trainer of the year

[bigdog32]

 dale romans

[Yimmy]

Rudy Rodriguez. 

[faster horses]

Romans.  Hard to even see an argument for anybody else.

[INJUREDONE]

Don Millonas

[journalstuff]

Dale Romans should by a landslide.

[Yimmy]

Romans wins at low percentages, got a lot of top-quality 2yos, and got next to nothing out of most of them.  He won a BC race?  So did Bisnath Parboo.  I can make a far better argument for Charles LoPresti, to say nothing of the Robot, who at least won stake after stake with his top-notch stock.  Ditto Steve Asmussen. And Rodriguez wins at well over 20% (yes, even stakes races) despite having the cheapest stock imaginable. 

[Alpha Mare]

Romans wins at low percentages, got a lot of top-quality 2yos, and got next to nothing out of most of them.  He won a BC race?  So did Bisnath Parboo.  I can make a far better argument for Charles LoPresti, to say nothing of the Robot, who at least won stake after stake with his top-notch stock.  Ditto Steve Asmussen. And Rodriguez wins at well over 20% (yes, even stakes races) despite having the cheapest stock imaginable. 

but cheap stock runs like stakes horses when they get the right 'treat'......

[Yimmy]

I assume most of the good claiming trainers have such treats, and indeed do a few of the stakes laddies.  Very few are able to do what Rodriguez (or for that matter David Jacobson) does. Jamie Ness does it at the "B" tracks, but in the bigs, he's a secondary factor at best.