever "miracle" cure it is they are using.

Dutrow (and others like him) steal from us when they bet their (assumed to be) juiced horses.

Whales steal from us when they're allowed to bet after the race has started. AND
Stewards steal from us with their poor/inconsistent decisions.


I can do something about the former: by looking for patterns. In this sense, cheating trainers are not unlike flawed (or limited availability) data. (For an example of an attempt at 'cheating' the public, take a look at the chart for yesterday's 9th at AQU. A slight misrepresentation of the facts. )

The betting after the fact, and steward issues, are something completely different, however. There's no defense.

Everyone is up in arms that the tracks don't test more stringently for drugs; in order to make the game 'fairer'.

The tracks don't want a 'fair' game.

The focus needs to come off the cheating trainers and on to more significant issues that impact the bettor.

if that was the case and ricky was so sure it was a lock , why didn't he mail it in and hammer the horse more , surely his bankroll is large eneough to have made the horse a lot lower than than 8/1 no?

He wasn't sure if his juice could beat Wolfson's juice head up?

now he knows other trainers are juicing and what races those other trainers will be juicing in ...