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Old 01-01-2018, 12:03 PM   #35
Fager Fan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper View Post
You believe the extraordinary job Baffert did with American Pharaoah carries more weight than other brilliant accomplishments that year. I have no problem with that. Most agreed with you. That's why he got the award.

My point is only that it's a subjective judgement, perhaps a tradition because it's the Triple Crown, but there's no rule that says you should put more value on a bigger accomplishment with one horse than more accomplishments with many horses or vice versa.

There are tough decisions every year that depend on how you weight certain things that informed people might disagree about.

By the way, Chad Brown had an amazing year and not just because he gets good stock or had high volume. His percentages were incredible also and he started proving versatility.

(When you are making an assault on the Triple Crown and Dortmund is your second string, you are also getting good stock and doing a great job of training).
The fact is that Brown, Pletcher, and Baffert (and to a slightly lesser extent, Asmussen, Hollendorfer, and a few others) are playing a numbers game. They are managers of a far-flung racing stable, but not really the hands-on trainers of those horses. Their assistants are really the trainers. But it works for them, because for reasons I'll never understand, owners with top horses keep sending them their horses.

Brown particularly has been interesting to watch. The guy got sent made horses from Europe and surprise, did well with them here, and that's how he got more horses. I'm pretty sure that it's only been over the past year that he's won grade 1s with horses his stable has managed since the start of their careers or done it on dirt. Brown is really driven to be at the top, and I'm sure would double his 300 head (or however many) if he can. And he cares a ton about that percentage. When Brown, Pletcher, Baffert, etc. can pick among a handful in their barn to go into any given race, it becomes far less difficult to put up a good percentage.

I've grown to very much dislike the game that these guys play. It's great for their resumes and bank accounts, but it's so patently unfair to other trainers (and their owners), and it's bad for the sport. They can have horses drop dead or get rare illnesses and all sorts of things but have become untouchable, as if they run the tracks instead of the other way around. They were talking in the obit of Van Berg that they used to have a rule about a trainer having to see his horses every 4 days at minimum to be considered the trainer of that horse. We need that rule back, and I'd propose that it needs to be stiffer than just seeing them every 4 days, but instead spending at least 2-3 days with those horses each week.
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