PLAYING BARN CHANGES

It is common handicapping advice to avoid playing horses that have switched from a winning barn to a losing one, even if the horse left the winning outfit in career best form. However, there are other instances when the barn change could be positive. Further still, there are times when it is nothing more than a logistics move that probably doesn’t matter at all.

In the claiming ranks, a handful of trainers know how to consistently win, and the others win only sporadically. Horses that win for a strong trainer will usually not perform as well for the less talented connections. A low percentage trainer that acquires a horse from a top outfit is far more likely to end up dropping the horse in claiming price in search of a win. But it is rare to see a horse win a claiming race for a top outfit, get claimed by a low percentage stable and win again. The game would be all too easy if all losing barns needed to do was claim someone else’s winner and simply re-enter them. Keeping a horse in winning form is difficult. High percentage trainers do it better than low percentage trainers. Additionally, the recent claim is usually required to run for a higher tag, making it even harder to win. Even worse, a last-out winner is usually over-bet by the public. As a rule, bettors who pass on all of these situations only miss underlaid winners.

When top notch stables drop an expensive horse to the claiming ranks and no-name connections bite, don’t expect the midas touch. If Bob Baffert, Doug O’Neill, Bill Mott or Todd Pletcher can’t win with the horse, their evaluation of the horse’s future ability, regardless of how it fares in its claiming debut, is usually reliable. If the horse can’t perform for top trainers, losing connections are unlikely to be any more successful. For every great claim, there are a dozen that only head further down the claiming ladder as their career progresses.

But what if a horse switches from one top barn to another? Zayat Stables frequently switches their horses between Rudy Rodriquez and Bill Mott on the East coast and Mike Maker in Kentucky and Bob Baffert out West. And syndicates like West Point Thoroughbreds will move horses from one trainer to another to get the horse racing on a different circuit. These kind of moves are fairly common. When the owner doesn’t sell the horses but simply moves them amongst qualified trainers, it really shouldn’t hurt the horses’ performance. If anything, the change can be assumed to be for a major objective or to get the horse in races better suited for it. 

Another move seen with large outfits is moving horses between major and minor league branches of the same stable. Large outfits with dozens of horses often have runners at multiple levels of the racing ladder. When a horse is finding itself outrun at a big track and drops to a smaller venue, it often finds itself well spotted against the easier competition. Godolphin uses this approach own North America with Kiaran McLaughlin running the ‘major league’ east coast operation, and Dan Peitz running the ‘minor league’ stable at Oaklawn Park in the winter and the Kentucky circuit in the summer months. If the horse doesn’t change to a new owner, it is often an honest concession that the horse may be fit and in form, yet still needs to run in easier spots in order to find the winner’s circle.

On the other hand, when a horse begins at the minor leagues and shows fast-developing talent, it may get called up to the major leagues. The age of the horse is usually a factor. The older a horse is, the less likely there will be a big upside. A young horse can quickly develop and soar to new levels of success. The more experience a horse has, the more proven a commodity it is. Dramatic improvement in the late stages of any horse’s career is highly unlikely.

Requirements to Playing Barn Changes:

– Avoid playing any horse making its first start after moving to a trainer with a noticeably lower win percentage than its previous barn.

– Horses moving between decent trainers working for the same owner (but at different tracks) often do so because it gets them pointed towards more appropriate races, or key objectives in that part of the country. Such horses usually maintain form and often improve when properly spotted.

– With young, developing horses, improvement is more likely than with older, more seasoned runners.

 

Be sure to check out Dean Arnold’s handicapping book, A Bettor Way, on sale now through Amazon.

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