Sidebar

[RaceIsClosed]

Originally Posted by Turfday

Hurrikane...

In the "days of yore," with few exceptions, trainers played the claiming game differently. You're right, I don't think there were nearly as many "big barns" that were loaded with horses and as easily replenished nowadays.

The "super trainers"...the ones that are also in the claiming game...aided by rule changes as well, now think nothing of dropping down horses one or more levels to garner a win.

Instead of worrying about "protecting" useful horses from being claimed, it's now simply a no-brainer to drop these horses just for a win and without care of losing them. Reason: they'll simply claim another one.

As you pointed out, and from the facts above you enlightened me into acknowledging, certainly are not part of any statistical study.

However, it still boggles my mind that there are guys like this, who are WINNING FIRST OFF THE CLAIM at an incredible clip and yet, the average win mutuel of these first off the claim winners is still quite high.

Based on 60 or more claims within the last three years (a good sample size to insure some relevancy), it still boggles my mind at the AVERAGE WIN MUTUELS first off claim some of these trainers are getting:

Troy Bainum 126 claims / 51 wins (40%) / AWM $10.00

Steve Krebs 73 claims / 18 wins (25%) / AWM $12.00

Cody Autrey 73 claims / 21 wins (29%) / AWM $ 9.00

Rich. Dutrow 124 claims / 46 wins (37%) / AWM $ 7.00

The above are just a sample. Other trainers winning at a very high clip first off the claim ACCOMPANIED by an AVERAGE win mutuel of $8.00 or more are John Charles Zimmerman, William E. Morey, Steve Miyadi, Craig Robertson and Tom Amoss.

Just a note: Krebs is a former assistant to Scott Lake who used to take over his horses whenever Lake was caught behaving badly.