What owner would want one of theirs in a race with a Gill ?

Actually its genuine fear.. A lot of kids are getting hurt

What exactly are they supposed to see if a trainer or vet block a horse prior to prerace inspection?

most likely the reason you see Gills and his type at track like penn is they must get past the vets get in the race, a guy like a Jacobsen will claim a horse for 20-25 and run em for 5k. You wont see as many break down during a race but you will see just as many disappear because either the NY stewards wont let em get back in a race or they broke down in training, or they just cant run anymore. Rarely do those type trainers horse last from season to season or meet to meet. They know they are holding a "hot potato" and the last one holding is the loser.

I'm not talking about jocks that ride for Gill, I am talking about all the other jocks and horses in a race with Gill.

The guy/gal taking the call on the Gill horse knows the risk, win at 20% or get put in the dirt 12%.

I know the Mig story well, and we all know the inherent risk in racing. Even the PG's of this board are not ignorant or, perhaps in your case, arrogant enough to not realize this is a sport where breakdowns happen but this is a differnt case.

This is a case of an owner and his team of trainers are not caring about the horses and/or those who ride. He would rather win at 20%, and turn profits, then care for the issues at hand. Gill and crew are creating an environment where the inherited risk of racing is multiplied by the actions of Gill himself, his training staff and those who let those horses race. To think this is just part of racing is wrong, this is a man who cares about making a buck more then the lives of his horses, his jocks, his excercise riders, and those who are on the track with him. He is no different than Paragallo and others who should be banned from the sport.

The alarming rate at which he has horses going down has even the jockey colony at Penn National running scared, trainers reaching out to track managment and yet you think this is something that is just part of the sport and should not be looked at any other way?

12%?

So 120 times a jockey has hit the dirt on a Gill horse at Penn National over the last year?

Good post.

DrugS, you're watching more races than anyone, have you seen any barn turn out 14 horses that have either pulled up, DNF or completely broke down in 3 months? While the quoted poster's percentage may be off this is a ridiculous amount.

Probably Dale Baird.

Obviously an inflated statistic to make my point. However, if you look at how many starts his two trainers have made this year (49) and how many have brokedown (2), that would be 4%. I am not sure however that all starts made by Delahoussaye and Adamo have been owned by Gill, so that percentage could be higher and closer to 12% than 0%.

If you streteched those stats out over the last three months, assuming that both trainers made the similar starts (which easily could not be the case), then you are looking at a 10% breakdown rate. I would guess, that is considerably higher than Baird or anyone else you could some up with.

You mean to tell me "Sting" Ray Ganpath wont even ride for him anymore??? :zz: :wf

I could understand the jocks not wanting to ride for him at Philly Park - he's 8-for-117 with a laughable $0.89 ROI at Philly since November.

Mitchell would exceed those numbers if he ran as many and was strictly claiming horses.

I know an owner that had a horse with Mitchell, claimed for 25k won for 50k two weeks later, then went on a losing streak just below that level down to 32k. The owner flat out told him to drop the horse as he cant win there and he is tired of paying the bills for the horse.....

two weeks later he won a nw1x for a 55k purse and ran a lifetime top. I have no clue what happened to the horse, he was running for 8k last I saw.

Also that same horse, when he won for the initial 50k we cleared many thousands on the horse, he was about 10/1 and Mitchell flat out said he should be 3/5 an hour before the races started.

I wonder why

More Gill goodies.

http://drf.com/news/article/110354.html

You could substitute just about any industry for horse racing and it's the same thing. It's the reason the government had to pass labor laws, safety laws, and, for all the pain-in-the-ass they can be, the reason labor unions formed. Because there are plenty of owners of any sort of business that are interested solely in making a profit and everything else is just expenses.

Agree with this, but part of the problem is he has a private farm and ships them in- and somehow he's skirting part of the prerace vet rules because of it. Don't know the laws on how that works in PA but that seems to be the rumor.

This thread is a bunch of misguided animal lovers not understanding two very fundamental things about horse racing.

1. The sport is all about money. Period. If there wasn't money to be won, hardly anyone would want to race horses. Only the already rich would be involved at all.

2. This is not a hobby. This is a business when you own the horses. Period. At the end of the month the owner can't tell the trainer, vet, dentist, etc that I shouldn't pay this month because I am a great person who didn't start my horse who has a slightly sore ankle. It doesn't work well, I've tried.

Gill is not the greatest person in the world, but he is running his stable like a business and if animal lovers don't like it, then don't support horse racing until they change all the rules to suit you. Period.

I've owned horses. It is a tough business in every aspect. Posting a bunch of crap about a guy or his practices (the same practices as many other but on a larger scale) is much easier.

As much as it pains me... Sharp post