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• 2 YEAR OLD COLT ON DIRT
• 2 YEAR OLD FILLY ON DIRT
• 2 YEAR OLD COLT ON TURF
• 2 YEAR OLD FILLY ON TURF
• 3 YEAR OLD COLT ON DIRT
• 3 YEAR OLD FILLY ON DIRT
• 3 YEAR OLD COLT ON TURF
• 3 YEAR OLD FILLY ON TURF
• OLDER HORSE ON DIRT
• OLDER MARE ON DIRT
• OLDER HORSE ON TURF
• OLDER MARE ON TURF
• SPRINTER ON DIRT
• SPRINTER ON TURF
• TRAINER OF THE YEAR
• HORSE OF THE YEAR

2009 awards home

Trainer Of The Year

Texasace00 (Texasace)

The Texas Three-Step:

Texasace Sets The Bar A Notch Higher With Unprecedented Third SIM Training Title

By- Beisbol

Unprecedented

Part of speech: Adjective
Definition: Exceptional, original
Selected synonyms:  extraordinary, freakish, prodigious, remarkable, unique
In summary: unparalleled.

Veteran trainer Texasace adds to his solidly entrenched SIM legend by collecting a record 3rd Eclipse award for Trainer of the Year. Back-to-back TOTY awards? That wasn't even novel when Texasace pulled it off in 2005 and 2006, as Racelord did the same deed in 2001-2002. However, no one has accomplished this particular trifecta, and with a different stable and fresh stock, to boot.

We'll examine the particulars in a moment - in the meantime, let's look at others who were nominated for this year's top trainer prize:

40oz (team Doza) did not make the final Eclipse ballot but was one that I nominated to the bunch, and I feel deserves at least a passing mention for the honors. This is a stable that won at a 30.4% rate without excessive use of bid or restricted races, while not relying on a "monster" horse who dominated its class. No Grade I winners in the group, but an astonishing 20 of 22 ITM in listed stakes, and 3 Graded wins from 9 tries means that 40oz runners were well managed and came to play on race day.

Korn (Qwikvett stables) achieved nominee status on the backs of $8 million earner ROCK HARD KORN who won the important Grade 1's  Japan Cup and Sand Castle, and his classy stablemate ULTIMATE DIAMOND, a filly who took on the boys in the Bluegrass Derby as well as winning two Grade 1 races in her own division. Korn finishes 3 rd in overall earnings for 2009 with $7.78 million, and 7 Graded Stakes wins are nothing to sneeze at, either.

Super25 (multiple trainers) "The Supers" are neither conspicuous nor impoverished when it comes to a good horse, and this year was no exception with the "where'd he come from?" late-developing JEEPSTER headlining this particular row of stalls in the empire. As late as early February, this likely 3yo Eclipse champion and legitimate HOTY candidate was still floundering in Non-winners of Two lifetime company, but the added distance and maturity sent him on his merry way. The Middle Jewel winner racked up a total of 5 Graded Stakes wins, finishing with the Breeders' Bowl Classic trophy as the penultimate hood ornament. Not bad for a horse once considered second best in his own stable... THUNDER CRACKED won a G1 Derby prep as well, but like 2007 winner Squirrel4, this nomination is all about the big horse.

Foxon5 (foxon) had a phenomenal year and could have easily won TOTY honors without legitimate argument from the SIM community. It's no consolation, but sometimes your Zenyatta happens in the same year as a Rachel Alexandra. This stable scored a season's best 10 Graded Stakes Wins with an amazing half-stable assortment of 5 different horses. 3yo Turf Marathoner and dual Derby winner CRUSADING ENFORCER, 3yo Turf Classic LONDON SCENE, 4yo Dirt Classic GRAVEMENTE, 3yo Turf filly PADDLE STEAMER, and 2yo Turf Miler SHOWBIZ FIREWORKS all made significant splashes in their respective divisions and kept Foxon flush with cash (6 th overall at $6.3 million) and Grade 1 trophies (5, 2 nd overall).  Again, clearly a championship season, but there was another which dared to compare.

Texasace00 (texasace) -   Two super talented 3yo turf fillies led the way, with HAWKE'S BAY capturing the G1 Diana Grand Prix and G1 United Oaks. If you're only going to win two stakes races with a horse, it's pretty nice if they are both Grade 1! Likely 3yo filly Turf champ VENGEANCE OF PAIN started the year winning a MdSpWt race in South Korea and punctuated it with an upset victory in the G1 F&M Breeders' Bowl Turf.   She had 9 wins, $2 million in earnings, and some respect for her sire GENEROUS(IRE) who is cheap enough to produce bargain-bred babies this week.   A win in the G1 Del Web Oaks, G2 Leavenworth Special, and a 2nd  in the G1 Oaks de English aren't bad, either.

The strong allure of the lawn continued to the male side of the Texasace00 ledger as well. TUSH   was as solid as the often volatile older Turf Milers come, always running fast and competitively, with wins in the G1 The Road Kill Mile  and G2 The Ribot pushing him to millionaire status.

TEX GOLD did most of his damage among the 3yo ranks early in the season, with scores in the G1 The Japanese Derby, G2 Great Volt, G3 The Gordy Stakes, and a heartbreaking second to Foxon's CRUSADING ENFORCER in the G1 Sydney Derby.   He defeated top 3yo turf horse TITLE DEFENSE in his following start, finishing 3-1-0 for his 4 starts vs. his age group at the 2400-meter distance.

That's 4 active millionaires in one stable of 10 horses, for those of you counting.

DYNAMO JOE and VOODOO SMILE were good 3yo's who are still getting better. THUNDER CHICKEN just arrived via auction and is bound to improve. MAUNA LANI BAY is lightly raced and still working the allowance conditions. GLORY'S LAST SHOT and BLUE IGUANA were 2yo's who have 5 races between them. Most of these look like future stakes winners. Consider the fact that none of the stables Graded wins came in the 2yo ranks, and a testament to patience is revealed.

So that's the 'what'. What about the 'how' and 'why'?

How did the stable stats stack up against the rest of the SIM?  

•  Texasace00 was tied for 1st   (with Foxon5) for Graded Stakes Wins (10).  

•  First in Grade 1 victories with six. Foxon5 a close second with five.

•  First in earnings with $8.09 million, edging Lenny12 by the price of a Toyota Prius.

•  First in Graded Placings (19).   Korn and Vicki each racked up 18.

All of these tangible results point toward TOTY worthiness and are mathematical representations of an exceptional overall training performance. But there was one other number that stuck in my craw, something generally unmeasured and not representative of a trainer's dominance.  A question I was curious about, and the answer blew away my preconceived notions and assumptions about how it was done.

There's another synonym for "unprecedented" that I failed to list:

Idiosyncratic

Definition: peculiar

What's so peculiar about this year's TOTY stable?

Texasace00 only raced 18 different horses in 2009!  

Four Graded Stakes winners from 18 starters?   That's a 22% strike rate.   And those are all Grade 1 winners.   The SIM's top sires for the 2008 crop, Giant's Causeway and A.P. Indy, produced 7.2% and 6.5% Graded winners, respectively.   Montjeu (2.9%),   Pleasantly Perfect (4.6%), Generous (1.8%, but zero without Vengeance of Pain), and Sadler's Wells (3.8%) were the sires of the Graded Winners in the stable. I'm not even going to begin calculating the probability of this occurrence.

One (that one being myself) might assume that in order to get top-level horses in high concentration, you'd need to breed A LOT of blue-blooded horses and cull the herd continuously. But how do this stables' numbers look compared to other TOTY's?

2009 TOTY texasace00  18 horses, 42 wins 117 starts (6.5 starts/horse) 14 stakes wins (10 graded) in 45 starts.

2009 foxon5   40 horses 31 wins 123 starts   (3.08 starts/horse) 16 stakes wins (10 graded) in 51 starts.

2008 TOTY stckaif 69 horses, 50 wins in 111 starts (1.61 starts / horse) unplaced in one stakes.

By comparison, my best two stables beisbol raced 28 horses, 22 wins in 110 starts (3.9 s/h); db raced 38 horses 20 wins 109 starts (2.8 s/h)

You can win with balance (foxon) or volume (kaif), but texasace did it with precision.

Is there something to be learned from this campaign?   Here's the breakdown of where the trainer's 18 horses were entered:

2- Maiden Claiming races ( 1 won and was claimed, the other lost and sent to the CPU)

2- Conditioned Claimers (1 won, other 2 nd by nose, both claimed)

19- Maiden Special Weights (obviously, each horse can only win one of these!)

14- Listed Stakes (4 wins, 11 ITM)

49- Allowance Races

4- Grade 3 races (1 wins)

8- Grade 2 races (3 wins)

19- Grade 1 races   (6 wins)

The conclusion :   Texasace doesn't mess around.   When he had a horse in a Grade 1, it was ready to perform (31.5% strike rate). Allowance races were key in preparing horses for the campaign. Grade 2 and Grade 3 races were useful, but not a focal point. Texasace's horses only run once in a claiming race, and they never come back. If you want to win big Grade 1 races at 3 and beyond, 2yo success is not an issue.

              If you want to be Trainer of the Year someday, consider the SIM's 11-year history.  

27.2 percent of the time, it helps if your name is TEXASACE.

Special thanks to:   The SIM Hall of Fame, HOF Committee, Black Type Bugler, Yochem's YOSS Tools www.yoss-tools.com/post , former and future TOTY's, and of course, Mike Wallace.