This is a pet issue of mine but it annoys me no end to see good horses be ruined by average drivers and a couple of instances over the weekend just reinforced it to me. There are also a couple of bigger issues surrounding this as well in that it impacts the confidence of run of the mill punters which in turn stifles turnover.
I continually hear industry participants complain about lack of prizemoney in the industry but they refuse to put clearly superior reinsmen on their horses which would make the caper appear more professional. If they want to be paid like professionals, they first of all must act like a professional when doing their job.
I was watching Royal Verdict on Friday night get absolutely slaughtered by Ian Dornauf (who subsequently got 6 weeks for the drive) and it was almost laughable watching some of the decisions he made in the run:
- not use the horse's brilliant gate speed
- allow his only danger to run a 47.4 lead time and 66 first half
- hand up the death to a horse who was never going to take him into the race
- not pull out 3 wide when the train came at the bell
This is after all the same horse who crossed Devilish Smile at its previous run, copped a ton of pressure and still beat it home despite DS having the cold sit on him. Its blatantly obvious though as to why these tactics were adopted and that was quite simply to ensure the horse didn't have a gutbuster the week prior to a $100,000 final
Trainer/Drivers are banned in the USA for this exact reason, I am not saying that we need to go down this track but a professional driver would not risk their livelihood by giving an odds on pop a soft run. Ian Dornauf did cop a 6 week suspension for the drive but received a stay which will enable him to drive this week and if he drives the horse aggressively from gate 7 in the final this week then the punters who took the odds on last time should be rightly aggrieved. The other thing to consider is that any form analyst will tell you that the horse would be a "moral" with a top class driver but will find it tougher with Ian Dornauf aboard
The other instance occurred in Hobart on Sunday night where I was mighty keen on a horse (Iden Justasmyrk) but was mightily concerned by the "anchor" driving it in its trainer Paul Williams. Sure enough the horse won at around $4.50 but I had about 30% of what my bet would have been had it been driven by one of the top drivers in the state so was more annoyed than glad despite backing the winner. Paul Williams had an accident late last year and his horses were driven by Natalee Emery whilst he was out (who is in the top 3 drivers in the state in my opinion) and whilst he was out the results of the horses driven by Nat make interesting reading. I did a bit of research prior to the win last Sunday - wish I didn't as would have had more on :(, the results were as follows:
REDSIDE SHREK:
P Williams - 11 drives, 0 wins, 4 placings
N Emery - 6 drives, 5 wins, 1 placing
OUR SIR LEW
P Williams - 6 drives, 0 wins, 0 placings
N Emery - 2 drives, 2 wins
IDEN JUSTASMYRK
P Williams - 5 drives, 0 wins, 3 placings
N Emery - 3 drives, 2 wins, 1 placing
The results over the 12 month period are amazing, Nat had 11 drives for 9 wins and 2 2nds whilst Paul had 22 drives for 0 wins and 7 placings and this is just a single instance. There are also countless examples I could list when Gareth Rattray replaces a driver on a particular horse
