NYTHA Lasix Primer & Letter to NYS RWB

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Everyone loves to use the av starts per year stat but they fail to recognize 2 things that negatively effect that number. The fact that 2 year olds are included skews the numbers simply because nowdays virtually every 2 year old that runs will drag the number down. The 2nd is nowdays trainers are judged almost exclusively by win percentage. Giving a horse a prep race is hardly acceptable any longer. Even guys like Zito who would seem to be secure in their place have adjusted the way they train high dollar babies because the owners look at a loss as a huge negative even if the experience is beneficial for the horse. A guy like Whittingham would be scorned now as too old fashioned because he almost always gave his first timers a race or two. Even at the lower level tracks trainers are selected by win percentage. You solve that and trainers will be filling the box because for the most part we make money by running but if we have a barn full of empty stalls, well you know...

If you are trying to tell me horses run as often now as they did even 20 years ago, you are just being foolish. Check out Todd Pletcher's ridiculous comments on freshening El Padrino. They are very telling about the state of the game today.

If owners, and trainers, want to worry about losing races, that is their problem. It will ruin the game. That kind of thinking is the biggest reason starts are shrinking. It has nothing to do with 2yo horses being counted. It is very short sighted of owners to think this way. Who gives a sh!t about win percentage? You can't win money in the barn. The less horses race, the more fragile they seem to become. I'm sure any athlete in any other sport in the world would be more prone to injury if they rarely compete.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by cmorioles

If you are trying to tell me horses run as often now as they did even 20 years ago, you are just being foolish. Check out Todd Pletcher's ridiculous comments on freshening El Padrino. They are very telling about the state of the game today.

If owners, and trainers, want to worry about losing races, that is their problem. It will ruin the game. That kind of thinking is the biggest reason starts are shrinking. It has nothing to do with 2yo horses being counted. It is very short sighted of owners to think this way. Who gives a sh!t about win percentage? You can't win money in the barn. The less horses race, the more fragile they seem to become. I'm sure any athlete in any other sport in the world would be more prone to injury if they rarely compete.

No I am telling you that there are far greater forces that affect the number of starts than lasix.

Hello? It will ruin the game? What do you think has been happening?

You obviously havent been paying close enough attention to the trends of the last 20 years. I know you have been but you are just being stubborn. Of course it is shortsighted of owners to think this way but that what they have been doing!!!!! Lukas get a lot of grief (and obviously his last 8-10 years havent been kind) but his disciples who now have a stranglehold on a huge amount of the good horses in this country dont really follow his model of success. He ran horses and ran them alot. The spacing stuff came from the sheets guys and when Frankel won everything for a few years and gave credit to this methodology everyone who could read figured this was the magic trick. Of course I'm not just talking about trainers either. There arent a handful of big owners that dont have an "advisor" whose sole purpose on life is deciding what to do with their bosses horses. Most of them wouldnt know a horse if it fell over them but they believe they can read sheets or TG's or some other methodology that tells them as soon as a horse runs a really good race you should "space" the races further or like Alpha stop running entirely. That is the exact opposite of how people felt 30 years ago. When a horse ran a big race they would want to strike while the iron was hot.

Behind a lot of this hate to lose stuff is the value of bloodstock which was a significant driver of business for the last 15 years. As soon a horse shows they can run the plot to "maximize" the horses value begins. That plan rarely includes running them where they will be challenged. Big trainers having 5 strings of horses makes it easy to transfer them to find the softest spot possible. The thing is that when owners listen to TVG or HRTV or the trade magazines, this style of management is praised and many smaller owners want to emulate that "winning" approach. Of course they dont talk about all the flameouts that are managed into oblivion (see Godolphim for multiple examples)

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

There arent a handful of big owners that dont have an "advisor" whose sole purpose on life is deciding what to do with their bosses horses. Most of them wouldnt know a horse if it fell over them but they believe they can read sheets or TG's or some other methodology that tells them as soon as a horse runs a really good race you should "space" the races further or like Alpha stop running entirely. That is the exact opposite of how people felt 30 years ago.

In a lot of cases -- these owners would be no worse off if they had RockHardTen85 managing the stable.

It's surprising how often you see poor placement and overall management of such good and expensive horses.

I'm talking about examples more subtle than something like cluelessly running Trinniberg in the Derby -- but if some of these owners really do have people managing placement -- they wouldn't be any worse off if they just left it up to the trainer and cut out a middle man.

And the in-race tactics they use are often brutally incompetent. They make the placing look genius by comparison.

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

No I am telling you that there are far greater forces that affect the number of starts than lasix.

Before I read the rest, I already said "I'm not suggesting banning Lasix is going to do that either (re: increase field size)". How did you come to the conclusion I was saying that?

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

No I am telling you that there are far greater forces that affect the number of starts than lasix.

Hello? It will ruin the game? What do you think has been happening?

You obviously havent been paying close enough attention to the trends of the last 20 years. I know you have been but you are just being stubborn. Of course it is shortsighted of owners to think this way but that what they have been doing!!!!! Lukas get a lot of grief (and obviously his last 8-10 years havent been kind) but his disciples who now have a stranglehold on a huge amount of the good horses in this country dont really follow his model of success. He ran horses and ran them alot. The spacing stuff came from the sheets guys and when Frankel won everything for a few years and gave credit to this methodology everyone who could read figured this was the magic trick. Of course I'm not just talking about trainers either. There arent a handful of big owners that dont have an "advisor" whose sole purpose on life is deciding what to do with their bosses horses. Most of them wouldnt know a horse if it fell over them but they believe they can read sheets or TG's or some other methodology that tells them as soon as a horse runs a really good race you should "space" the races further or like Alpha stop running entirely. That is the exact opposite of how people felt 30 years ago. When a horse ran a big race they would want to strike while the iron was hot.

Behind a lot of this hate to lose stuff is the value of bloodstock which was a significant driver of business for the last 15 years. As soon a horse shows they can run the plot to "maximize" the horses value begins. That plan rarely includes running them where they will be challenged. Big trainers having 5 strings of horses makes it easy to transfer them to find the softest spot possible. The thing is that when owners listen to TVG or HRTV or the trade magazines, this style of management is praised and many smaller owners want to emulate that "winning" approach. Of course they dont talk about all the flameouts that are managed into oblivion (see Godolphim for multiple examples)

As for the rest, I'm not even sure you why you bothered. I don't disagree with any of this. Of course I know it has been going on for 20 years and is dragging down the game. Nobody wants competition any more. It is sad.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by cmorioles

It has nothing to do with 2yo horses being counted.

Of course it does. There probably arent 50 2 year olds that race this year that will run 7 times in 2012. Go back 30 years and tell me that you could say that? While I'm sure that 2 year olds have traditionally run fewer races than average 6 races a year versus 9 is a lot less difference than 1.5 versus 6.

[cmorioles]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

Of course it does. There probably arent 50 2 year olds that race this year that will run 7 times in 2012. Go back 30 years and tell me that you could say that? While I'm sure that 2 year olds have traditionally run fewer races than average 6 races a year versus 9 is a lot less difference than 1.5 versus 6.

ALL horses run less, a lot less. Trying to blame it on two year olds starting less just seems a bit ridiculous to me. Seriously, you aren't trying to say 2yo start less, but all other horses run about the same are you? Really? Please tell me I'm misunderstanding something here.