Excellent Angle: D Wayne Off

[eajinabi]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

Yes, that is exactly right. That is what I admire about guys like Whittingham. Whittingham knew that most of his horses would be better served being developed slowly so that they would last. But by the same token, when Whittingham had a great horse that was sound, that he knew could handle the rigors of the Derby, he would run.

That is what separates the good trainers from the bad trainers. The good trainers listen to their horses and let the horse tell them what they're ready to do. The good trainers don't simply run in the big race no matter what simply because the horse is eligible.

A good example is Todd Pletcher. He could have run Rule, Interactiff, and Aikenite in the Derby. These horses were all in the top 20 but Todd didn't run them because he knew the Derby was not a good spot for those horses. He wasn't going to run just for the sake of running. He's knows that these horses are good horses and will be very useful in other spots.

If D Wayne trained those horses, I'm sure he would have run them all.

I agree Whitingham was a trainer with great talent. Trainers today give thier horses long layoffs and juice thier horses but it does nothing to extend thier careers. How many top horses have you seen run past 10 lifetime starts in thier career nowadays.

Lukas method of training did not involve lightly racing and long extended layoffs. He liked to run horses in races (often races they did not belong in) into form. Spain is a good example of that. So If he is 0 for 25 at CD meet does this attribute to him juicing his horses too much or not at all?

How does trainers like Steve Asmussen, Rudy Rodriguez, Mike Mitchell, Jeff Mullins etc get a pass while Lukas is singled-out like a criminal.