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By far and away Yannick Gingras. Goes a 30.3 quarter today with Bythemissal and jambs up a race at Yonkers. Then goes to SCD tonight and puts Beach Glass on the front and instead of pulling to the passing lane when he was damn near falling down he wipes everyone out! That's amateur bush league bullshit and he's supposed to be HOF? Take away Burke & Takter and he has nothing. He can't drive for anyone else or win anything big. He's the only driver in history to be 99% dependent on two trainers.
Agree, and remember it's the worst of the top 5 drivers. Personally, i think he's a good driver, but not a HOF driver. Would he have gotten there without the opportunity to drive the Burke & Takter monsters? Screwing Somebeachsomewher e and Charlie May out of winning the Meadowlands Pace Races will forever stick in my mind.
You have embarrassed yourself with this post. Yannick is not a HOF driver? In what twisted reality. He is among the highest average earning drivers per start in the history of the sport. In fact, he could very well retire as the leading driver in that category. i like how people say without Burke and Takter monsters, he wouldn't blah, blah, blah. Well how did he get those opportunities to begin with? Because he was damned good!
How did he get? It was really simple he was told how to drive and he did it no matter how bad he looked doing it. He has NEVER driven with any strategy or how a certain horse needs to be driven. He is under orders from Burke to get to the front at all costs and keep going. Burke only has gunners and cowboys driving for him. Probably why Kakaly didn't last because he can actually drive a horse with strategy and has a set of hands. Yannick has one talent and that's not to care. He could probably be a better driver but his style is one way. If he can't make the front he panics and doesn't know what to do. I would love to know the stats on his wins in stake races and the % of those wins where he was one front. My guess is about 90%+ he's on the hammer! Ronnie should put on Nicole Diconstanza - she weighs 90lbs and can't hold one so she would be great. I hear she will blow you too so she's right up Ronnie's alley!
This belittling Yannick is so ridiculous I am literally shocked. Do any of you naysayers recall how good this kid was when he came up? First at Yonkers then at the Big M. He didn’t have Burke or Takter back then. He opened up a lot of big trainers eyes to his talent which has only gotten better. I am sure Burke and Takter may talk strategy before a race but as everyone knows once the starter says go it is up to the driver to figure it out. Guys like Yannick, Sears, Dave Miller, Brennan and more have tremendous guts and reflexes not to mention harness driving brains. What is this really all about? Too many tickets ripped up and looking for someone else to blame?
Of course, as you know many of the top drivers from our era also were very good trainers and maintained some top flight barns. in fact hard to name any top drivers who didn't maintain a good barn as well
How many drivers carry stopwatches with them any more?? I remember that Lou Miller (who taught me to jog) told me to go out and buy a certain kind of stopwatch and said that it was "must have" for doing any training and even moreso for driving.Occasionally certain drivers seem to be "out of rhythm"...like Dexter Dunn, whose timing and moves just seem off in the past 3 or 4 months. He hasn't quite gotten back yet. Timmy T (earlier this year) and David M (last year) also had periods in the past where you could see they were either starting up too late and could have caught someone (and didn't) or allowed slow 2nd quarter fractions while they were 6, 7 or 8 lengths back, with almost no chance to outsprint front horses who hadn't been used all that hard.
I don't disagree, Fuguzzi. You almost always need to be on or close to the lead. But, we have seen some sweet come from out of it drives from, Zeron, Dave Miller and Tim Teatrick.
Agree 100%--point and go , often overdrives and rarely works out a cerebral trip.There are many here that love him, not sure why.
i know nothing about the last two sentences but the rest of it is accurate.
