Saratoga’s glass is nearly half empty and it’s a two-horse race atop the trainer standings. They finished 1-2 last year and it looks like they will finish 1-2 this year. One guy named Todd and the other named Chad.
They are 1-2 in starts, Pletcher with 63 starts and 15 wins and Brown with 39 starts and 13 wins. Pletcher horses run in the money 56 percent of the time and win just under 25 percent. Brown horses are in the money 69 percent of the time and he’s winning at a 33-percent clip. While Pletcher’s stats are disgusting, Brown’s make my nose bleed. I don’t have ROI numbers or the average price on a Brown horse, but he’s got to have a stable of happy owners. Could there be anyone better at reading a condition book than Chad Brown at Saratoga?
The other Super Stables below Batman and Robin are Steve Asmussen, George Weaver and Bill Mott with 6, 6 and 5 wins, though Weaver is a tier below “super”, in this instance.
It’s not even close. Kind of like watching Frankel run. Racing Post’s Sam Walker says what the Euro Boy Wonder is doing is somehow minimizing his own legacy. He’s like a mega-band who’s become a cover band for himself.
“Frankel had better get used to the dignified applause that greeted him on the Goodwood Downs last week.
"His odds will be so prohibitive in his remaining starts he will never be met with the fist-pumping roar of a public gamble,” writes Walker.
Horse racing is different across the pond, but I didn’t realize how different until Walker said, “In their sporting heroes people don't actually want a perfect champion. They want some vulnerability. There is simply not enough drama in this story of equine perfection. Racing is, after all, in the entertainment industry and it would be natural to assume that the greatest horse would be the most entertaining. But not, apparently, when he's consistently that good.”
We had a horse over here. You remember that big, bay mare Zenyatta? There’s nothing Americans love more than perfection: the perfect burger, the perfect margarita, the perfect body. The only people who hate perfection, or at least other people’s perfection, are the 1972 Dolphins.
As disappointed as I was when the New England Patriots had the worst 18-1 season in the history of sports, my disappointment won’t be anything compared to what Michael Phelps will experience, though his enthusiasm is deserved of a 23rd medal.
The most decorated Olympian this side of Zeus tweeted out to Bob Baffert that, “Now me you and @coach_bowman should find our horse and make him the next Secretariat!!”
And with the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling Sale taking place (I’m thankfully far, far away from that scene), everyone hopes to find the next “Secretariat”. Problem is nobody has seen one in 39 years.
So with the sale going on and Phelps eagerly waiting to take the plunge into the biggest money sinkhole this side of the last rung on a Ponzi scheme, Paulick Report asked, “Will the participation of the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time be a good thing for sport of Thoroughbred racing? How could the answer be anything but a resounding yes?”
How could the participation of any new owner, independent of celebrity, be anything but a resounding yes? It’s good to see and nearly perfect.
07 Aug 2012 at 04:18 pm | #
Here are some more facts on the super trainers mentioned in the above commentary. Earnings per start:
name current yr career
Pletcher $21,869 $16,248
Brown 18,147 12,129
Asmussen 8,455 6,571
Mott 13,094 9,935
Weaver 7,561 5,830
Every time these super trainers lift a jockey into the saddle they earn that kind of money that is split between them, their jock, and the owner. Not bad. And racetrack management wants to increase stake race purses to, I guess, make them richer. I wish that my hundred bucks or so a day pushed through the window would achieve the same results.
Gee, maybe I should just wager on the horses these guys train - now that’s a thought.
Buying a thoroughbred is the biggest sinkhole? Isn’t pushing money through a seller’s window a bit larger?
07 Aug 2012 at 06:01 pm | #
It’s just that simple. Drop a dime on Chad Brown, return a winner. Why waste all that time on handicapping when you could’ve cracked open a Fosters ten minutes ago?
Speaking of ...
07 Aug 2012 at 06:50 pm | #
Groovy B, Your Blog Gets Me Rockin Itself!
Surfin U.S.A. anyone?
Great to hear that the super human made in the U.S.A. Michael Phelps wants to team with Bullet Bob and purchase a race horse. Any rumour that the name will be “Bongmeister”? I know it works on so many “levels Jerry, levels”. Memo to Michael, the next Secretariat won’t be born until a generation or two after the “Lasix Era”. You see they just don’t make them here anymore like they use to. Spiked fever and all.
In Europe they make em just perfect, enter Frankel. It’s time though for the Prince of Juddmonte to put the Personal Ensign of a streak to the test in the U.S.A. The story needs to come full circle in memory of Bobby. The Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational where Bobby was born and then the Breeders Cup in Cali where Bobby ended the journey would be storybook. Don’t “Bogart” that Frankel my friend, pass him over to the U.S.A.
Good to see that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Chad Brown learned the ropes from Bobby Frankel. Looks like he has a shot in the big one at his hometown Saratoga U.S.A., you know the Travers. Anyone else feeling those “Good Vibrations?”.
The Olympics with Michael Phelps winning 21 medals is about as exciting as the Lebron Melo Dream Team beating Nigeria by 100 points. Don’t get me wrong, I want the U.S.A. to beat China in the Medal count. But… Bring back the college kids to the Olympic Games, at least in Basketball. I do like womens beach volleyball, bikini’s and all. Help me Rhonda, help, help me Rhonda…
and the beat goes on…
If everybody had an ocean
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody be surfin’
Like Californ-I-A
You’d see them wearin’ their baggies
Huarache sandals, too
A bushy bushy blonde haido
Surfin’ U.S.A.
You’d catch ‘em surfin’ at Del Mar (Inside, outside U.S.A.)
Ventura County line
Santa Cruz and Tressels,
Australia’s Narabine,
All over Manhattan,
And down Doheny way
Everybody’s gone surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.
07 Aug 2012 at 08:58 pm | #
All the years (since 1960), all the Daily Racing Forms purchased, all the hours, all the losing tickets (piles and piles) and I never got it: bet the trainer stupid!!
Golly, I could have started with Woody, then Frank Martin and Buddy Jacobsen (sp?), then jumped on Oscar’s bandwagon and Peter Ferriola’s plodders, then dumped it all on D. Wayne off the plane, then followed Frankel, Pletcher, and Baffert. If I had kept my wagers on these super trainers sending horses to post, I would have enough money to outbid both Maktoum and Phelps combined for horses for sale.
But, I probably wouldn’t have met the lowlifes I now association with and wouldn’t even have discovered Schlitz and now Fosters - priceless!
07 Aug 2012 at 10:08 pm | #
They could call the women’s events the flat-chested, no-need-for-a-bra games.
08 Aug 2012 at 04:57 pm | #
C’ mon Denny, the women’s events have been the most interesting, IMO. Bored? Try Max After Dark.