Looking for suggestions to find a training record on a guy who claims he trained at Belmont/Aqueduct in the late 80s/early 90s, got out of it for quite a while & now is training in NY/NJ/PA.
He gave me his name (it is a very common name), the years he says he was training & his number of wins. Nothing matches him when I look at trainers on equineline.com & equibase.com. And brisnet only goes back 7 years so I can't find those years at all.
He made a low offer on some PA-breds I have & while I would strongly consider taking a low offer from a trainer with a good record who races in PA, I'm less keen on all but giving them to someone who I can't verify. (Likewise, he likes my Langfuhr broodmare & a couple others who I would sell fairly cheaply. Same problem. Can't verify the offer.)
Before I walk away completely from the deal, does anyone have any suggestions on other ways to verify a trainer's existence/record than Equibase/Equineline.com/Brisnet? I'm always willing to believe someone was sloppy with information that can be verified by a little research. Until I try to verify & don't find anything.
Feel free to post OR PM information. Thanks.
Help tracking down a trainer from the late 80s/early 90s?
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CurrentlyRed
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The drf.com Stable Mail will allow you to search on a trainer's name, and when you click on it to add a watch for that trainer, it will give you a short race record: starts, wins, etc. That might allow you to at least verify the basic numbers.
You have to login, go to Member Center, then click on the Watch List, then Trainer Watch. Click on add a watch. Put in his last name first, then a partial first name, and select "Partial Match." If it is truly a common name, it might come up with more than one name. All of them will have the number of starts, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and money earned. If anything doesn't come up there, he's phony.
You have to login, go to Member Center, then click on the Watch List, then Trainer Watch. Click on add a watch. Put in his last name first, then a partial first name, and select "Partial Match." If it is truly a common name, it might come up with more than one name. All of them will have the number of starts, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and money earned. If anything doesn't come up there, he's phony.
"When I am on my deathbed, I imagine I will say, 'Thank God I did that'" - Arthur Hancock, on buying back Gato del Sol from Europe after Exceller was killed in a slaughterhouse in Sweden.
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CurrentlyRed
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Dave C wrote:I would try to contact the NY licensing authorities and see what they can tell you. If he was training he had to be licensed.
I might try that - I wonder how well they keep 20 year old records. Thanks.
Fireslam wrote:You might post his name, maybe someone can verify for you.
Thanks Fireslam. I was being intentionally vague - his name isn't "Joe Jones" but it is almost that common & he wasn't a big-name trainer, so it would be too easy to start talking about the wrong person. I think you would have had to have been at Belmont in the late 80s/early 90s to know him (and anyone who was there, feel free to PM me.)
majxmom wrote:The drf.com Stable Mail will allow you to search on a trainer's name, and when you click on it to add a watch for that trainer, it will give you a short race record: starts, wins, etc. That might allow you to at least verify the basic numbers.
You have to login, go to Member Center, then click on the Watch List, then Trainer Watch. Click on add a watch. Put in his last name first, then a partial first name, and select "Partial Match." If it is truly a common name, it might come up with more than one name. All of them will have the number of starts, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and money earned. If anything doesn't come up there, he's phony.
Thanks for the suggestion - I hadn't even thought of drf.com, so I tried. And I wish it were that easy, but I think the information I need is too old. Daily Racing Form limits to trainers after 1991, which misses most of this guy's career at Belmont & only comes up with 4 trainers with this common last name (I only searched on the last name). Equibase shows the same 4 trainers, Brisnet, which only shows records since 2005, still shows 24 trainers, so I know that DRF is incomplete. And Equineline.com has 168 trainers by this last name, but not one who matches on 1st name AND the right years AND Belmont.
So I've learned something about researching trainers online (which is that I might have to go to the licensing authority and/or the track itself with my questions).
Thanks, all for your help. Even if I didn't find this guy, I think I'll be able to find other trainers with all this information.
Maybe you can do a search using the DRF Archive below.
http://kdl.kyvl.org/drf/
If you find him late in the year, it may have the starts record.
jm
http://kdl.kyvl.org/drf/
If you find him late in the year, it may have the starts record.
jm
Run the race - the one that's really worth winning.
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CurrentlyRed
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Thanks, all. Found him through this thread. Actually, found him through his very smart wife who saw the thread & put 2+2 together!
And what I've learned is the older the records on any of the sources, the less accurate (For example, many lack charts on those services, many that have charts don't have the Footnotes - and some are imcomplete on important information, saying things like "Owner unknown". Some of the older record-keeping was just sloppy.)
For example, this trainer tells me that the publications routinely confused him with another trainer of the same name in New England. So the records I can find are a compilation of the two same-name trainers. So unless you actually know the trainer's horses (and sometimes, his owners) it is impossible to separate the combined record.
And what I've learned is the older the records on any of the sources, the less accurate (For example, many lack charts on those services, many that have charts don't have the Footnotes - and some are imcomplete on important information, saying things like "Owner unknown". Some of the older record-keeping was just sloppy.)
For example, this trainer tells me that the publications routinely confused him with another trainer of the same name in New England. So the records I can find are a compilation of the two same-name trainers. So unless you actually know the trainer's horses (and sometimes, his owners) it is impossible to separate the combined record.