Trackjohn and I were down for the Florida Derby, that Thursday it rained so we sat at the 10 Palms bar instead of my Corona Beach House headquarters. A couple gentlemen sat next to us and we got into some general racing conversation. He saw that I was looking at TG, knew of it obviously and asked a lot of questions. Hopefully he is a TG customer now?

One is a longtime Woodbine trainer, the other a prominent owner/breeder with about 300 horses. Our conversation quickly turned to Norman McNight and the following rolled off the trainers tongue in a minute. He told me to google
W-18. [en.m.wikipedia.org]

Flat out, without hesitation he said this is what McNight uses and everyone knows it. The owner chimed in that McNight took a horse from him for 10k. The horse had a knee so bad that even a strenuous work out caused the knee to blow up like a grapefruit. After a lengthy turnout they got the horse to races and threw him in for 10k. McKnight took the horse to Oaklawn a month later and won by open lengths in a 32k claimer. He dropped him in for 10 less than 2 weeks later, wins again and gets claimed. That was in February and the horse has not been entered since.

This goes on in some form or fashion at every track with the usual list of suspects. In the era of 20,000 or less foals per year track management turns a blind eye to this daily. A lot of these guys have big stables and fill the entry box. It’s all about field size = handle.

Why the clean trainers do nothing and lose purse money as well as horses to these guys is certainly beyond me?