Wednesday, June 17, 2009
For Horse Trainers, Doing Good Work Is Not Enough
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY, June 16, 2009--Why is Todd Pletcher the trainer of Quality Road? For that matter, why is Rachel Alexander under the care of Steve Asmussen?
Were Jimmy Jerkens and Hal Wiggins, respectively, some kind of underachieving slackers?
How can 71-year-old Bennie Stutts, who made a career looking for a talented horse like Smooth Air and developed him into a multiple graded-stakes winner and earner of nearly $1-million, be left holding a shank with nothing on the business end?
Under Stutts, Smooth Air brought a lifetime mark (14) 6-3-3, including three G2 wins, into the prestigious Metropolitan Handicap recently at Belmont Park. It was his first start since suffering from colic and necessitating his being declared from the G3 Texas Mile.
After getting legged up at Calder for his first start in three months, Smooth Air ran a winning race in the Met, only to just miss with a gritty placing to a more seasoned rival, the accomplished mile specialist, Bribon.
The horse is now in the barn of a budding training star, youthful Chad Brown, who, while accomplished, has not been around long enough to be described as the Flavor of the Month--more like a Flavor of the Week.
But that’s just how it is in the game these days, especially of late. But it’s not the kind of scenario that develops just at the very highest, glamour levels.
Back in the day when he first started out, Toscano had to cash bets to survive. I know this first hand. It was the late 1960s when there were as many people in section 3P of the Aqueduct grandstand as there are now in attendance on any winter’s afternoon in New York.
This past January, Toscano claimed Eldaafer from Kiaran McLaughlin for $20,000. After being haltered, Eldaafer won two races, including a starter allowances, and finished a wide-trip third to Atoned in the Nasty N Bold overnight stakes, May 27.
Sometime between May 27 and June 5, the owner, racing as an LLC, transferred Eldaafer to the barn of Diane Alvarado, a former assistant to David Jacobson. Clearly, Alvarado figures to get her ticket punched to the Hall of Fame because within a matter of days she transformed Eldaafer into a winner of the $200,000 Grade 2 Brooklyn Handicap.
No one ever said life is fair but stuff like this turns bad luck into a dirty name.
Toscano lived with Eldaafer for four months, allowed the four-year-old gelding to mature, fixed the issues that turned the former allowance runner into a $20,000 claimer, found his hole card and turned him into a graded stakes winner.
Unlike Asmussen, who had class enough to credit Wiggins on multiple occasions from the Preakness Stakes winner’s circle, there was no mention of Toscano from the new trainer in a TVG interview following the Brooklyn on Belmont Stakes eve.
There was only the owner saying how he claimed the horse after studying the pedigree--as if it takes a genius to roll the dice for $20,000 for an offspring of A.P. Indy, from the multiple stakes-winning mare, Habibti.
I can’t understand how on Belmont Stakes morning Toscano could wake up before sunrise and want to drive to his barn on the Belmont Park backstretch. What’s the point? What does a trainer have to do to make a few dollars in the racing business?
How could any horseman have done better work than Toscano did this winter with Eldaafer? How does any trainer like Toscano survive? To love this game is to sometimes be cursed by the gods.
This is not about the relative merits of the four new trainers. All are having good years and two are a cinch to wind up in the Hall of Fame. I just don’t understand how trainers with 200 horses can do a better job than those that train 20 or 30 head?
Pletcher was not the only trainer to profit from Q.R.’s owner’s largesse. Tony Dutrow and Kiaran McLaughlin were other recipients of horses formerly in Jerkens’ care. In three years, Jerkens won at nearly a 19 percent rate for Edward Evans with over $2 million in earnings.
Despite the burgeoning number of so-called super trainers, not all owners harbor unreasonable expectations.
Marc Keller--who’s been enjoying the sport a lot more since Grand Couturier won back to back renewals of the G1 Sword Dance and Bribon won the Met Mile--stood by trainer Bobby Ribaudo through leaner times, continuing to invest his money in moderately price high-quality stock until it paid off.
Saul and Max Kupferberg remained loyal to John Parisella even when their horses no longer were competitive at NYRA tracks. Now, after investing money in acquiring new horses, they’re winning regularly again.
These are the kind of sporting owners, the ones who invest in human relationships as well as bloodstock, that are a pleasure to cheer for. If there were more like them the whole industry would be better off.
Written by John Pricci
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