The Rest of the Country

I've posted the old hard training, P. Burch et. al, and present training in Southern Cal. What about east of the Rockies?

In my old handicapping days of too long ago i noticed on the east coast breezing was inconsistent (few apparent plans or patterns in the Form), and also infrequent. One breeze in three weeks sort of seemed the deal. One presumes these east coast trainers gallop at least every other day.

I'd say it's similar in Florida, KY and Chicago.

In the Midwest, where I am, breezing decreases to almost non-existent, and galloping--let's give an example of a three week period--the horse might see the track four times for gallop, maybe pony a couple of times, and the rest of the time it's an hour a day on the walker and a race thrown in--a minimal level of fitness.

What accounts for the softer training in the rest of the country compared to CA?

My theory is that the Los Angeles trainers discovered quickly that to compete with Charlie Wittingham and his imitators you need a fit horse. Since we where without Wittinghams east of the Rockies, I querry that the prior old timey hard training of Hirsch, Burch, Fitzimmons transitioned (was Woody Stephens the father of this) to even softer training than on the west coast.

We have that infamous quote by K. McGlaughlin to explain this--why breeze every three days when every three weeks will do--it's something like that--see my Lukas post. And so it goes.

I've observed since I bought my first horse in 1986 that of late, the last few years, trainers in our area are giving their horses more track work than they used to. I see more horses galloping on the track these days, and breezing. Suspect this too is a response to competition. If you have ten horses in a race doing nothing in their training, one of them has to win. But, if you consistently have one or two that are doing some work, the advantage will tell, and some of our brighter trainers seem to catch on. Maybe it's some of the new one's, Pletcher, O'Neill, McGlaughlin, Dickinson, that are moving the pile.

Additionally, you have east of the Rockies the Baffert phenomenon of ratcheting up training for good horses for certain races. This is exemplified in Carl Nafzger's good book "Traits of a Winner" on his training of Unbridled. It's definitely conventional training in that book, somewhat of the Lukas mold, but, Nafzger refers to two mile gallops and longer (albeit slow), more frequent breezes for Unbridled which Nafzger considers too tough for lesser horses. The galloping is every other day, and there's fretting about doing too much.

One may presume that Mott, McGaughey, M. Miller, S. Hine and his Skipaway, Zito, all go through similar exercises with good horses, while the rest of their stables sit and rot. Easy Goer finally beat Sunday Silence undoubtedly because he was trained harder closer to the Belmont.

And so, I'm at last on this blog done with identifying conventional training as we now have it.

Lukas is a good model of what is done--see my Lukas posts--because everything else is a derivation either somewhat tougher or somewhat softer. Now, it's time for commentary and what all this means for our new yearling Y on the coming posts.
Y's training:
Thurs. 12/28/06: 7 n riderless with short 2m lick bursts.
Fri. 12/29/06: 6 x 3f riderless with some short 2m lick bursts and one 1/2f lick at 90% speed.
Sat. 12/30/06: Rest there was work under tack on all three days--a little walking on Fri.