So Conquistador Cielo was juiced?

He should enjoy the check he receives

The Cliff Claven of horse racing

I just wish everyone thought like we do.
You can take the risk that the horse stays sound and earns out what you can make by taking the cash now, or you can just teh cash and let somone else take the risk.
Whats so bad about that?

Hes got one hell of a right hand though.

At places like Calder its the difference between those that survive in the business and those that eventually dont.

But he still looks like Cliff from Cheers

He got beat at the wire in September for the entire superfecta mutuel pool at Belmont in the 9th race in a ny bred maiden race on the grass. He woulda had the only ticket.
I saw him two days after and he was still white and shaking. That was one tough beat.

Haha i have no idea. I was 4 when he won the Met/Belmont.
The first horse I REALLY remember running was the next year... DEVILS BAG at Belmont, then Hialeah. "If only" on that one...

A new low has been set for name dropping in this thread.

Don't get me wrong, Eddie Barker is a nice guy, but at least on Steve's birthday can you raise the quality of your name dropping.

How about Heliadoro Gustines? I assume you guys are tight?

LOL!!
I don't think its possible to "drop" the name of a guy like Eddie.
It would be like name dropping the one and only, the legendary, the greatest race track hustler of all time, "Black Joe".

I just saw your new low and raised you a Black Joe.

Not saying he isn't a good horseman and sharp claimer- he is- I just don't like some of his, shall we say, "tactics"?

He acknowledges that his ability to train good horses was made easier by having the priviliege of watching the Frankel's when they shipped in to town before Frankel set up shop in NY again.
They came with training blueprints and instructions on what to do with them, how to gallop, breeze, jog and train them.
He paid attention, and was very fortunate to be able to get on the job experience with what to do with good horses, he didn't have those himself at the time and there is no substitute for hands on experience.

Of course he learned from his Dad Cardus. But the best horse his dad trained was Kings Swan. he didn't have a barn full of grade one stakes horses. He had a lotta claimers.
Its a different story training top stakes horses. The techniques ARE different in training a good horse and a claimer. Not the fundamentals, like condition and feed and shoeing, etc. But training good horses is really harder than claimers, claimers you just have to keep happy, you don't have to drill them into condition.
Top horse require a delicate balance of getting and keeping fit without sending them over the top.
I don't think acknowledging a break and good fortune and the opportunity to learn something from one of the best is something to be ashamed of.

I knew the " a " didn't look right.

So shes Mrs Heliodoro Streitz Gustines? Wow.

I can't speak for everybody, but my nose is growing just READING this thread.

I'm thinking of throwing myself through the looking glass on the off chance it's more realistic on the other side.

It can't be less.