Trainers and Jockeys

In the movie Moneyball, there seemed to be two kinds of baseball people. Incurable stat geeks and grizzled, listen-to-my-gut baseball veterans. I would have been somewhere in between. Is the past the perfect predictor of the future? Sometimes but not always. Do most racetrack goers have the patience to recognize arcane patterns (Trainer X has won the third race on the third Thursday of the meet three years running)? Generally no. All the statistics in the world aren’t going to beat a horse with no name connections who throws a 1:08 and change first time out of the gate. The point is, use the statistics, but don’t become a slave to them.

Saratoga always doled out first-rate money. Even low-level NY State-breds could depend on $20,000 plus purses. But now that the slot machines are ringing at Aqueduct, daily purse money was up $250,000 in 2012, $500,000 in 2013 and will increase again this year. Owner John McMahon even quipped, “it’s actually possible for someone to make some money in this [owning horses].” Competition for barn space remains fierce. Well-known out of state trainers are looking to move entire operations to New York. Saratoga always had many more applications than spaces, and demand will only increase. Expect the day to day quality and the competition to be unequaled at any other American race meeting. Look for fuller fields with fewer “fillers.” Expect to see new faces from tracks up and down the east coast and Midwest trying to hop on board the new gravy train. This can only represent a boon for horseplayers.

The question isn’t who will be the leading trainer –Todd Pletcher seems to be the indisputable answer – but just how dominant Pletcher will be. In 2011 he started almost double the number of horses his closest competitor, Chad Brown, did, so it wasn’t surprising he finished 16 wins ahead of him. In 2013 the gap between them had closed slightly and Chad Brown actually had a higher win percentage than Pletcher. None of the Pletcher statistics is breaking news, and frankly a long analysis into the gory details of Pletcher’s work isn’t going to change the fact that it’s hard to make money betting Pletcher and even harder betting against him.

Start here. You’ll need a healthy dose of insight to go against Todd Pletcher, Johnny Velazquez, and a short priced favorite. Pletcher had a typical year, winning at an overall 26% clip. Pletcher favorites came home in front a powerful 38% of the time. 2-1 on a Pletcher horse seems to pass for good odds these days. Sure, a lot of his medium priced (3-1 to 6-1) horses, especially two-year old firsters are overbet, but it’s not like they won’t ever win.

What else can be learned from studying Pletcher’s 2013 Spa record?

• 63% of his starters were on the dirt as were 72% of his winners. Pletcher on the turf is slightly more vulnerable.
• His two-year old win percentage is good at 30%, and his win percentage with maidens and claimers is almost as good at 29%. Only Chad Brown and Steve Assmussen had a higher success rate when racing less expensive horses.
• Pletcher actually had a lower percentage of sprint winners (24%) than route winners (30%). Normally you would expect this to be reversed because of the high number of two year-olds he debuts at the Spa.
• This may be due to the fact that his two year-old winning percentage was down from previous years, fourth behind Assmussen, Linda Rice and Chrtitophe Clement.
• On the other hand he did win a third of the stakes races in which he had a starter.

In a case of local boy makes good, Mechanicville (barely a stone’s throw from Saratoga) native Chad Brown, who has only been training on his own since 2007, just keeps getting better and better. It may be only a matter of time before he surpasses Pletcher at the Spa. Brown actually had a slightly higher win percentage than Pletcher (28% to 27%), and a barely higher average win payout than the leading trainer, both of which are testament to his burgeoning following. His overall in-the-money percentage was a sparkling 64%. He excelled on the Turf course and in maiden and claiming events, winning at a 31% and 33% clip respectively. Unfortunately, the locals have been betting him like you would expect them to attach themselves to the native son, and the rest of the world has caught on to his ability as well, but he clearly has earned the respect

Steve Asmussen may not bring a full contingent to the Spa, even given the higher purses, but pretty much all his starters are live. Check out these statistics:

• His overall win percentage was 21% down significantly from his eye-popping 33% figure in 2011. His in-the-money percentage remains strong though at 56%, second only to Pletcher..
• The vast majority of his winners (77%) are on the dirt.
• He remains a powerhouse with two year-olds, winning at a 35% clip, and slightly more than half (53%) in-the-money.

Who are the other trainers to watch? Stalwart New York trainers David Jacobson and Kiaran McLaughlin had excellent meets, with each saddling 16 winners. Jacobson had better success on the dirt (12 winners), while McLaughlin had the majority of his winners on the turf (9 winners). This was a big turn around from 2011 when McLaughlin was a miserable 1 for 15 on the lawn. Jacobson also won with a sparkling 55% of his runners that achieved favoritism.

If you are looking for a trainers who return some healthy prices, check out George Weaver and Christophe Clement. Weaver’s 9 winners from 41 starters returned an average mutuel of $16.60, while Clement’s 8 winners average $16.70.

Jonathan Sheppard is getting older but can still get it done on the turf (I regularly would bet any Sheppard horse going from steeplechase to the regular turf because almost no one understood the angle).

Horseracing lost a hard-working and colorful trainer when Dominic Galluscio passed away this March. Galluscio never got the best horses, but he made the most of the ones he had, especially the New York breds. His presence will be missed on the New York racing scene.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Once you’ve made it to the majors, and Saratoga is about as major as it gets, you’re a talented rider. Jockeys in the second tier of Saratoga’s riding colony, riders such as Cornelio Velasquez, Rajiv Maragh,  and Jose Lezcano, could probably lead half the race meets in the country. That being said, I worry far less about the jockey per se than I do about whether the trainer/jockey combination is productive or whether the jockey, regardless of where he is in the standings, has had success with any respective horse.

With the modern racing form you don’t have to depend on me to point out the obvious. Jockey/trainer statistics will be on the bottom of the past performance for everyone to see. Instead, I’ll point out some of the less obvious things.

The leading riders – in 2013 Javier Castellano, Johnny Velasquez, and Joel Rosario stood well above the rest of the colony – got there because they ride for the best trainers who get the best horses. Nothing succeeds like success. And they stay there not because they manage to keep from falling off talented runners, but because they don’t make the kind of mistakes that lose races. They work hard, they pick up mounts from all quarters, and they are fearless to a fault. Still I always subscribe to the theory that the best horse will usually win the race as long as it gets a competent ride.

Are some riders better on the turf? Yes, and in the case of Saratoga in 2014 their names were Castellano , Velasquez and Rosario along with Jose Lezcano. That’s right. The best dirt riders were also the best turf riders because, frankly…well I already said they ride for the best trainers who get the best horses.

After having some good years in New York and at Saratoga, Julian Leparoux moved his tack to SoCal in 2013. He married Mike Mitchell’s daughter, and given Mitchell’s health status after brain surgery to fight cancer, California was a necessary move.

Who else was sneaky good in 2013? Joseph Rocco, Jr. had 5 winners in 18 starts in stakes races.  Junior Alvarado had half the starts of Javier Castellano but hit at a 16% win clip, slightly lower than Castellano’s 20%. Irad Ortiz, Jr. finished fourth in the standings last year, but given his continued improvement could crack the top three.

Finally, a fond farewell to jockey Ramon Dominguez whose head injuries from a spill at Aqueduct in 2013 forced his retirement. Dominguez was just shy of 5,000 career wins, and was the Eclipse award winner for 2010, 2011, and 2012. He was always competitive at the Spa, or wherever he rode. I know everyone wishes him all the best.