Cave Dwellers

Even a caveman could do it! 

I have had too many horseplayers want to tell me about workouts, impress me that they know, and quickly cite patterns and bullets. 

Social media is littered with those homo sapiens and their own Neanderthal handicapping 101

I don't nod, I don't concur, but inside I am screaming out 'you are so full of shite!'

Handicappers have little understanding of what a pattern is:

"I want to see works every 7 days'' one handicapper told me. 

"So you like industry-type trainers with an assembly line?" Crickets 

I might as well been speaking Napoletano dialect. 

They completely miss the trainer who is in tune with his or her horse. Some horses don't need to work every 7 days. 

"Horses are overtrained anyway'' said the late Bobby Frankel, while holding court at Clockers Corner one morning at Santa Anita, he said a lot more, but that's not for public consumption....

So come hell or high water, the horse has to work every 7 days. No matter what for you to like it. 

Rule #1: A horse doesn't have to work. 

Handicappers don't differentiate between claimers, maiden, allowance, and stakes horses, they look at all the same in the same pattern. 

A good trainer handles his claiming stock, or a horse that needs attention, with TLC and time between starts without having to be stressed in workouts, different than a heavy type horse that needs constant work to keep fit, but on the flip side, those are the kind of horses that show longevity because of their body size and weight.

Some horses stay fit, some lose fitness overnight. A good trainer knows how to handle that, too.

How about a lightly made filly? Are you going to train her like a strapping colt? You go on and do that and see what you have left at the end of the month. 

A lightly made filly needs careful handling because they can get light in the flesh. They can become anorexic thin, which leads to mental stress, and you are done. She is cooked, but go right ahead and count your days between works and furlongs. 

Please be my guest. 

Horseplayers are becoming insane, they know everything, make the same mistakes every day, and tomorrow they will do the same thing again, and expect a different result. 

Y'all just keep yanking your chain and look at the patterns without one iota of experience. 

Then the bullets start flying!

Bullet works, the favorite handicapping line for horseplayers around the globe. 

Bullet works are shite too. Bullet works are deceiving, the real bullet works you never see. They are buried. 

Todd Pletcher mostly has half mile works, but ALL of those half miles are 5f and 6f with a 7f gallop out. 

A 49 flat Todd Pletcher work is 101, 114 and 128. Yes, a seven-furlong work hidden in your precious half mile, but please continue telling how much you know.

I say that, and the handicapper looks at me with a blank stare. 

'Hello! McFly?'

There is a massive bullet work burial grounds beneath each individual racetrack. 

Horses with the fastest work are produced by the official clockers who know exactly who the horse is, and know exactly how much handicappers adore the bullet work is dug down further down than Jimmy Hoffa. 

That is why an official clocker always has a pail and shovel in the on track handicapping kit. Some have been known to dig all the way to China to bury one.

I have made so many examples over the years of how bullet works are rotten tomatoes, the real bullet work is in cement boots. For example, the team at Saratoga from the gate, going 2 seconds faster than officially posted, but also the winner of the drill got the worse time and the other horse, who broke down and died on the track, got the best. That bullet work got buried. 

About the fast Curlin colt going 47.1 and 100 flat, workmate 48 flat, well the good one got the gallop out time and avoided the bullet work. and the 48 flat, the workmate, a maiden claimer, that in next drill fell down on the gallop out when crossing his own legs, got the bullet. That Curlin colt got his bullet work buried too and you are playing the one who tripped over his own legs. 

Congratulations, Barney Fife.

Handicappers doubled down, and saw a guy trying to impress social media with a checklist a mile long on how he views 2yo racing. 

My checklist is simple: I look for talent.

That's it, I wrote the book on workouts in 2005, and the only book of Workouts from the eyes of a clocker. 

We sold out, I believe there are a few left on Amazon, not sold by me.

Patterns and bullets are NOT the way to find horses that are working well, the only way to do it is by seeing how they do it. It's not negotiable but I am sure some dude will try to argue with me.