Barclay Tagg
Barclay Tagg
Barclay Taggis an American thoroughbred horse trainer. A 1961 graduate of Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Animal Husbandry, he is best known for conditioning Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Funny Cide. Horses in Tagg's stable have included Showing Up and Nobiz Like Shobiz. Barclay trains horses year round, spending spring in New York and winter in Florida...
absolute handle hard horse knew manages pleasure plenty run smoothly
I thought he wasn't going to run and it was going to be a disaster, but Cornelio said he had plenty of horse and he was just cruising. He knew more about him than I did. It's hard to tell through binoculars. He manages to handle things smoothly and he's an absolute pleasure to train.
hard likes training wet
He's training well, we'll give it a shot. He likes it hard and fast, so it'll probably be wet and soft.
biggest finish happy hard life proved run start
I'm just happy he showed some life this time. The biggest thing is that he proved he could still run hard from the start and finish strong.
deny good hard judgment wrong
Probably with good judgment and good sense, you wouldn't do it. But there again, they're only 3 once, and there's only one Derby. It's hard to deny them that when they've done nothing wrong in 2006.
happen start
Too many things can happen to start getting excited.
beat beyond win
First, he's got to win on Saturday. I'm not going to think beyond that. I don't even know if he can beat Like Now.
bring exhaust hope knock might mile preferred race seven start whether wins
I didn't want to bring him back going a mile and one-eighth in the Hal's Hope because there are some hotshots in there who might make him overextend himself, and I didn't want to knock him out. He's really not a six-furlong horse. I would really have preferred to start him at seven furlongs or a mile, but I wanted to get a competitive race under his belt, and whether he wins or loses, it shouldn't exhaust him.
caught cracked hit panicked running
Richie said he started to idle, and then Richie panicked and cracked him. You really don't want to hit him any more than you have to. He got him running again, but I think it caught him off guard.
last lost lucky worse year
Last year was a lost year for him, and we're lucky anything worse didn't happen.
came
I thought he was finished. And he came on.
derby enter full good looks wednesday
He was full of himself. If everything looks good on Wednesday (of Derby Week), I'll enter him and if everything looks good on Thursday, I'll ship.
fast last quite
He didn't go quite as fast as he did last time. This is what we wanted.
growing kept
He kept going lame. He was going through growing pains, I guess.
good hurt last looks stop strong training
He hurt his back last year, and we had to completely stop on him. He looks good and strong now, and he training better than ever.