I am sorry if this has already been covered or if it offends anyone but People like thorn and Kennedy are turning this sport into a joke! I have noted that throughout the conversation The fact that thorn and others are not using any substances or not has been debated. At this stage because in Australia you are innocent until proven guilty they are innocent due to the absence of any positive swabs.
However, The way that these trainers can magically improve horses lengths in very short periods (less than a week) is simply not possible! In a one week period you have the opportunity to work the horse on one or two occasions where a few gear adjustments and the like can be made. This in rare cases, can make a large and quick improvement in a horses performance, but certainly doesn't occur with every horse as is the case with these trainers!
One trainer I have noted of late who seemed to have this miraculous ability for the last 2 or 3 years was David druitt in the riverina area. This ability suddenly appeared out of nowhere after 15 years of struggling to get a horse to keep up! He, much like many of the suspected trainers in the game, was constantly taking very weak and poorly performed horses and getting them to run in the death seat doing enormous amounts of work and still winning convincingly! I have noted after a spate of blood testing in the area 6 months ago his team has reverted to the previous 15 years and is barely able to keep up once again.
Their ability to improve on all trainers also astounds me. In today's game anyone who trains horses for a living does it pretty well and there is not much improvement possible on the way the horse is trained. Once again there is a rare occasion where trainers can be improved on.
The strike rate of these stables is also exemplary! I would guess that the winning percentage of these stables would be from 40-50% which simply isn't possible without some help! This of course doesn't take into account hobby trainers who may only have one or two horses in work and only start them rarely. Of any of the large stables the best of their strike rates would be maybe 10-15%. This is a very large difference!
I noted also earlier there was a discussion about horses being back in grade at menangle and them being able to take advantage of the bigger track. In regards to this point I would like to bring a case forward. Dartmoor had been racing in QLD struggling to win claiming races. It arrives in Sydney steps straight into metro or handicap class races and wins 3 or 4 races straight all in dominate fashion. This appears to me as a step up in grade!
Also thorn has just last week trained 4 winners at menangle on Friday night at a metropolitan class meeting. I can hardly remember him training more than 4 winners at metro meetings in a year! This could be a result of him being sent some better class horses and he maybe just having a purple patch which can happen but he has constantly been winning trebles of late which is almost impossible to do with a team of around 15-16 horses. This has been happening in the riverina with the Kennedy stable who work a few more horses numbers wise and admittedly they have some very talented ones, but they train a treble or more every week! This isn't possible!
It is also very coincidental how the stewards arrived at the stables of thorn the horses that night did not show their usually qualities. Another cases of this was with the Russo stable when they were followed to the wagga pacers cup meeting. They had two horses engaged in the event one being doctor zeus and the other being a claiming class horse! Both of these had good form prior and were well fancied. They both however performed very poorly and dropped out at the 400.
I have tried to write a reply that presents the facts and my opinion all at once which can be difficult to do. I also do not mean to aim this article at any particular stables, however the ones mentioned are just the most blatant examples of this in racing at the current time.