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Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage
Tale of Verve, of ANY HORSE in the world, looked like THE ONE who WITHOUT A DOUBT (in the words of the Lukas bashers) DID NOT BELONG in the Preakness.
I wouldn't have bet a dime on this horse with YOUR MONEY or anyone else's.
So, I don't ever want to hear again the nonsense some post on here about horses who "should be entered elsewhere" or "who don't belong in this race."
ESPECIALLY horses trained by Lukas or one of his disciples.
Thus ends this rant.
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Nobody at this site uses the word "bashers" more than you do. You know, just saying.
As far as bashing goes, there is very little bashing at this site, most of the discussions are professional, well thought out and if someone needs to get "called out" they get called out, to me, that's not bashing.
Let me try and explain "entering badly" and what it means. In Lukases career, he's trained thousands of horses. Now, if you enter every horse you train in the highest class you could possibly enter in, you are going to get some upsets and some winners no doubt. Lukas has trained more quality horses with great pedigrees than almost everyone combined, so he's certainly had his share of pricey bloodstock to put the saddle on.
Now, it seems that the argument you are making (and even CJ echoed this in the Mr Z thread) is that because Lukas has had some longshot winners in big races and in races where it appeared like the horse 'didnt belong' it should be ok to just enter in the highest spot possible and nobody should say a word about it because once upon a time he had a winner at a big price in a big race.
Here's what many of us are talking about and asking. If you are D Wayne Lukas, an all time great hall of fame trainer, why do you (if you're him) need to just enter every horse you train in the highest class without sufficient rest many times when you are supposed to know when to pull back the reigns and enter somewhere else or maybe freshen the horse up and have an actual plan (i know, novel concept) ? Anyone can ask the question "when's the next grade 1 race" and then place the entry, but because he's supposed to know more than me or you or any of us about his own horses, why is he entering as if he knows nothing about his horses? Why not enter Mr Z in a cupcake race, get a win at 4-5 and THEN come back to the Grade 1s? Is that a terrible strategy?
If he's not entering horses and tailoring the entry to maximize that horse to its own specific racing needs, it comes across like he's not really putting the horse first. Raybo asked a few questions about confidence in horses and essentially said that i (me personally) wasn't able to tell if Mr Z "lost confidence" even though he's lost many races in a row now, a couple of trainers who post here (Chad, Ruffian1, etc) said that horses CAN lose confidence if they get their bridle jerked by top competition.
To suggest that Mr Z was "properly entered" because Tale of Verve ran 2nd ignores the fact that Tale of Verve hasn't gotten his head kicked in 8 races in a row, so he was confident and was able to make a run. Mr Z on the other hand COULD HAVE been Tale Of verve but do you know why he wasn't? Because he's gotten his head kicked in and lost confidence. There's very little chance that Tale of Verve is a better horse inherently than Mr Z, there's no way that Tale of Verve could have battled with Dortmund and Firing line in that race at Los AL like Mr Z did, but as time wore on, MR Z started to fizzle and lose his verve (pun intended) and that's why Mr Z wasn't the horse who was charging and finishing 2nd in the Preakness.
Mr Z is all over the place, he's had 13 starts lifetime (before saturday) and raced at 8 different tracks and other than his early career at Saratoga and running 2 races back to back at Oaklawn, he rarely runs two times in a row at the same track and he rarely has the same rider on his back, i don't know how "Awesome" this management is, looks like if MR Z wasn't made out of titanium, he might have been ruined already. The toughness of Mr Z has made his 'management' not look so awful but if you read between the lines, this is clown stuff and most horses won't ever withstand this type of shipping, racing on different tracks, racing way over their heads and racing with NINE rider changes in 9 starts between Sept 6, 2014 to the Derby when he finally had the same jock ride him in back to back starts.
The only time this type of management doesn't get exposed is when the horse is made of granite. I don't know if Z is made of granite, maybe he is and can withstand the beatings he's taking and keep coming back for more, not too many horses can handle this type of campaign.
