Officially Crap

Originally Posted by Dixie Porter

Get a grip Phil. The guy is pretty near as good as it gets these days. Been sending horses to him to "baby sit" for years while we were in Cal.

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.

Originally Posted by Cardus

Dutrow's father didn't teach him enough? He needed to watch Frankel's horses to refine his techniques?

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.

[blackthroatedwind]

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.

[hoovesupsideyourhead]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

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.

microdot does have its uses..