Michael Dickinson

[alysheba88]

This guy is a great trainer. On par with Frankel in my opinion. Everyone knows what he did with Da Hoss and now with Soto. Winning 1 1/8 off a 6 furlong prep.

This guys wins with untalented horses all the time too. Not talking about Soto of course, but his regular stock.

If I was an owner I would give all my horses to this guy. All he needs his high quality stock and he would compete if not beat any of the top trainers out there. But since he is so unorthodox and always puts the horse first, many owners shy away from him. Hopefully that will change as Soto moves on to bigger and better things.

[Observer]

No offense against Dickinson and/or his fans .. but his horses are always overbet .. and he seems to have a lot of horses that flash talent, then disappear for a length of time .. just too many horses with too much time off. The idea to racing is to race. It's one thing to give a horse time when they need it .. but if I were an owner, I'd be concerned that they'd spend too much time off.

[alysheba88]

From a betting perspective there is usually little value in backing a Dickinson horse. No argument there. That can be said of several trainers but again no disputing the facts. Before Da Hoss that was not the case but it is now.

There is also no arguing that he gives his horses rest. That is a more European appraoch to it. He doesnt overrace his horses and isnt a butcher like a Lukas or Baffert.

I understand he isnt for everyone and there is a reason that the owners go to their get rich quick guys. Many of these same owners are the ones whose Derby winners end up overseas in danger of being dog food too. To them its cold hearted business so they usually dont understand someone like Dickinson or Neil Drysdale

[Observer]

Dickinson doesn't just give horses time off .. he gives them exceptionally long layoffs .. and often times when they do come back, it's only for a brief period of time .. like one or two races.

Fleet Renee is just one horse I'm thinking of.

[Tom]

All Starters:
All Starts 287
All wins 60 21% ROI 0.68

First Time Starters:
All starts 40
All wins 8 20% ROI 0.95

Layoff Horses over 90 days:
All starts 46
All wins 11 20% ROI 1.03


Note on his layoff horse - one winner was Cetewayo for $38 and the second longest price was Humblist at $12. The other 9 layoff winners all paid single digits.