In 1990 a man named Carl Nafzger captured everyone’s heart when his little horse
Unbridled stormed to the front of the pack to win the Kentucky Derby. He helped
a little old lady get capture the holy grail of racing and cemented his place
as a legend. Nafzger bucked the trend of big name trainers having overinflated
barns-he kept things small. In his heyday, Carl Nafzger averaged approximately
700 starts every 12 months. To put this in perspective, Steve Asmussen has had
1,507 starts over the last twelve months.

In a day and age where horses run only once every six weeks, each horse in a
trainer’s barn is good for about 8.5 starts a year. If you keep eighty horses
in your barn, you should make 700 starts per year.  Though it depends on the individual, most trainers can usually provide hands-on attention to about fifty horses, after
that they must hire assistants to do the bulk of the monitoring and day-to-day decision-making.

So, what’s the problem with this?

The problem is that the head trainer has the requisite knowledge to keep the horses that he sees in peak condition, but only if he sees them face-to-face. If a horse seems
slightly off, it is up to the assistant trainer to say something, but what
assistant trainer has the gall to go up to a living legend and say “should we
really be breezing this horse 6 furlongs today?” When you’re an assistant
trainer and your paycheck depends on diplomacy, there is little incentive to
exercise sound judgment. So, we get horses who breeze 6 furlongs when they
should have just walked the shedrow. We get horses who don’t need a certain
medication being prescribed it anyway. We have horses who are stabled on track
when they’re demeanor suggests that they should be stabled in much more quaint
surroundings. Basically, we automate one of the few jobs that can never be
automated- the thoroughbred racehorse trainer.

To illustrate this point, lets compare two great trainers with completely different approaches- Steve Asmussen and Chad Brown. From the period of November 16^th to November 29^th, Asmussen has started horses at seven different tracks. Over
the same period of time, Chad Brown has started horses at two different tracks.
Last weekend, Asmussen saddled 32 horses at 5 different tracks, but saddled is
used loosely here, becauses unless Asmussen has developed the ability to
teleport there is no way he could have saddled all of those horses himself,
however it is very plausible that Brown saddled all but two of his horses that
weekend since he raced only at Aqueduct save for the two horses he raced at
Laurel.

It is also important to note that though Steve Asmussen has a very good record
keeping horses safe and sound, Chad Brown’s record is impeccable. According to
the NY State governments report on injuries and fatalities, Brown has only had
four breakdowns in the state of New York over the last four years while
Asmussen has also had four. At first glance this seems okay until you realize
that Brown has a much larger presence in the empire state than does Asmussen.
Over the past two years, Brown has made 666 starts in the empire state compared
to 413 for Asmussen. The numbers show that although Asmussen is doing a good
job of keeping his horses sound, Chad Brown is doing a phenomenal job.

Though I know most owners will not read this, for the few that will, I challenge you
to ask a big name trainer like Asmussen or Pletcher when was the last time he
saw one of his claiming horses breeze in person, then ask Chad Brown the same
question; the answer will tell you all you need to know.