A few points.

No matter what you think about the issue of drugging, it's obvious that not all trainers, grooms, and vets are of equal ability.

Even on the naive assumption that everyone was being honest, we should expect that when horses move from weaker connections to better connections they would often improve, sometimes sharply, and for a period of time.

One must also examine stock carefully. Once a trainer is successful, he/she will tend to attract better stock. He/she might have the ability to choose specific horses that they KNOW are not being handled properly and can be improved upon. That in itself is an important skill and a sign of excellent horsemanship.

If a trainer is getting a barn full of well bred lightly raced horses to pick from, you should expect that he/she would develop many of them into top notch horses that would continue to improve.

That's why I tend to take a contrarian view on this subject. I'm not naive enough to think that a lot of guys aren't cheating.

I'm just not so quick to accuse people with spectacular training records and a reputation for improving horses as certain drug users/cheaters.

Horsemanship, training, vetting etc.... are all skills. Some people are great at it and some people stink.

I also have a problem with using only only one set of speed figures (or even just speed figures) to evaluate thoroughbred perfomance and then using those subjective views to make the case that someone is cheating.

Evaluating performace is obviously highly subjective. IMHO, many horses that some people think are running spectacular races actually are not (and vice versa). That doesn't mean I'm right, but we should at least be able to agree that before we cast stones about a horse running an improved performance, it should be so clear that everyone agrees with that point of view no matter whose figures they are using or not using.



Post Edited (02-26-05 12:18)