There is a lot of trainer information provided by TG and many ways to use it but here are some very basic ways I use it.

I only play on the weekends and I like play a lot of different tracks from across the country depending on the cards and the weather. There is no way I can be familiar with all the trainers. With the TG trainer stats, I can quickly tell if a trainer seldom wins or conversely if a trainer frequently wins. I typically steer clear of the former and often try to beat the latter (non-contenders or marginal contenders from top barns are typically overbet and can help make a race playable).

At the start of a new meet, I like to look at how the trainer has done at that particular track in the past relative to the overall stats. Some trainers point to certain meets and others use some meets just to "condition" their horses for another meet down the road.

For special applicable circumstances, such as layoffs or first-time-turf, I like to see how the trainer does for that category relative to their overall percentages. A big relative difference can be meaningful even if the absolute percentage is not that high. For example, an overall 5 pct trainer (very bad) that wins 15 pct of the time off a layoff (not great but not bad either) might provide some "hidden" value with such horses. In particular, if it is up against another layoff horse from a top barn (say 28% overall winners) that has a poor relative percentage on layoffs (say 15%). Both have the same absolute percentage with layoff horses but one tends to move them up while the other does the opposite. This all assumes that decent sample sizes are involved.

Speaking of sample sizes, they can be somewhat problematic; however, a sample size of 20 or more is fairly reliable, particularly if you look at ITM as well as win pct. Also, even small samples can sometimes be meaningful. For example, if a trainer has started only 10 horses "First Lasix" and had only 1 winner and 3 ITM, it would not tell you very much but, if that same trainer had 8 winners and 10 ITM out of 10 starters, you might legitimately infer a strong trend despite the small sample size.

I have to close by getting on my soap box for a few sentences. I would much rather see how often the trainer gets a new top or has his horse run an X off a layoff than how often his horse wins or runs ITM. The former tells me if the trainer tends to send them out off the bench ready to fire while the latter is as much about placement as fitness. The same goes for many of the other categories. For example, if I knew that off layoffs a trainer's horses run a top or better 50% of the time, less than 5 pts worse than their top 45% of the time and X only 5% of the time (50/45/5) I could easily factor that into my analysis of a particular race. Something like that would be a nice enhancement to the already helpful TG trainer stats.

Chris

P.S. Congrats to both Steve Wolfson and Len Friedman. I Also send my sincere condolences to OPM.