New Orleans-
The winners just keep coming. Second-stringers from the Sam Houston satellite stable. Layoff horses. first-time turfers.
to win with 31 percent of your starters over the course of a race meet, as Mike Stidham gas done at Fairgrounds this winter, you must hit with all types of horses. From low-level claimers to stakes runners, Stidham has done that, to the extent that merely seeing his name listed as a trainer here has become a handicapping angle.
Stidham, 42, has always been a high-percentage trainer. Now, he also has the volume, and therefore is in the hunt for his first trainer's title here. Through Thursday, he had saddled 33 winners, two less than Tom Amoss.
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Stidham now counts such notables as Stonerside Stable, Cobra Farm, and Mike Rutherford among his long list of current clients, and since being rescued from his fall into obscurity, he has never really stopped riding the wave of success. Two relationships, one with his wife, the other with Len Ragozin's speed figures, have helped put his stable over the top.
Stidham's wife, Rachel Heart, is the stable veterinarian, and she ministers to the barn's stock to a degree most outfits can only dream of. And by now, Stidham may be nearly as close to Jake Haddad, the Ragozin guru, as he is to his wife. Stidham says he talks to Haddad as much as 15 times a day, and that "The Sheets" have enabled him to spot his horses where they belong.
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And thanks for the kind words as well as congratulations for your close second in the training race to long time Sheet user (and friend of ours), Tom Amoss.

Robespierre

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