Unless you've been living under a rock or don't have social media, you know all about the alleged "betting coup" orchestrated by trainers Quiroz and Ochoa, who entered four runners on Sunday, winning three.
Via Finley's TDN piece, trainer Angel Quiroz says he did nothing wrong.
Others certainly disagree.
On paper, to me this reads pretty simple. The trainers had their horses ready, entered their horses, likely bet their horses (or someone did, who probably isn't a professional "coup" bettor or race fixer as he/she bet a daily double with $37 and $10 winners that paid $25; ITP must be losing his mind), and probably walked away with some cash.
Where have we seen this before?
If we had a nickel for how many times a horse won off slow works, a buried qualifier, off claim with terrible form, or with a good old-fashioned form reversal, we'd have a whole lot of nickels.
"Man has horse ready, man bets horse, man makes a few bucks if the horse cooperates". We don't like it, and it's kicked many of us out of nice scores in multis before because we can't handicap it very well, but let's face it: It could be inscribed on Eclipse Award trophies.
Sure, in some of the instances something nefarious was going on. After all, when there was the EPO bust a number of years ago in Kentucky, the trainers who bought the drug probably weren't using it for their burgeoning careers in the Tour De France. Bad things happen in this game.
But getting a horse ready off dull works and bad form? Hell, that's as American as apple pie.
As for the "coup", well color me skeptical. We not only have the aforementioned daily double bet - which to me signals we're not dealing with Keyzer Soze - the talk about offshore betting is, well, curious, too
I actually checked-in on the 4th at Saratoga Sunday, and in the early betting offshore the only live horse was the 8, the Chad Brown piece. Markets moved downwards on Classic Rock during the betting offshore (as Crunk notes), but why wouldn't they? This barn signalled something was up via the FH works (JK even mentioned it on the telecast). That the sharps caught on shouldn't surprise us.
What I think (other than Dougie Sal's intrepid reporting and reach with the Portnoy RT) turned this whole thing into a mainstream story was the frequency of it. One day? Come on guys, seriously?
I remember 25 or so years ago there was a trainer who was booted out more times than Bill Laimbeer. He was one dirty dude, but he recruited beards from time to time. One time his new beard had three horses in one card off a barn change. All three ran off the screen; one I think, if memory holds, in a form reversal where the horse was 110-1 the last start.
A trainer I knew at the time said to me: "They went too far. They were pigs at the trough." The Clouseaus in some alphabet pieced two and two together and this new supertrainer had a short-lived career.
Honestly, I think if they did this over 24 days instead of 24 hours it'd be a nothingburger. It'd be "the barn's hot, they have these horses ready to run big"; DeRosa would be making the third entry an "A" horse on his "grid". Some sharp on twitter would tout the horse and we'd give him or her their flowers. It likely wouldn't be a story in the TDN.
Why do I feel that way? Because I think we've seen this movie a thousand times before. On Sunday, I suspect it was just more visible than usual.
Have a nice Tuesday everyone.
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