Haskin's Derby Dozen

[Terrapin Flyer]

A 1/2 to Albert The Great excelling against starter allowance horses, ok. Why not show all of his previous races and the horses he was facing. He also won the Claiming Crown after he was claimed away, so I wouldn't say he was a 9 race wonder.

[Terrapin Flyer]

And by the way, he only ran 8 times and won 6, the race you claim a horse off someone doesn't count.

IMHO Calhoun did much better with the horse, he won a N3X, Claiming Crown Classic and was placed in 2 open Fair Grounds stakes races

[Whirlaway]

bpressey,

Sure would have been interesting to have the data set on Comma to the Top as he would have been a compelling local study of the use of the GPS and HR technology. AS it is, I understand he will be running this weekend, and then onto the dirt. Knowing what we now know, this guy here will be interesting to watch! What will be particularly interesting is the pace parameters on the GGF surface and his pace parameters on the SA surface - looking forward to viewing the differences.
~
You wrote, "Nope, most trainers will never change – at least not the big names in the US." I don't agree. I wouldn't say they'll "never change", I think they will stubbornly change over time. And besides, who gives a rats *ss if they change or not? You get yourself in w/a few of the new generation of owners and trainers, use your technology to get their stock doing well, win a few nice ones and you'll be on a roll - you won't be stopped. What will the "magic circle" and the good ol' boys think then? Tell us pressey, will you snub them?

I did read at your web page and found it interesting this technology is being used by O'Brien and the Coolmore connections across the pond. I understand they are one of the best in the business. Who have they raced using this technology and at what level have they won? Don't they have interests here in the US and if so are those interests using the new technology?
~
I did get a chance to read the Finley piece. I found it rather milquetoast - nothing definitive, nothing new. The Size of Fields and Starts Per Horse data was posted here some years ago, what they discussed in the article was discussed here some years ago. You believe the problem lies w/the trainers, Baffert believes the problem lies w/the racetrack surface, McPeek believes it must be the Lasix and plethora of drugs being administered . . . Most of these are minority opinions w/most of the veterans of the business believing the nature of the problem lies w/the breeding and I tend to agree. NO doubt the problem is multi-faceted, not yet well understood, I think they are ontoit w/epigenetics.
~
The technology you are using is an affront to the conditioning methods and practices that have been employed since at least the early 17th Century, probably before then. NO doubt the journey to advance your ideas and interests here in the US will be a difficult one. The "magic circle", the owners, trainers, breeders and bloodstock agents will not want you to succeed - as what will they do then? But you've got the scientific method w/you and no doubt after reading some of your posts, you have the necessary tenacious attitude. The truth and the scientific method will always win.

I'm looking forward to following your work and reading more about the stock you will be training and how they are doing.

[bpressey]

Terrapin-

1. That is a lifetime PP on there, if you want the original I will be happy to PM it your way.
2. He won the Claiming Crown Iron Horse with me in his stall during those highlighted starts.
3. He then won another Claiming Crown race under Calhoun, who was riding the coattails of the work done by Jay for months.
With a steady diet of Calhoun for a year, he is now a $15k claimer running Beyers in the 70’s.
Do you think Calhoun claims him and immediately all of Jay’s work disappears?

4. And by the way, I didn’t count that race, I counted the last race for Jay before he was claimed away for $50k, that counts in everyone’s book.

You obviously have an agenda as you made 3 completely invalid points, just as Zinn before you. Is your last name Calhoun or Lukas?

[bpressey]

Whirlaway-

I am in this to be a member of a team. From selecting stock to training to racing. I have no desire to be a trainer, they get up too early when it’s too cold. I am a behind the scenes guy. I will find one ideal organization to work with, then I will disappear from the blogging universe. I am close to that becoming reality. In the meantime, I feel the best way to attract such a group is to put out there all I have done. You are right, it’s no fun if everyone is doing it.

I’ve sat in the offices of Winstar and Juddmonte and done some good work at one of those two. But, those guys are old fashioned horseman who have plenty of success without me. They will not change in my lifetime. Now, other names just as big as those two – that is a different story as progress is being made slowly but surely. I have travels to 2 countries planned before Derby day.

Everyone looks at the soundness issue trough a prism. Breeders, trainers, owners, geneticists, etc. The real truth is that the problem is a mixture of all involved, I would bet. Complicated and interrelated stuff.

I’ve had clients ride in the jeep with Mr. O’Brien at Ballydoyle in the a.m while he talks to an exercise rider during a gallop where the 2 discuss heart rate readings on the fly.
Yeats is a prime example of success with this stuff. 3 consecutive Ascot Gold Cups, among others:

"A great horse and a true warrior," Murtagh declared. "The crowds turned out to see him, and he didn't let them down. He has often done more at home on the gallops. He was a little fresh at Ascot, and today was much better. He has a very high cruising speed, and when he gets into top gear he can maintain it.”

Yeats trains harder at Ballydoyle than a damn race at Ascot, can we say the same for Uncle Mo? But he can afford to do so, as the HR numbers don’t lie – you can push a horse further, and safer, when you know what is going on inside his body in real-time.

I don’t believe this stuff is an ‘affront’ to horsemanship. Would you say the same about hyperbaric chambers, or lasix? A true horseman does what it takes to win races and stay sound. This industry is full of owners who made their millions in businesses that relied on technology and data analysis to succeed. They will not continue to lose 80% of their investments to a guy that operates by the seat of his pants. For every Repole and Pegram there are 10 other millionaires you haven’t heard of who have left the game, permanently.

I dare say Aiden O’Brien is a horseman, and he never sends out a set at Ballydoyle without them all wearing the same HR/GPS gear I am looking at on my desk right now. You are not a horseman if you ignore that fact. You are a horse’s a$$.

Thanks again for the comments Whirlaway. I have feet on the ground in several countries looking for an athlete who meets my HR/GPS criteria while training in the mornings. I have my own money to buy when that happens, and trainers in each of those countries who will use my methods. I also have investors wanting to be part of a syndicate that uses no raceday drugs. New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and the US are the prime candidates. I will publish each and every detail, along with vet bills, when we start moving forward to race.

[Whirlaway]

bpressey,

Hear, hear . . . and best of racing luck.

Looking forward to seeing you and your name in the winners circle in the near future at the Kentucky Derby and the Breeders Cup Classic. If not here then surely the Arc or the St Ledger.

[Bill from WA]

Does anyone else find Crossbow intriguing?

[Terrapin Flyer]

bpressey

1. You have left his early races and first 2 wins out of the lifetime pps, where he was competing against much tougher.

2. The CC Iron Horse is a Stakes race restricted to horses that have run for $7.5k and under, the CC Jewel which he won with Calhoun the following year almost 9 months after the claim was for $35k and under...much tougher horses.

3. You need a better grasp of reading the Form, he ran 8 times for Jay, the 86 beyer you're claiming he ran for Jay was the day he was claimed, while still being trained by Maker.

4. He ran 2nd in an open stakes race 11 months after the claim, you can't seriously say that's riding the coattails of a previous trainer

5. You seem to put a lot of weight in the speed figures, he ran a 94 one of his best ever (and better than 7 of the 8 races for Jay), almost 2 years after the claim.

Hopefully you can at least try to cut the Bill O'Reilly spin and accept these valid points.

Unfortunately I'm not Calhoun or Lukas, nor do I have an agenda, I'm just someone who was pointing out some flaws in your claims.

[bpressey]

Again, I could only screen capture 80% of the PP in one image, I had to leave out the bottom or the top, so I chose the bottom. I can email the entire doc if you wish. I did not ice it because it refuted my point. Rest assured, he was stinking up the joint for DWL during this phase.

I also stated I am not astute enough to include class in this discussion, I only used the Beyer figures for simplicity sake. I will concede you are a much more advanced reader of the form than I.

I actually made an error in your favor, that 86 I counted was Maker's but I gave credit to Calhoun for an 89 that was Jay's.

Antrim County ran roughly 25 times before Jay, 10 for Jay, and 25 after Jay. His lifetime best Beyer was 97 for Jay. He never ran lower than 84 for Jay and that came in a 14.5 length romp.

If we graph the value of this gelding starting with his $85k stud fee through his $7500 tag and up to his current $15k tag - I believe Jay outperformed these other guys in his 5 month window.

Calhoun got big time 90+ numbers after Jay yes, but they were routinely followed by figures in the 70's.

[bpressey]

I certainly can see your perspective Terrapin, and I am sure that 95% of this board is on your side, so you can rest easy.

I am admittedly biased, but I believe that less than 1% of claimers move up $40k in 5 months at age 5 and less than 1% of claimers are trained with interval training - yet Antrim County is both and I see that as more than a coincidence.

[Terrapin Flyer]

bpressey,

I am not trying to put down what you do or the job Jay did with this horse, it was a good claim he did extremely well with him and he was well sold. However to just say that this horse was turned around strictly because of interval training I have an issue with, in my mind class relief in this case was a major factor. I believe your regiment works well with a certain type of horse and they thrive on it, others will fall apart or break down under that kind of training. I have a gelding that does more than a 2 minute lick daily, he glides and is comfortable doing it, that being said, he is very cheap. I have another filly that jogs 10 minutes on the equiciser 2 or 3 times a week and is hand walked 3 turns the other days, she is almost 50% in the money in her 5 year career 60 race career (running 20 times last year at 6), she has been on the race track 2 times in the morning since April '10. Every horse is different and the goal is finding what works best for each particular horse, then try to find little ways to improve on it. Antrim County did well under your regiment along with class relief, but to say that Calhoun didn't do well with him under his regiment which was a much longer tenure (many more things can go wrong) is a stretch.

The reason that I mentioned his previous races with Lukas not on the Form on your blog, is because he is a half brother to Albert The Great and had big shoes to fill. He didn't rack up the wins with Lukas but the competition he was facing was very tough, here is a rundown of most of his races that were excluded on your blog.

The race before he broke his maiden at Churchill he was 3rd to Student Council a horse that ended up being a multiple G1 winner of $1.5million. The race after he broke his maiden he finished 7 lengths behind champion sprinter Benny The Bull. His following race he finished 3rd 1/2 lengths behind G2 Stakes winner Saint Anddan. His following race he had lots of trouble and ended up behind Student Council again (who did not win). Two following races he was defeated by G2 placed Extreme Supreme after which he defeated Benny The Bull by 4 lengths (while not winning). After he easily defeated a sub par allowance field at Oaklawn he was the deafeated at Keeneland in a race that was won by multiple stakes placed Museeb that also had Barbican and Benny The Bull in the field. He followed that race up defeated by 5 lengths behind multiple stakes winner Junior College, multiple graded stakes winner Rush Bay, multiple graded stake placed Free Thinking and stakes winner Gin and Sin, defeating stakes winner Esprit du Roy. He was then less than 2 lengths behind stakes winner Cat Shaker. After which he was claimed by Flint.

In his 8 races with Jay, his average odds were 5-2, partially because of how well he was running, but also due to the caliber of competition. His average odds from the time he was claimed from Lukas and claimed by Jay was 8-1, mostly due to the fact he was running against much tougher, but also because Flint didn't due well with him (partial because of race selection). Also, 6 months after the claim he went on a 4 race 90+ Beyer streak (something he never did with Jay) improving with every race. Finally the 89 Beyer you commented on was in your blog as Jay's (which it is) and not Calhoun's.

IMO Antrim County is a classic example of a horse with back class that once put in easier spots thrived and improved as his confidence grew with winning. It is understandable that now that he is getting long in the tooth he is losing a step. That being said he is still running well at comparable levels to when he was with Jay.

[bpressey]

Wow, thanks for the homework Mr. Terrapin. I learned a lot from this post, truly (not being a sarcastic a$$ for once). Obviously Flint's owner saw the same backclass as you note because the first time DWL dropped him for a tag, boom - he was gone.

Then we probably both agree, for whatever reasons, that Flint (twice), Autrey, and Maker did nothing special, as he was dropped from $50k to $7.5k with no standout numbers in increasingly weaker classes.

Now, the day Jay claims him at CD he has finally dropped enough classes to post his best Beyer in a year over 12 starts. To this point, he seemed just as likely to bounce after a big effort as he was to stay consistent. Can we agree here? Beyers from 47-85 in that period. In my opinion the class drops began before Jay was on the scene.

Jay wins the shake, wins 2 more starter allowance races at CD then heads to Arlington for a nice 3rd in a $50k claiming race, a severe step up in class over the previous 6 months. Then comes the Claiming Crown Iron Horse win and a few 1.5 mile efforts, the only races of that length we could find (and we had to ship 7 hours to Mountaineer for one of them).

During this period, he was trained and campaigned very aggressively and had the longest consistent stretch of his career. Calhoun and his owner obviously are paying attention as they snap him up for $50k again at CD.

Then off to Calhoun and an even better year, before the inevitable decline due to old age.

So, would you counter that he was going to find this backclass and get better at age 6 with someone else if he had never found this old fashioned standardbred trainer?

I probably should have left Mr. Calhoun out of my original bashing, in retrospect.

I believe, without going to Jay and interval training, that Antrim County would have continued his pattern of bounces and class drops and that Calhoun would never have claimed him, nor won tougher Claiming Crown race with him.

Please keep in mind, I am not Tom Ivers. I believe we can quantify which horses can respond to tougher conditioning practices, and that comes from objective, physiological responses to exercise. I also believe, that higher class horses are precisely the ones who can benefit from it - but don't get it.

[bdw0617]

bd wrote:

Honestly, I question if he got a mile and a 16th. just because he won the race doesn't mean he relished the distance, he just relished it more than anyone else in that race. He looked like drunken master coming home in that race.

That's reading a race between the lines. Excellent insight.

Just got confirmation in the race up at golden gate. EVeryone thinks, just because a race is a grade 1 and blindly bets the winner. this is not a 2 turn horse. He got, really, whipped by a non graded stakes winner, and if they ran 5 times, SE will win 5 times.

This year's Cashcall Futurity was a pathetic race.

[zinn21]

Terrapin wrote:

However to just say that this horse was turned around strictly because of interval training I have an issue with, in my mind class relief in this case was a major factor. I believe your regiment works well with a certain type of horse and they thrive on it, others will fall apart or break down under that kind of training. I have a gelding that does more than a 2 minute lick daily, he glides and is comfortable doing it, that being said, he is very cheap. I have another filly that jogs 10 minutes on the equiciser 2 or 3 times a week and is hand walked 3 turns the other days, she is almost 50% in the money in her 5 year career 60 race career (running 20 times last year at 6), she has been on the race track 2 times in the morning since April '10. Every horse is different and the goal is finding what works best for each particular horse, then try to find little ways to improve on it.

Exactly. I take exception to anyone who thinks they discovered the Holy Grail to this game. And interval training, IMHO, is far from the Holy Grail. I believe there are a small percentage of thoroughbreds who would thrive under subject training program.

BD wrote:

this is not a 2 turn horse. He got, really, whipped by a non graded stakes winner, and if they ran 5 times, SE will win 5 times.

I agree. Comma's a nice little colt that Peter Miller did a good job managing and stringing together some nice wins. Many two year olds with some speed/ability will beat colts in the Fall but about this time of their three year old year start looking at tails the last eighth mile going two turns. I don't care how many miles in 1:50 he does or how much training he gets. He will not beat top colts at Classic distances period.

[bdw0617]

which brings me to I suppose is a niaveish question.. is it seriously that hard to get a horse to run for an additional 24 seconds? You mean there is nothing we can do to make a horse not stagger in a 10F race?

I have seen one trainer, there might be more, but I know of one, that seems like he does a good job of making horses excell at distances farther than they want to run. C Clement job with Gio ponti, a horse that in reality wanted no more than a mile, but by the end of his 4YO year he had won 10F turf races and lost a 12F race by a half length, that's a dang good training job.

I am just amazed that, freaking here, lion heart can't get a horse to win a 2 turn race, yet you send a lion heart to france and they come back and win the 12F breeders cup turf, with ease.