Scott Lake and crooked trainers

[hurrikane]

So, yesterday at the track I sit and listen to this 15 min diseration on Scott Lake juicing horses and how the stewards are in on it and treating him special so he will fill fields with his horses.

I know some trainers do get treated differently because they have big barns and the track needs thier horses....and I"m not naive enough to think nothing crooked goes on in this game.

This of course happened after a Lake claim won paying 12.50. Which of course I bet only because Lake is great first off a claim and pretty good second off a claim. Obviously this guy didn't have him up..and I wasn't about to argue the merit of my bet with him.

But really..do you think Lake is juicing them or do you think he is just a great trainer. I have had many trainers that do incredible things with claimers. He is no different..I can't believe they are all crooked.
What do you think?

[MtKen]

I don't know about Lake personally but I don't think that every trainer that is good off a claim is juicing his horses. That dissertation sounds like the kind of rant you hear any time a horse shows a form reversal. Somebody's always crooked or the race is fixed. Obviously some barns treat their horses better & know horses better & therefore win more. After recently claiming a horse a trainer may pay more immediate attention to the horse then it's had in awhile & that may account for something in itself.

I think you can apply the Bell Curve to most personality traits & come up with a reasonable idea of how things go. There's probably 10-15% of trainer's that can't get by w/o cheating & 10-15% that are saints who avoid even unpublished workouts & the other 70-80% who fall somewhere in the middle. Think of taxes...most of us bend the rules, a few don't bother with them & a few tread the straight & narrow.

BTW, nice w-w job @ Tdn yesterday Hurrikane--

[George]

Think MtKen has the proportions about right. Have known several trainers who just have an incredible knack for knowing (or educated guess's) where to place a horse. Many of them have trouble finding that spot and will run their horse where they don't fit just for exercise while waiting on the right race.

Believe a lot of what we bettors perceive as crooked is just what I described above. A whole lot of this game is trying to determine if this is the race they are pointing for.

I hate it when my jockey is in third and closing, looks around to make sure he is not backing up into a friend, and quits riding. Ho hum, another exercise ride!!

[hurrikane]

Thanks Ken,

I'm in agreement with you. I just get really sick of always hearing how crooked the game and the people are everytime some horse wins that someone doesn't thing should. For a game with so many variables it irritates me to think that just because Joe-blow didn't win the race and a longshot came in then it's fixed. Geezzz..if that were the case I guess they should put everyone at MNR in jail. I think everyone here on this board knows that's not the case.

Buy the way..nice going breaking the jinx yesterday!!!

[navrah]

I have heard of a trainer who was very succesful claiming horses. His secret, he paid off a veterinarian! The vet had inside knowledge of other horses ills, condition, recovery, etc....the vet would share this info with his select trainer who then paid the vet under the table.

[EE26]

There is more "juicing " than you think. I worked for a year for a trainer whose main owner was a millionaire. They guy just liked coming to the races and seeing his silks go around the track. He didn't really care whether he won or lost and all summer he didn't win a race. When the summer meeting was over and we moved to the next racetrack , everything was "turned loose" In the first 2 weeks of the meeting 6 horses won all paying double digits. By the way, the trainers brother was a vet. One time I came around the corner and saw the vet in the stall of a horse that was going to head to the paddock in about 30 mins. He injected something into the horses artery in his neck. I asked someone I trusted what was going on. The guy smiled at me and said "nothing legal". We both ran up to the grandstand to bet the horse. The horse went out and wired the field at $ 42. I don't live in constant "juice paranoia", I'm just aware it's out there and I try to keep my eyes open for horses who run random numbers etc.