Excellent Angle: D Wayne Off

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by 3kings

In the last 8-10 years almost everyone would trade their resumes. He hasn't done much except run horses in wrong spots in the major races so he could be in the spotlight. Most of these horses probably would have been better served being developed slowly than rushed so that Lukas could still seem relevant.

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.