The Lukas Charts Analyzed

Here are the Lukas charts from Staaden's book for Slewbop and Success Express, both three year old colts. I'm too unfamiliar with my scanner to blow it up.

But, you'll see the races for the year at top and bottom and the June exercise program in the middle. For June you'll see a work or race listed about every 7-10 days. What's impressive is that the horses, all of them in every chart, do this work consistently until there's an injury. Slew Bob raced 15 times by September and won $100,000 total, and Breeder's Cup Juvenile winner Success Express raced 9 times and won $98,000.

My question would be whether, as I have asserted, it is possible to detect injuries from these charts. Both colts raced seemingly without injury right on through September.

The only way we would know their fate over the long haul is to look at the Equibase lifetime performances at $8.00 a pop. Just to see how it comes out.

I have decided to Equibase three of Lukas's horses on his charts. Instead of taking horses at random I decided to take the first three three year old colts listed. What happened to them is as follows:

Cougarized: He had 9 starts to a Delmar Allowance on 8/11/88 and won $89,000.00. On my Lukas stats I designated this horse as injured because nothing shows after 8/11. Let me now check Equibase to see if this is correct. Yes. Cougarized was injured. He next raced in April 1989.

Slewbop: He was presumed sound going into September. Let's see what Equibase says. Slewbop raced steadily every month after August 88 until his last race in June 89. This is one of the few three year olds that made it through the year racing. Slewbop is out of Seattle Slew out of Damascus mare. He raced 19 times in 88. Proof positive that if they can, Lukas keeps them racing, and if they're failing to race they're probably hurt. Slewbop raced 27 times total over three years and earned $126,000.00. Almost all of this was for Lukas. Another trainer had the colt in 1989 and in those six races he did nothing and was quickly injured. Lukas kept him running though even Lukas seemingly underperformed this regally bred colt. Lukas was far more successful than the next trainer.

Success Express: He was presumed sound going into September, though I note he never raced after 8/21. Let's check Equibase to see how he fared thereafter. Oooops. Add Success Express to the list of the injured. He never raced again. Was he merely retired. I doubt it. Revise my stats. Instead of 10 out of 22 three year olds racing through the year in the Lukas stable, it was 9 out of 22. Pathetic imo.

This is just a small sample. However, it completely supports the RR numbers on the Lukas stats of a few posts ago, and indicates that we can, pretty much, extrapolate injuries from Lukas's charts.

Today's Training:
1/29/07 Rest due to frigid conditions.
1/30/07 Rest due to weather.
1/31/07 A surprising 20 degrees. Good opportunity for light exercise and we engaged in about a 3 mile riderless pasture romp. The horses refuse to extend on the hard bumpy ground, so, this was as light as it gets and still consider it worth anything. On the plus side, Art might have shot up an inch or two. Did my eyes deceive me. I'll measure soon.

Cagney

"Old Cagney. He didn't even like the dirt. Did you see him messing around...( imitating the horse by gesture)" Mandella, after Cagney finished near last in the Santa Anita Handicap in June. RR is bummed for several reasons today. First the Barbaro thing. I did a post and deleted it. Others were saying it better. I'd just strive to slightly emulate this group, and, hats off to the great horse. He really was a great horse.

Then, the weather. KCMO is back in deep freeze apparently to mid-February. Since August maybe 45% of days have been gallopable. Hurts the little fellow less than the older horse that we want to race this year. Can you train in the weather around here? Right now, I'd say it's an open question. The few days off in this brutal weather to next Monday, for Art I'm ok with it as I'm trying to induce a February growth spurt. It's probably February or never for the 15'2" 3/4 horse. A little light exercise, back and forth with the feed, and then introduce some significant alfalfa for a few days has done it in the past. We'll see on this.

The rest of the post which i deleted consisted of various bitching and moaning. On reconsideration, unnecessary to post that stuff. RR will stick to horse training.

But, will get the blog back operating. As to Cagney and Mandella's statement blaming the surface--Cagney had been a grass horse moved to the dirt for the Big Cap, included here as too typical of the attitude of the conventional trainer. The training is so light really, who would ever think the training caused the performance. Cagney obviously was injured in the Big Cap. He next raced in December and was near his career ender, which brings to mind the question whether a horse ever performs poorly due to the training. On reflection, yes, they do occasionally comment on that; occasionally.

Back to Lukas and Mandella, next post.

Training:
Off due to frigid conditions. Working on it.

Lukas Injury Stats Conclusion

Staaden asks the question does Lukas injure horses, and finds in the affirmative, but, Lukas compared to others is average. If, as I have, you look closely at those exercise logs and races for the year 1988 in Staaden's book, and then extrapolate horses that probably were injured or horses that suffered career enders, those findings pretty much support Staaden's conclusions. Lukas injures horses, but, about at the same rate as most.

And thus, if a 50% career ending injury rate per year for 3 year old and up(and that's likely about what it was in 1988) would be an acceptable risk to you, Lukas or his like are your trainers. On the other hand if this seems a bit more high stakes poker than your wallet supports, or your conscience allows, then find or do something else. You can land on the Advance Chess Boards, but you better be able to play.

Please note that identification of the Lukas injury rate is in a sense other than a condemnation of the man. It is more a condemnation of a system and a man, Lukas, too small minded to rise above it. The man had this game by the tail. He might have taken the tack that he would train to avoid injury. Instead, like most of them he plays the numbers game, and both cares for his horses and views them expendable for money and fame, a contradiction some might find hard to stomach.

But, before RR gets too snooty with Lukas, there is the question whether there is any training system that avoids injury. What was Preston Burch's record in this sense, or T.J. Smith, winner of Sydney (Aus) training premiership 33 years in a row? T.J. is the hardest trainer I came across and is like Lukas accused of breaking down horses. Or, for that matter what is RR's own record in this regard? I've had somewhere between 30 and 40 races. Any breakdowns?

I'll get to all this eventually. But, I want to do a few more posts on Mandella and Lukas and their injury rate. I want to try to be accurate, and there's still a
little more work to be done. (Please note I've included some caveats on yesterday's stats, below.)

1/26/07: Day 3: Light qualified day 3 riderless pasture work due to conditions. Some bursts. Weather is a bummer.
1/27/07: Day 1: Rest. Wind chills in the zeros and solid hard ground and a busy schedule provide the excuse.
1/28/07: Another Day 3 attempt: 25 degrees but ground hard as a rock mixed with frozen ice and snow. Limited again to pasture romp. Horses energetic but refuse to extend on the ground. Did get one little speed burst, so, a day three. Just trying to maintain something here. The forecast is a bummer. Below qualifications or caveats on accuracy of Lukas stats posted yesterday:

1. Only searching Equibase at $8/horse would give us completely accurate answers as to number of races/year.
2. The stats are for 12 months but Staaden only gives 8-9 months info. Rest is educated guess work.
3. No racing in Sept. in CA may also skewer things slightly.
4. Assumptions never in the record were made: a 10 month racing season, and also if a horse is off for a lengthy period in middle of racing season, it's due to injury.
5. The year was 1988. Horses raced as many times as they survived. Thus the races per year stats reflect injury rather than just trainers racing light.

Lukas and Injuries--The Stats

Staaden's book contains the Lukas exercise logs for the month of June 1988. There are 41 horses and 41 logs, the Lukas west coast contingent. The racing record for the year 1988 for each horse is included BUT only through early October. Some of the logs as to races seem to end in early September.

Caveat: Staaden reports only through September. There are thus nine months of stats which I extrapolate to 10 months by using a nine month average for month ten. The stats presume a possible 10 month racing season per horse (two months for a layoff). This averaging will skew the stats but only slightly. The reported wins are for 9 months only.

Lot's of recognizable names here in the height of the Lukas era: Lea Lucinda, Success Express, Blue Jean Baby, Dream Team, Over All, Winning Colors, Gulch, Steinlen, Red Attack, and a host of lesser familiar top horses.

How many of these 41 were injured by Oct.1?, and how many suffered career enders? The charts show as follows:

17 two year olds: 63 starts averaging 3.7 starts per horse. 12 wins. Consider the number of starts per two year old, a real decent record. Congrats to any trainer able to get a horse age two anywhere near the races.

22 three year olds: 176 starts averaging 8 starts per horse. 21 wins. The big red flag starts to raise it's prominent head. Might we hope to get 12 starts in the three year old season? Fails to happen in this barn.

8 four year olds and up: 63 starts averaging 7.8 starts per horse. 11 wins. Two red flags. Notice the small number of older horses averaging in their prime 7.8 starts per year.

How many of the 41 suffered career enders during the year? This would be unknown unless you spend $8.00 per horse for an Equibase chart. But, you can look at Staaden's charts and surmise fairly closely.

Let's look at how many of the 41 made it racing all the way through to September, which is where Staaden cuts it off:

2 year olds: 12 of the 17 were racing into September or appeared to be. Good at first blush, but several were first time starters in August. Reverse the way you look at it and approximately 33% of the two year olds probably have serious injuries by September on an average of 3.4 races per horse.

3 year olds: only 10 of the 22 year olds are still racing in September--a 65% injury rate for this small group. Almost 100% (exception is Winning Colors) of the crack two year old fillies of the prior year barely make it through the spring. Note that some of the injured probably came back later in the year.

4 year olds and up: 6 of the 8 four year olds are still racing in September, 75%. On this small sample, in Lukas's barn, if your horse makes it to age 4 (a big if), you have 25% chance of a career ender by September.

Summary: 41 horses start the year. 28 make it to September. That's 68%. Said another way: 32% of the horses in the Lukas stable will only make it through 9 months. It would be a simplification to say Lukas looses 33% of his horses to injury every 9 months, and yet, it's probably extremely close to the truth. That would be--in 1.5 years from age two on Lukas looses 64% of his horses to injury. My made up stats of a a few posts ago are looking pretty good.

Next Post: Interpreting the Lukas Stats.

Today's training:
1/25/07: Day 3: Rest due to overtraining the day before.
1/26/07: Day 3 repeat: Ground conditions allow only riderless pasture romp. Some somewhat fast spurts. Best we could do. No tack work.
1/27/07: Day 1: Need to work today, but, it's a rest day resulting from a combo of horrid weather and ground conditions and the RR schedule just busy enough to provide the excuse.

The Lukas Stable and the Injury Rate

Understanding the extent of the injury problem in thoroughbred racing is necessary before going to the interrelationship between training and injuries. I've characterized the injury problem as the dirty secret of conventional training, and made the bold though statistically unsupported assertion that almost every conventional trainer injures everything in their shed row, most within four months of arrival.

The rate of career ending injuries per year is surmised (and again unsupported statistically) at a frightful 65% per year. If those stats are correct why really would an owner with average pockets invest their money in horse racing? Well, since I've been in the last 20 years, the owners, that is one unrelated to the track or to some farm, in my area are virtually non-existent. I'm suspecting that a similar situation occurs in the rest of the country, though it is unknown to me. I know of but two non-farm related owners in the KCMO area in thoroughbreds. That would be Dr. Reed and his Perfect Drift and my retiring friend RM.

For closer looks I again go to Ross Staaden's book "Winning Trainers" and the complete research job on the D. Wayne Lukas Stable of the late 1980s. It is a superb, comprehensive look at this trainer, his talent and his methods and results, much of it from the trainer's own mouth, and those around him. The photo above shows Charismatic in the Lukas shedrow after the Belmont as the coming red flag.

Staaden writes at that time that career ending injury stats are unavailable and difficult to determine because horses are retired often for reasons unknown. And certainly, few trainers statistically track less severe injuries. Staaden believes that Lukas's injury stats are average and so do i. I'm predicting that average is other than a pretty. We'll see.

Lukas showed Staaden the training logs for all the horses in his Santa Anita stable for the month of June and I am assuming the year was 1988. It could have been 1989. Staaden then copied those logs and added to it all races of each horse in the stable for the entire year.

From this work we know what the horses did on the track, and very importantly, how many times they raced for the entire year, and also what they earned and how many races they won.

From this we can extrapolate the averages for the entire stable as to number of races per horse per year and number of horses who failed to make it through the year. I have yet to compile these stats as I write this. It should be interesting.

1/24/07: Day 2: 15 min. trot-walk-gallop under 30 lbs astride, mostly it was slow 20 sec/f gallop. 15 min under tack followed.
1/25/07: Day 3: cancelled. overtrained yesterday. Rest.
1/26/07: Day 3 try again: last two days have been decent temp. wise. tomorrow its back into the deep freeze. just warm enough to melt the snow and leave the pasture hard as a rock. the paddock was a sea of mud, both hardly conducive to a day 3 fast work. We forged ahead however. Best we could hope for was a pasture romp over the hard surface. Declined the Astride on this. Horses were hepped but hesitant understandably to gallop out. We got a few sort of spurts, basically a wasted day, but we got in some work which would set up another fast work in two days. Nob declined to shoe the other foot as except for the frog it had failed to grow at all. Horse today measures at slightly over 15'2". I swear he has shrunk.

The Green Monkey

Now, I did steal this one off another blog. Quite fits the mood as RR fathoms how you injure a sixteen million dollar horse? If all the money, technology, exercise science, diagnostics, riders and so on fail this beautiful animal, is there any hope for the rest of us?

Todd Pletcher is a hard one for me to figure out. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, avoid innuendo and conviction by circumstantial evidence. We know how ridiculous the trainer responsibility rule can be, and also the absurdity of someone with a small thimble of smarts risking all to keep one horse running. Highly doubtful, and yet, this guy keeps giving off vibes that give RR the shivers.

GM might have been hurt before he ever landed in the Pletcher barn. Quite possible considering a world record furlong for a young horse under 130lbs--and it actually looked like more than that. The supposed gluteal injury more than likely is some sort of fracture. I had hoped the horse would succeed, that Pletcher would show some true colors. It might have been a story to help this sport, and perhaps it still might. Too early to give up yet. Probably wrong trainer, wrong training, and that's why it's on the blog.

There is one more little detour before I get to the fun stuff which is relating conventional training to all these injuries. I hope somewhere in me is enough to remove all doubt. But first, a closer look at the Lukas stable, horse per horse, how many races do they get, and how many of them get hurt. Next Post.

1/23/07: Day 1: Rest
1/24/07: Day 2: 15 min walk,trot, slow gallop (mostly gallop) under 30 lbs Astride in snow and mud. Then 15 min under tack first time in 10 days. Too much. Trainer had a brain freeze.
1/25/07: Day 3: have to rest today after yesterdays overdone w/o.

Mandella and Injuries

Up next, Mandella and his DVD "On the Muscle". How did those horses fare injury wise over the two year period of the program?

There are Eight horses featured:
Pleasantly Perfect
Kudos
Redattore
Cagney
Brisquette
Ile De France
The Tin Man
Johar
A two year old (unable to recall name)

Out of this group the DVD shows only two significant injuries. Brisquette suffers a splint fracture, is operated on by Dr. Rick Arthur for removal, and thereafter is never heard from, even though a four month recovery is stated.

Kudos suffers an ankle chip either in a 58.4 work before the Arkansas Derby or in winning that race, and is off for some long period, but apparently races again.

Johar appears early in the DVD and then is heard from only almost two years later deadheating the win in the Breeder's Cup Turf on Mandella's four win day. One may presume that Johar suffered an early but serious injury omitted from the DVD but was able to return to racing.

Cagney disappears from the script about 1/3 of the way through. I looked at Equibase to see if he was in fact retired at that point. However, since there were about eight different Cagney's listed in Equibase, I declined to spend $24 to see which was the correct Cagney. I am going to presume this horse suffered some sort of injury or they would have commented on his disappearance somehow.

Ile De France in the middle of the DVD is sent to the farm allegedly because she is having mental problems at the gate. Since she races again a whole year later we may surmise this action is trainer speak that she also suffered some sort of serious injury, though this is uncertain.

The rest of the group makes it through relatively unscathed. There is the humorous tale of Redattore and his frog, and various minor problems. Mandella, the son of a blacksmith, decided to shave off Redattore's frog as it was shedding. Instead of just cutting off the part that was going to come off anyway (the correct procedure), Mandella shaved the frog down to the blood line. Nob commented that this injures the horse and also increases grow back time. Redattore misses a month from the debacle including the Santa Anita Handicap and the Dubai Cup, but, at least this little error makes us see the trainer as human. I enjoyed watching Mandella "rationalize" this in the DVD to his audience and the Brazilian owners who probably lost half a million after their trainer overtrimmed a frog.

Lost in the charisma of Mandella, a show case stable, and his brilliant success in this period: of the eight horses, only three make it all the way through the DVD racing. This is a period, I'm guessing, of about 11 months. Several are hurt relatively early in the year. Two are shown to have serious injuries, one definitely probably did, and two more are believed to have been injured--5 out of 8 if you are counting.

While we have the peril of drawing conclusions from small numbers, it would appear that Mandella's injury rate is consistent with my made up national injury stats that I posted a couple of posts back.

Next up D Wayne Lukas and his injuries, and then, The Heart of the Matter--relating conventional training to injuries.

1/22/07 Day 3: 5 x 3f heats on snow and frozen bumpy ground over half the distance at snappy gallop with 100 yds of each furlong being at about 2m clip under 30 lbs Astride. Then took off the Astride and repeated riderless. 10 heats in all. No tack work.
1/23/07 Day 1: Rest
1/24/07: Day 2: I blew this workout today. First Nob after a lot of protest due to weather shoed one foot. 30 lbs Astride on horse we walked-trot-gallop for 15 min with mostly slow gallop at about 20 sec/f pace and very little walking. Thereafter we tacked up the horse and the neighbor led Nob and the horse for 15 min for first tack work in about 10 days. I blew this because it is way too much to do speed work tomorrow. May surmise from this some minor strain on fetlock, splint and check ligs. I keep forgetting that Burch training is interested in speed instead of volume. We'll have to rest him tomorrow. Pick up from there.

Conventional Training--The Ugly III

Here is Charismatic at the Belmont. Lemon Drop Kid has won followed shortly by Vision and Verse, sire of Art. I'm using the near tragic situation of Charismatic symbolically in the blog both as to catostrophic breakdowns and injuries generally.

I'm supposing that injuries are related to and caused by training and preparation. The hypothesis would be that we can prevent injuries with appropriate training methods and protocol.

The reverse would be that training is without any effect on injuries, that they just happen regardless of how we train.

I consider the latter supposition absurd, and presume the reader agrees regardless as what you may believe about training.

I am without any intention to research for this blog. I'm posting my opinions, and so, I've also declined to research the statistics I'm about to give, but, I did do some Googling prior to this post to see if I was able to come up with anything. I was unsuccessful in this effort. The main thing I kept running into is the NTRA proposing suddenly to keep national injury stats for analysis. A superb idea, but, also indicative that this has yet to happen. The regional statistic keeping seems spotty, and the one study I did run into from Delaware Park--everything was there except the stats.

Thus, I am without any stats. So, I'm going to make some up. I am supposing that the below probably is real close to accurate: some realities and-the dirty secret of conventional training:

1. Almost every trainer injures everything in their shedrow most within four months of arrival.
2. Within 12 months after arrival of their stable the conventional trainer has produced career ending injuries to 65% of their stock.
3. Those 35% that survive to race in year two, 15% of the original will make it to the third year of racing.
4. By year four less than 5% of the trainer's original stable is still racing due to career ending injuries, and for most of them its 0 to 1%.

The above is hardly news to our trainers, but, if you are an owner, well, this is discouraging. It is my supposition that among the many things that are killing our game in my time, the trainer problem related to the injury problem is right up there at the top.

A perceptive poster iconed Angelsprite wrote on the Pedigree forum that there are two owners in the entire State of Texas. The meaning of this: now days, trainers train their own or are associated with some friend who runs a breeding farm that supplies horses. Almost all the non-farm, non racetrack, citibound owners have already been driven from the game by the reality that they are unable to find any trainers except those that will quickly destroy everything they get their hands on.

Is the above an exaggeration? I believe it is dead on, right on accurate. If somebody reads this and has any dispute, I would sure like to know.

Now, please consider that I'm speaking of conventional trainers. Some such as Frankel, O'Neil, Wittingham ,& Stutes of old, and a few others would be called something other than conventional. I feel certain these trainers have better stats. And, there might even be a conventional here or there that does better on occasion.

Mandella would be the recognized conventional trainer from whom I have the most knowledge and respect. Next post I'll note what happened to the horses in the DVD On the Muscle as a good example.

Today's Training:
1/21/07: Day 1 and 2: Rest. No tack work
1/22/07: Day 3: 30 lbs Astride on--5 x 3f snappy gallops with 100 yd 15 sec bursts per f for 5 min, then 5 min more repeated without Astride. Horse poops out, trainer disturbed. No tack work.
1/23/07: Day 1: Rest. Reintro of the Astride after a lot of bad weather. Want to go slow. Still have 3 inches snow cover.

Conventional Training--The Ugly II

I react to the photo as follows:
1. Stupid fool.
2. There but for grace go I.
3. Stupid fool.

The second "stupid fool" is more deliberate as the neurons in the thick cranium visualizing black ice ahead begin to fire in realization that the car off the road is there for reasons other than this stuff "just happens".

Accidents on the ice are metaphoric to Charismatic that his fracture is other than "just part of the game". And Charismatic's fracture is metaphoric to all injuries on the racetrack which in this opinion happen for definite reasons. Regrettably most of these relate to inadequate, questionably conceived training.

Charismatic suffered a serious condylar fracture (ends of the cannon) and also fractured his sesamoids (little bones in the ankle-fetlock). I speculate the condylar fracture caused the sesamoid fracture instead of the other way around.

We understand fracture etiology. We also understand how to prevent it. Two possibilities:
What happens #1: The bone is overborn by forces placed upon it exploding or disintegrating the mineral latticework that held the cells of the bone together. The bone essentially is weaker than the force placed upon it.

Can we develop bone in the thoroughbred? See the Maryland Shin study and several other studies I'll post on later. You develop bone by "working" horses fast. And so, when you're dealing with such as "I never work horses Wayne" we get a clue as to how Charismatic may have ended up in the hospital ward.

You get a further clue when you begin to analyze the effect on bone development of 4f works at 12.5 sec/f for races over a mile in sub twelves. For the logically challenged--the preparation is inadequate.

To the Michael Matz's of the world, and I salute your accomplishments, you may want to consider how much bone you are developing on wood chip or synthetic tracks at Fair Hill. There may have been a reason that Barbaro failed to change leads in the stretch in his first three races and did so in the Fl. Derby only when forced to by a close running horse.

2. What happens #2: The fracture develops cumulatively. We know that every strenuous concussive work creates microscopic soft spots in bone tissue which essentially consists of fluid present for healing. This process is similar to micro tears of muscle fiber when we run hard or lift hard. In conditioned tissue this stuff heals in 24 to 48 hours. Things such as anti-inflamatories and icing aid the healing process.

However in unconditioned tissue, or in conditioned tissue that we surprise, e.g. by failing appropriate warm up, by pre-race ponying that only warms up one lead, etc., (I'll avoid another warm up rant) the fluid and swelling are more voluminous over greater area and less easily disposed of. The little closely spaced bubbles of watery fluid between the mineral lattice work may stick around a few days, and when that next work comes upon the inadequate or improperly warmed up bone, the fissure increases in size, and so on, until finally we have an invisible watery separation that will give at some point.

Developing stress fractures as in #2 above are the potential nightmare for every trainer. They are difficult to diagnose giving off few signs initially, and also because they may occur anywhere. Due to this known difficulty (please pay attention conventional trainers), you can never ever surprise the horse with a work for which it is unprepared. The old timers understood this stuff instinctively. You can see in their protocols how they gradually increase distance and speed with greatest of care. Those sorts did not just suddenly decide to breeze young two year olds 3f to see what they've got (see Mandella) or (again Mandella) "if they really need speed, I'd just as soon race them". The old timers known for working up to mile breezes would scoff for good reason at the 4f, 5f crap you see today.

Additionally, appropriate warm ups to prepare the individual bone (and muscle and tendon) cells are essential to avoiding this sort of developing fracture. Visualize a bone or muscle cell as a belt in your hands. You gradually increase tension on the belt, and it holds. If you just snap the belt hard enough, it might break. In warm up, you need a little fast concussive work to gradually increase tension before they come out of the gate.

Today's work:
1/20/07 Day 3: 18 min pasture romp with three or four 1f bursts at 90% speed in the snow. Passed on tack work.
1/21/07: Day 1: Rest.
Day 2: We skipped due to inadequate work on 1/20
1/22/07: Day 3: RR was pleasantly surprised how well the horses were able to work on the snow in the paddock. 30 lbs Astride was placed on horse and worked on snow around bumpy ground in paddock 5 x 3f at snappy gallop and appropriate rest between heats. About 100 yds of each one furlong went in two min gallop speed or slightly faster. Horses refused to completely open up in the snow. After 5min the Astride was removed from the horse and we repeated the same 5 x 3f riderless. Nice work for a terrible training day. The horse again pooped out at the end and showed less energy than he had been. Disappointing.

Conventional Training--The Ugly

This is one of Charismatic's front cannons after he was run down in the 1999 Belmont stretch by little Art's sire, the Bill Mott trained Vision and Verse, and also the winner, Lemon Drop Kid trained by Scotty Schulhoffer.

Similar to Barbaro and Edgar Prado, Chris Antley immediately recognized his mount's distress and saved the horse's life by jumping off and impeding further movement.

We get some insight into the dirty secret of conventional training, by doing a litte analysis. I invite the reader to closely examine the fracture line in the X-ray. What caused this injury? Of course it's all speculation probably even to the treating vets, but, there are some disturbing probabilities. First, throw out the overblown "bad step" excuse. Those of us that ride horses know how seldom on the track horses take bad steps, but, additionally, the clean, as opposed to jagged, fracture line probably indicates a bone which simply gave way instead of injury by force of contorsion.

Is it genetics, breeding weak horses, or a congenital defect such as osteochondridis dessicans. Presumably such defects would have popped earlier in the campaign, and, again, with this fracture line seem improbable.

Was the fracture in the Belmont stretch from the stress of a 1.5 mile race, or a long campaign or cumulative wear and tear and pressure in pursuing the triple crown. Without a doubt continual running and training would contribute to fracturing a limb with a pre-disposition to do so, and thus, we are unable to absolutely rule these out. However, given the number of horses who survive such campaigning without injury (what is the last similar Belmont injury?) I am unable to say the horse's physical activity is "the" cause. Horses with more rigorous campaigns and training do not necessarily fracture their cannons.

We gained significant insight into catostrophic breakdowns from a recent veterinary study coming from California that 95% of those sorts of events show pre-existing stress fracture lines.
Now, that is really an amazing statistic. A flabbergasting, eyepopping, what the sam hell is going on here "95%". Trainers are entering horses in races with stress fractures.

RR is unwilling to let these sorts off the hook because they are nice guys (Matz and McGaughey), or successful (Lukas). When your horse dies on the track you need to step up and come clean. Were Pine Island, Barbaro, Go for Wand, Charismatic given by their trainers the pre-race diagnostics now available? If so, nary a single one volunteered their pre-race procedures after the injury. I surmise, probably accurately, that the only diagnostics most these horses received were the temperature sensitivity of the hand of some Mexican groom. An exageration? You wonder.

Of course, we admit it again, it's all guess work based on circumstantial evidence. Here is some more: I am positive that Lukas cares about his horses because I remember Landulace. It's other than the "caring" that we are concerned with here; it is the attitude. Lukas expressed appropriate concern for Charismatic after the Belmont, but, the next day he was announcing into microphones that he had just breezed three two year olds, that his stable was going right straight ahead despite the injury to Charismatic, and maybe one of those two year olds would be here next year. I lost the web page, but, that was right out of a newpaper column, Lukas on the Sunday after the Belmont.

Enough for one post--this is going to take a few.

Training:
1/19/07: Day 2: 15 min continuous trot, canter, gallop with some walkunder 30 lbs Astride. No tack work.
1/20/07: Day 3: Laid a bit of an egg today in driving snow trying to get speed work. Got at least three 1F bursts at about 85-90% speed. Horse lacked energy after his initial burst. Passed on tack work.
1/21/07: Day 1: Decided to rest in interest of working hard tomorrow.

Intermission, The Amart Review

Asmussen has injured his Derby prospect. What a surprise! Good intro to my next section on conventional training.

But, before I get to that, thought I'd take a breath and review where we are with little Amart, code named Art, who has grown exactly zero centimeters since his little growth spurt in early November(We're at 15'2"+). Now, I will admit it. You have to use a little imagination to see a Derby prospect here. RR convinces himself in the following manner. We have a talk with his dam, Nipsit who informs us " do you not see some tokens of my sire in the small composition of this boy?" Indeed. An impolite observer might say little Art is a small, dumpy "just a horse sort" similar to Nipsit's sire the D. Wayne Lukas trained (had to get that in there) Deposit Ticket, who may qualify as one of the ugliest successful two year olds of all time. Judging little Art's appearance one could say that Nipsit likely was a chip off the same block.

Now, viewing from another angle and stretching one's mind a bit, you can see a little Private Account-Damascus stuff, particularly the thin legs and the way they attach. A definite route horse here, but, and this will get one all excited, with a Storm Cat rump and strong shoulders. There is also the five finger jaw and superb breathing ability. During sprints we are without any nasal sounds at all from little Art. The slightly long Nijinsky II (3rd damsire) pasterns still cause concern.

The dumpy appearance changes when the horse moves. He's graceful, strong and a decent athlete. There's a little raw talent there, as you might expect from the gene mix. As most decent race horses, he looks bigger under tack, and the under tack stride looks good. He's got a long stride and he's quick. Art shows good energy, and spends the day perstering his buddies by going from one to another nipping at their hocks. Probably got that from his momma, the appropriately named Nipsit.

Where are we in the training? Next week Art will have been on the farm three months, and he's been training since day one. We've been using Preston Burch style training, and, despite bad weather since late November, we have managed some sort of fast work almost every three days. The appearance of the horse is beginning to show the work.

I'd calculate that we have just completed, let's call it, Stage O, and we're ready to enter Stage I. Call Stage O a strenghtening process (the horse arrived very weak), and injury avoidance emphasis. Most of the exercise has been in the nature of play with the little fellow leading the way. When he got tired, which is always way before the older horses, we quit.

I'm thinking the next stage should last to about the first of April, two months. To date, we can safely run the horse riderless (and, he was doing this under 30 lbs Astride before Xmas) 1-2f full speed. By April hopefully we'll be doing the following sort of workout at full speed: 1f, 2f, 3f with rests in between under 50 Lbs Astride, which is equivalent to 100 lbs rider. The plan would be that the horse would also be trotting around the premises under control under tack, and we would be ready to commence gallops and make trips to the race track. We'll continue to give speed work every three days and do what is deemed appropriate in between. Mr. Nob himself is in full training trying to reduce rider weight from 162 lbs to 150. I have to train Nob harder than the horse. I'll post today's training later. I'm hoping to get a fast pasture romp under 20 lbs Astride.

1/18/07 Day 1: Rest. No tack work--weather.
1/19/07 Day 2: 15 min. lope--trot, canter, some walk without stopping under 30 lbs Astride. No tack work--weather
1/20/07: Day 3: One of those days RR just wanted to avoid getting out there. When I did go the ground was hard and crunchy under half inch of snow, and it was snowing pretty hard as we worked. I passed on the Astride due to the weather. We did get a few bursts of speed, so it qualifies as a fast day, but, all in all, the little fellow was failing to self start today, and kept glueing himself to a horse that was hanging back. However, I missed the first heat as I was at bottom of the hill, and Art burst over the hill out of my sight. By the time I got to the top they were three furlongs over with Art still in front, but slow galloping. Unknown how long that one was, but, may have been 2f. 18 min from start to finish, of mostly some running with 3 or 4 90% 1f bursts, and maybe one 2f all out. They probably covered three miles, all in all.

Conventional Training--The Bad III

Ok, where was I. RR sort of lost his way on that last post. Here is Charismatic (Summer Squall-Bali Babe-Drone) winning the 1999 Derby. Amazing how the Derby winners always seem to have some relatively obscure pedigree and never those of commerically successful sires.

There is Bold Ruler top and bottom in Charismatic's pedigree--a favorite RR combo--, and we'll note yet another KY Derby connection for our Art by sorting through the pedigree of Summer Squall. Let's see? Hmmm. Summer Squall is by Storm Bird and out of a Secretariat mare named Weekend Surprise. Where else do we have that combo? Here it is: Storm Cat, who sired Vision and Verse, the sire of little Art. There is another Vision and Verse-Charismatic connection, which we'll see in a later post.

I have decided to veer away from getting overly technical about training at this point in the blog. I started to discuss the minimal nature of the Lukas program and the concept of detraining, and getting into the exercise physiological aspects of it all, but, now I realize that this discussion requires a lengthy section all its own.

And so, in concluding "Conventional Training--The Bad" I'll limit the discussion to several general logical observations about which there may be some dispute.

First, while Lukas's exercise program may have worked for him, I believe it will never work for us against Lukas, or against any of the top two or three conventional trainers at any track. There are reasons that at most tracks the top two or three trainers, maybe top four at some, win 75% of the purse money. These sorts have the advantage, the best riders, they play the numbers game, they have access to the racing secretary, they always seem to have some horse going good--the experience factor, and in any race we enter we're likely to meet such a horse probably being ridden by the top jockey at the track. To train exactly like these sorts and beat them seems impossible. That it is impossible and never works I'll leave to a more techinical discussion.

To conclude, whatever good we see in the Lukas program, or conventional training in general, the problem with it is that it is non-competitive for us who are the little people at the race track trying to break through--that is the "bad" about conventional training.

Today's Training: in the future I'll break it down to the Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 repeating cycle of the Burch program:
1/17/07: Day 3: Three miles intermitten pasture gallop with several 1-2F fast bursts. No tack work due to weather.
1/18/07: Day 1: Rest
1/19/07: Day 2: 30 lbs Astride placed on horse. (I weighed the Astride today with two weight packs. It did weigh exactly 30 lbs). We did 15 minute--no stop--work in the paddock consisting of what might be called "lope". The horses troted and cantered over the bumpy, slick, ice glazed ground with a little walk here and there for 15 minutes, with Art carrying the Astride. Passed on tack work today due to time and weather conditions--nobody to hold the horse on slick ground.

Conventional Training--The Bad II

This blog will continue to specialize in Derby Winner's Circle Celebrations as it helps us practice for our own upcoming appearance. You may recognize the dapper dresser in the middle with the gray hair in celebration of his 10-1 long shot grandson of Secretariat named Charismatic winning the '99 Derby. RR has trained a few grandsons of Secretariat, and so can identify. Lukas was quoted that Charismatic taught him something. "I'm always learning", said Lukas, and in this case it was that the horse like to work hard, which later proved prophetic about what you might expect from conventional trainers who suddenly decide to work their horses. But, more on Charismatic at a later date.

How ironic is it that Lukas, 20 years into his thoroughbred training career, decides to "work" a horse harder--this is D. I don't W.ork horses Lukas(see Staaden), and the horse confounds his trainer and everybody else by taking the Derby. Who would have thought? Charismatic's Derby win also coincides with my observation of a brief renaissance of the Lukas stable "because" he was working his horses. The breezes started showing up on the work tabs in this period, they were a little longer and faster. This was the time Lukas was bragging about giving Point Given two mile gallops. We may surmise that by 2003 Lukas went back to his prior routine and has been in decline since.

(under construction. another RR rant deleted.)

Conventional Training--The Bad

I continue to agonize over the Lukas exercise program in which after 20 years experience i see more to like than in former days when I thought the program completely inadequate and absurd.

Before making the point of these posts it is necessary again to take a close look at what Lukas in Ross Staaden's book says that his horses do, and what is born out by the actual Lukas exercise logs also contained in the book. I've posted this basic exercise pattern before, and the reader should note that Lukas says that he tinkers with this according to what he believes is necessary:

T G G G W G T W B W T G G W G G T Race W W W and repeat.

There are in the above 21 days 10 days of Walk or Trot. Lukas seems to have no rest days where he does nothing, though I suspect some of the Ws stand for a rest or off day. 10 days of Walk or Trot out of 21 seems to this old Ivers trainer like a lot of days of doing very little.

But, if you look at it the other way, there are out of the 21 days 14 days of Trot, Gallop, Breeze or Race. Let's compare the pattern with other styles of training:

Ivers: (R stands for Rest)
G G B R G G B R G G Race R R G G B R G G B R Ivers for 21 days has 15 days of track work
which is only one more day than Lukas

Preston Burch:
B R G B R G B R G B R G B R G Race R R G B R
Burch for 21 days has 13 days of track work just like Lukas, and might actually only have 10 or 11 depending on the strenousness of the breezes.

Thus, if we compare the percentage of days the horses see the race track, the Lukas program ranks right up with the others, and this is what now causes me to understand that Lukas does, as he states, give his horses a significant amount of "bottom" as he calls it, or as I call it, a base level of fitness. This basic fitness is supported by frequent racing for speed work.

So, RR on this second look at the Lukas program understood how Lukas won all that money. Why? In addition to his many other advantages besides his exercise program, that exercise program also is among the more strenuous you see at most tracks. I'm probably fairly accurate in surmising that 90% of conventional trainers do less in terms of track work with their horses than Lukas does.

BUT, please allow an additional pertinent observation about this Lukas exercise program where he always breezes slowly and gallops only 1.25 to 1.5 miles on gallop days at open gallop of :16-:18sec/f. I consider the Lukas program a MINIMAL exercise program. Translate to state that if you do less than Lukas you begin to have a soft horse BECAUSE the physiological factor of "DETRAINING" sets in.

I'd have to defend to Lukas my statement that he has a minimal program which i'll save for the next post. We're training later in the nice weather today.

Conventional Training--The Bad

This is what the pastures look like this morning. Brutal weather and 1.5 inch of ice glaze from here to Denver. By training time this afternoon the ice had softened enough for some pasture running, and I received the pleasant surprise that the horses decided without too much prodding from me to put on a show. More of that below.

I've attempted this post several times now, and, seem to be doing a questionable job of it as I continue to be distracted by the requirements of the day job to such an extent it is difficult to focus on training theory. And, so, I've deleted the post again, and hopefully I'll put something together in the next day or so that I deem worthy of staying. For today, I'll put down the training and leave it at that.

1/15/07: Rest after three days of fast work.
1/16/07: Rest. Decided two days necessary.
1/17/07: Was very reluctant even to get out there today in the 18 degree weather with 10 mph winds on frozen ground. Got to the farm right at sun down 5:20pm and was pleasantly surprised by what I got compared to what I was expecting. I took a soccer ball out there just hoping for some play out of the horses, which is the usual in deeper snow. But, as noted, the ground was just soft enough that after the iceballs came out of the hoofs they were able to gallop pretty close to full speed. With very little instigation from me the horses galloped from one end to the other. I would catch up, and off they'd go the other way. There were several one to two furlong near full speed bursts with little Art leading the way, and one specific heat that turned out to be a real show in the snow--worth the trip home. So, today, while we hardly got closer to the racetrack, we did a decent conditioning work for the weather, and also, this was a Burch breeze day (every three days), and got that in also. Passed on tack work today.

Summing It Up--Why Do They Win

Today was a rest day for Art, and, maybe the blog should take a rest. But, we soldier on. I seem to be concentrating on Derby photos for some odd reason. Here is Funnycide in the winner's circle at Churchill with the group from Sacket's Harbor. Bobby Frankel, the Hall of Fame trainer of heavily favored and regally bred Empire Maker owned by Prince Khalid Abdulla, is somewhere in a lavatory throwing up.

I've listed a lot of "stuff" that contributes to success for a horse. A couple more--the pre-race warm up--as a handicapper there is hardly anything surer than betting against a horse that is "walked to the gate". And, I've seen a lot of races won just by an effective warm up when everybody else was too lazy, too tired, or too inexplicably something to bother warming up their animals.

Another is "experience". If you can get 'em to the races and keep them running, they start to learn the game, and become a lot tougher. Then, RR, how do you explain Barbaro? We'll get to that.

Here are factors in winning listed in the order they entered my feeble brain:
1. Price of the horse.
2. Genetics.
3. Conformation.
4. Physiology--max heart rate, muscle ratios, etc.
5. Speed.
6. Trained competitive qualities.
7. Heart and Class
8. Physical conditioning.
9. Talent.
10.Luck.
11. Warm up.
12. Experience.

And, there's probably another dozen that I'm overlooking. Can we say this is all quite a bit to chew on for any trainer? Let's whittle it down just a bit, because in this blog we're talking about training. Which of the above are directly affected by the exercise program?

1. Physiology (Yes trainers--things such as heart rate, muscle composition, energy delivery at the cellular level, muscle strength, etc. etc. etc. are affected by the exercise the horse receives. See university text book: exercise physiology.)
2. Speed--Can you train it--certainly we can optimize it by our program.
3. Competitive qualities--absolutely--the big stables win this way.
4. Heart and Class--these increase geometrically with conditioning.
5. Physical conditioning--can we improve the things such as stamina, endurance, speed over distance and so on. Of course. This is the factor most in our direct control.
6. Warm up--RR is firmly convinced they'll figure it out before I leave the planet.
7. Experience--please pay attention, Michael Matz.

Well, it seems that RR believes that the exercise program directly affects seven out of the 12 factors listed that contribute to winning, and an argument could be made for some of the others. Hopefully, this gives a better idea of the "enhance" part of "preserve and enhance". Next up: "Conventional Training--The Bad."

Nob report: Cold Weather Days
1/13/07: controlled riderless pasture romp(we wanted speed--a breeze day) with about three 2f fast bursts--7-8 min. Tack work.
1/14/07: 20-25 min riderless pasture romp with some bursts--but mostly slow. Tack work.
1/15/07: Rest

More--Why Do They Win?

Early on in my horseracing involvement I saw Timeless Native charging past an outclassed field at Ak Sar Ben. I still have a visual of that Timeless Moment, Damascus line Colt and his talent that day. And, I'll always retain the image of Gate Dancer trained by Jack Van Berg in his white ear muffs floating around the Ak Sar Ben track toying with the competition. The horse was just a blurr, but you could see those white muffs way out ahead of the pack on the near backstretch.

Where does talent fit into the equation? Can we agree that talent in athletics consists of physical and mental atributes superior to the competition. Things like fast twitch muscle percentage, skeletal build, maximum heart rate, etc., and in horses may we include such factors as stride efficiency, stride length, stride turnover, breathing ability, etc. Some horses have a natural agility and grace which stands out.

And yet, as with speed, horses have fewer differences in the category of physical talent than humans. They are more alike than we are. Still, great equine athletes that I've seen come to mind. Unbridled's Song, Bellamy Road, Arazi, Sunday Silence and Easy Goer, and Discreet Cat. Regardless of how we train, would we want to meet any of those in a particular race?

The most naturally gifted horse I have seen was Alysheba, who also was a poster boy that talent is beatable. The moment was the 1987 Breeder's Cup Classic when the Jack Van Berg trained three year old Alysheba with his wonderfully fluid stride was unable to hold off the older, stronger, better conditioned and rather mechanical Ferdinand. Ferdinand was trained by Charles Wittingham, the Bald Eagle. Alysheba came back to produce a memorable horse racing moment in winning the 1988 Classic under the lights at Churchill Downs.

What about luck. Big eyed rookies may want to skip this section for in horse racing when we talk about luck we are speaking of "bad luck". Witness the recent debacle for Brother Derek in CA wherein the horse was literally pinched off in deep stretch from a win by two horses simultaneously veering in to his front. Here is also an example of what pitiful training may do to a great horse. As to the RR luck, it seems to improve with a good rider onboard.

I'll try to summarize then get on with the coming "criticism" of conventional training.

Today's Training:
1/13/07 riderless snappy gallop in frozen paddock with some full speed 50 yd bursts. Heats for about 7 or 8 min. Tack work.
1/14/07 Pasture gallop for 9 or 10 minutes with several 2F quick bursts. Tack work.
1/15/07: This was supposed to be a rest day after two consecutive fast days. We did tack work with the neighbor leading the horse in the morning. Little progress today. Without first exercising the horse, he was too hepped to pay any attention. Fighting with Nob the whole way. Later in the day when the freezing drizzle started I witnessed the horses running on their own. Most of it was slower gallop, but our youngster again got in several bursts and seemed the primary instigator. This went on for 20-25 minutes intermittently. Good to see little Art now strong enough to romp with horses that have been training for years, compared to the complete weakling he was when he arrived in late Oct.

A Short Detour-More, Why Do They Win?

*@**F##* As I stumble badly wounded again off the internet chess boards and onto this blog. It is frustrating when "they're just better". What can you do? You're buzzing along winning a few games, the rating goes up, the head increases a couple of sizes, and along comes some nameless icon from the Republic of Germany, and, oops, despite my best all out effort, four more in the loss column. It is disgusting!

Chess is a pure sport, mental instead of physical, but, you learn a lot about competition playing chess, and in particular the rules and laws that govern competition. When you play hundreds of one minute games as I do, you start to recognize patterns. Stuff just happens in a certain way. Competitive qualities such as momentum, intimidation, relative speed of the game as it pertains to skill, game strategies at different levels of play, mindset as it varies with success or failure, concentration and the ability to do so under different conditions, rest and how lack of it causes involuntary micro seconds of lapses of attention, and, most important, comparative characteristics of good vs. average vs. bad players.

Transfer all that to horse racing and you're talking about trainer, horse, and jockey. In the last post I made the bald statement that conventional training is specifically "non-competitive", but, immediately realized that while the blog had sorted through all the ways training might be evaluated or judged and then came up with the "preserve and enhance" standard to look at a program, I have yet to deal with performance specifics--those attributes that cause the horse to win. We need to identify those first before we can say whether a certain protocol is beneficial.

I referred to some of these in the last post, and now a few more:

The next one might be those rules of competition referred to above and their observance for the benefit of the horse. This will be discussed extensively at a later time.

Next, while RR tires of it a bit, at the track you hear the old refrain from conventional trainers--that horse has "heart" or, this other horse has more class. What are "class" and "heart" and how do they help horses win? I will deal with these old wive's tales extensively at a later date, but, for now, the answer simply is in the negative. Horses run faster than their buddies for other reasons besides class and heart. As just some suggestion of the error in these beliefs consider that the horse running at the front may actually be the horse with the least courage. The lions chasing the herd, after all, are to the rear of the pack. Is it conceivable that these races are being won by the biggest chicken in the field?

(Will post the views of a brilliant trainer on this issue later.)

Does "physical conditioning" have anything to do with racehorse performance? Yes, you say? RR observes that such a statement might be big news to a number of trainers at the several race track this stable has frequented. The names of the guilty shall be protected. Though things are changing somewhat, there is in my area such a preponderance of lack of track work to the extent one might observe that these trainers fail to see any benefit to exercising their horses at all.

For the present I will simply state the RR belief that, yes, there is a significant relationship between the excercise program and the racing despite what you see at most of the tracks in this country. The size of this relationship in the RR mind can be determined by noting that physical conditioning of race horses is the very subject of this blog.

Next post, I'll summarize my views on what elements create racing success, then, on to Conventional Training, The Bad.

Today's report:
1/11/07 Rest and tack work
1/12/07 Fast riderless galloping around partially frozen paddock. Several short near full speed bursts for about 10 min. Trainer to "busy" for tack work, and, we've had a talk with him about that.
1/13/07 Today was a pleasant surprise. Though the thermometer at training time hovered at 18 degrees, it seemed warmer, and just enough ice stuff fell in the pastures to flatten out the bumps. Me and the neighbor chased the herd through about 7 or 8 min. of pasture runs. There were several fast 2f bursts with our Art, as youngsters are prone to do, weaving in and out of the pack till he was in front. Again, the lions are in the back. The 14th or 15th tack session regressed a bit. The neighbor led the horse, Nob on, but the horse fought the bit the whole way. Nob did report that in this third extensive session the horse does now completely respond to the halt command, and that's progress.

Conventional Training--The Bad

Txs to KH for the comment. It's the help and also the worker's comp. Were I am the backstretch consists mostly of family. Very few employees. And, lol on theLukas wardrobe. Staaden has some priceless pics of that in his book.

The first "bad" (and maybe the only--I'll have to think about it) about Lukas style conventional training is that it is non-competitive. I will explain that.

But, before you can complain about any sort of training do you have to, to some extent, identify what's always been the $64,000.00 question, which is what is it that causes some horses to excel and win races.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt there is zero relationship between success on the racetrack and the auction price at Keenland. Please disuade yourself of that notion, if you ever had it. Funnycide was sold for $20,000.00 as a yearling at Saratoga, passed on by such luminaries as Barclay Tagg. The pictured horse also raced pretty well and went for $20,000.00 at the September Keenland Yearling Sale. I know that because I just paid Equibase $8.00 to find out.

Does genetics or certain patterns of in-breeding or line breeding cause them to win big? If it's genetics Art will be right in there down the stretch of the Derby. Let's say that genetics has some effect. I believe genetics is secondary to other factors.

How about conformation? Can you pick the next Derby winner out of the sales by watching Dr. Dewitt Owen's conformation tape? The horse pictured above looks to have near perfect conformation, Plato's horse, and yet, over the years I've had several that look pretty close to that good, or better. Again, good conformation can hardly hurt. Most of the really goods one's have it, but so do a whole lot that never make it.

Does success in racing depend on such things as heart rate, maxVO2, muscle composition between fast twitch, slow twitch and the inbetween twitch (forgot what that's called), or as some Vet in Australia theorized--heart size--see the great Australian horse Tulloch, whose exceptionally large (in size) heart sits to this day in a bottle of camphor for all to see. Or maybe it's heart as in "courage". We're talking here about unique freak physiological attributes--see Lance Armstrong and his unbelievable maxVO2 score (O2 uptake + heart rate). Perhaps in horses success may have to do with those that bleed less or breathe better. I've noted superior performance from horses based on what I believe is superior adrenelin and spleen production, and also a quality that I call "acquisition". Probably we're onto something in this paragraph.

Does success in races depend purely on natural speed. Well, a fast horse hardly hurts the cause. Anybody that watches a lot of races has seen two animals come down the stretch side by side and one of them is just a little faster. But, I believe that most horses can run fast. Almost every one of them can run twelve second furlongs. Horses as physical specimens are much less disimilar than humans. And, I think speed and running has more to do with the four legs. Four legged creatures are fast, as I'm reminded by the ever elusive mice in my barn. I have my doubts that the pictured horse above has any faster natural speed than a cheap claiming sprinter at Lincoln State Fair.

This is longer than planned. So, call it here for today. The pictured horse is War Emblem at Shadai. War Emblem in 2002 won the Derby, Preakness and stumbled badly out of the gate in the Belmont to be deprived of the triple crown. He was trained after winning the Illinois Derby by Bob Baffert.

Today's Nob report:
1/10/07 Rest and tack work.
1/11/07 Rest and tack work.
1/12/07 Ground is frozen but, we're able to get in riderless work around the paddock which included some 50 yard near all out bursts on the one side that lacked frozen bumps. Best we could do. I skipped tacking today because i started too late which again reminded me of the "bust" in the blog title. Start on time please, RR!

Back to Conventional Training and The Good II

For those that follow Tote Board Brad's blog, i noticed the filly "Movement" finished third today in a maiden race at Golden Gate Fields through some pretty fast fractions. Of course, we'd rather celebrate a win for one of our fellow bloggers, but, for RR its just good to be racing, and I consider it quite an accomplishment for Tote Board and his filly to be in the game when so many others--take a look at the size of the fields today--are sitting on the sidelines, including yours truly.

I wanted to finish on what I like in conventional training without making too big a bfd about it. And, I'm thinking in particular about the Lukas model which appears in some of my prior posts.

What I like about Lukas's program is:
1. It is easy. Lukas has to find a jockey for a breeze every 10 days, while RR in our serious midwest rider shortgage is trying to get one out of bed and sober by 8:30 a.m. every three days. My biggest fear with the Burch training is finding a rider to do it. Additionally, think I'd enjoy the concept that all we have to do this week is three easy 1.5 mile gallops and a little trot, and watering our potted plants. I could really go for that sort of training on occasion.
2. Lukas's program over six months looks a whole lot better than over the two week sequence. Over two weeks you can criticize insufficient speed work, but, if you look at the fractions--Lukas breezes in :12.4s and he races in :12.2s--the jump from his training to his racing is fairly small. For sprinters it would be a bigger gap, but, how many sprinters has Lukas trained? While RR would decline Lukas's program as any sort of ultimate program, racing or breezing every ten days to two weeks over a period of six months with all those gallops included, let's admit it, you're liable to make a race horse. Visualize Lukas rolling his eyes and grooving his brow: "You don't say???"
3. Over the years I've observed that most conventional trainers do a pretty decent job of getting young horses prepared to race. It seems to me that it's when they start racing that the trouble begins.

How this fits into "Preserve and Enhance", next post.

Nob report:
1/9/07 5 x 1f riderless breeze and tack work.
1/10/07 Rest and tack work. Nob chickens out in the 30 mph wind.
1/11/07 To my horror Art received a solid kick to his rear fetlock tonight while he was eating when he backed into another horse. A little bute and it seems ok, but, the typical ridiculousness in this business. Rested today, breeze tomorrow, unless he's injured from the kick.

Still Percolating

Closing out another day without any time to get back to conventional training. Things have been crazy as all the business forgotten during the holidays is now right back at us. I'll post what we did today, and am happy to report, Nob has now completed shoeing 6 feet out of 16, and, hope to make it 8 tomorrow before the weather blows in.

1/8/07 10 min. snappy riderless 3f gallop heats. Tack work
1/9/07 5 x 1 f riderless breeze at 90% speed. Tack work.
1/10/07 First day of two between breezing in Burch training, and trainer per Burch, deems it appropriate to rest. The horse maybe is a little frazzled from the training, and, i'm tempted to give him two days, but, we'll see tomorrow. The tack work was eventful in the 30 mph wind. The neighbor came over to lead the horse and Nob bravely got up. The horse was doing just fine despite our fears. The last two days are really Nob's first extended stuff riding the horse, and he, of course, proceeded to complain. This time it is that the stirrup leather's are too short. The complaint is legit, but we gave Nob a hard time even while noting his knobby chin almost on his knobby knees. Then, to top it off, Nob panicks instead of the horse. Nob called it after about 7 min, saying there's too much "risk"(with the wind). As we were questioning Nob's manhood he did say the horse today handled the bit pretty well.

Another DFN

Still working on the next training post. Thanks to KH for the comment on the last post on different hats worn by the trainer. Worth reading! Lol on the million dollar horse. Reminds me of sitting in the track kitchen at Prairie Meadows in the early nineties with Robin Kellerwho was a veteran Nebraska trainer of few words. In comes an owner with gold chains and sits down at our table. He want's Robin's opinion. "What should I do with my $35,000.00 horse? There is this long long pause and Keller's two word response: "sell him". Sage advice!

Today's Art workout:
1/7/07 very light trot gallop and tack work
1/8/07 ten min riderless snappy gallop in 3f heats in the mud. Tack work.
1/9/07 Breeze day: we got away completely from Astride work over the long rain related off period. So, at the moment we're riderless. Want to control it today, so, we do it riderless in the paddock despite the mud. After warm up probably got 5 x 1f at about 90% speed. Worried about doing more related to sesamoids in this heavy footing.
Tack Work--Session 12: Nob volunteers that we need to have the horse held and get in some serious work before the weather comes in Friday. Agreed. So we got the neighbor to lead the horse with Nob on. Nob got off periodically, but, we did a lot of walking, and this was the first day with extensive bridle work. The horse was of course fighting the bit a little, and Nob kept expecting him to jump five feet in the air. Never happened. Worked with him about 20 min. We'll repeat tomorrow and should then be close to graduating to kindergarden.

Conventional Training--The Good

Can we agree that someone in this box deserves some recognition? For those unfamiliar, on the right is Kiaren McGlaughlin celebrating his win of the 2006 Breeder's Cup Classic with Invasor. When the inevitable occurs and RR stands in this spot I will appreciate my many critics stifling for a couple of days.

But, there sits McGlaughlin holding his Breeder's Cup trophy smirking at the likes of myself who have with regularity questioned his training manhood.

What gives? How does this rotund, non-athlete, weakling clone of D.Wayne Lukas win the Breeder's Cup Classic? I may differ with this trainer, but am unable to ignore this level of success.

On this blog I'll get to the "what gives" please rest assured. But, for this post i'd like to acknowledge the fairly obvious, which is that expert animal husbandry, all the best riders, and expensive horses combined with a conventional training program exemplified by Lukas and his clones will give some pause for thought to anyone planning to take the 2008 Derby.

Why? If we take a look again at the two week program: W,T,G,G,G,T,W,G,G,T,R,W,W,W out of 14 days the horse is seeing the track on 10. Additionally, the slow gallop days are done at open gallops of 18 sec/f to snappy gallops of 16 sec/f, and you have a breeze or race bookending this workout sequence. While there is much here to knitpick, Point #1 of this sort of program is
that I agree with Lukas that his program develops some level of "bottom" in the animal to create sufficient fitness to race without falling down for 1 1/16 mile or less.

In terms of pure physiology, i would suspect the Lukas program creates a reasonably fit animal for 7F and that adrenalin, spleen red blood cells, and competition will carry the horse the remaining two F.

Point #2 that RR must deal with is that without any doubt such a program will create well rested athletes eager for competition. Lukas (and by default, all his progeny) brag about babying racehorses, coddling their athletes, and, we'll freely admit, there is hardly anything here really to stress the animal in terms of physical exhaustion besides the actual racing.

Thus, in this program, if the trainer possesses some minimal knowledge of equine sports nutrition and supplementation, expect on race day to face a reasonably fit, energetic, talented racehorse.

Point #1 Lukas style West Coast Conventional training produces a racehorse with enough "bottom" to be considered reasonably fit for 1 1/16 mile race or less.

Point #2 Physical stress on this horse in this program is minimal.

Point 1 + Point 2 would "seem" to form a happy combination.

Today's Nob report:
1/6/07: 5f riderless pasture breeze, all out.
1/7/07: 10 min very easy riderless trot gallop. Tack work.
1/8/07: We've postponed shoeing for three weeks due to wet ground and trying to avoid abscesses with newly trimmed hoofs in the mud. Since hardly anything is more instrinsically unpleasant than shoeing a horse when it gets below 30 degrees, we're trying to shoe four horses before the bad weather comes in Friday with a heavy office schedule to Boot.

Nob shoed two fronts today, taking 1.25 hours to do so. Hey, Nob is slow, but he does a heck of a job. When I pester him about time he reminds me that he also has to ride on these shoes. When he finally finished the sun was half way down and we were left with doing an Astride gallop or tack work but not both. I wanted to also exercise the other horses, so, I chose the tack work as having priority.

We did 10 minutes of snappy riderless gallop in the still muddy paddock--3f heats with short rests. On dry ground Art might gallop continuously, but, with mud caked into the hoofs, the rest permit the sesamoids a little recovery. The mantra is never take any chance with injury.

The horse was still hepped as we began tack work at near dark. Art has yet to buck with a saddle on (complete one, that is), and he got away as Nob was tacking and did some controlled bucking. Had to see at least one time if he could get it off, and hopefully we have that impulse out of the way.

The horse is still leaving the mounting stand at the first touch of his barrell. So, all Nob could do in the disappearing light was hop on and belly as he was leaving, walk 50 ft, dismount and repeat. 20 min work. By the end the horse was paying some attention to the bridle and bit.

Evaluating Training III

RR a bit weary on this Sunday, but wanted to do the final post on the present subject. In prior post gave my opinion that way to evaluate a training program is whether it improves the athlete. On further thought there is one other way that every program has to be judged. This second point in one sense is merely a subpoint of improving the horse, but, probably Point #2 deserves to stand alone when it comes to our china plate athletes.

So, here it is. The two universal standards of any racehorse training program:
1. Does the program enhance performance.
2. Does the program preserve the athlete.

"PRESERVE AND ENHANCE"

A very few might recognize the above as the aphorism heading everything that Tom Ivers wrote.

Today's Nob Report as follows:

1/5/07 Rain and Rest
1/6/07 5f all out riderless pasture breeze. Tack work included some walking.
1/7/07 less than a mile of very light riderless trot-gallop just to get the horse settled for tack work. It was windy and brisk, hardly ideal conditions for early break of a well fed yearling (oops--2yr old).
I asked Nob if he wanted some help, but Nob continues to insist he will do this all by himself without any other hands. So, again i'm the spectator for our 10th session also watched intently by "Rolling Rodney" our big gray yearling Tomcat. I'm counting the sessions to see how long it takes before we're walking around the paddock. I'm predicting about session 20.
Today's problem, Art continues to leave the mounting stand before the mounting. Nob thus as the horse is leaving jumps on bellying and off they go walking to the other horses, who quite helpfully are standing like statutes (tuckered from their own workouts) about 50 feet away. Nob tries today to teach Art to halt using bit pressure. By 15 to 20 repetitions and about 20 min work total Nob reported the youngster was coming to a stop on request. Take note you other Derby prospects.

Saturday and the NFL Playoffs

Colonial Affair by Pleasant Colony heading Devil His Due wearing his turn downs in a memorable race. The Pleasant Colony line is another that is inexplicably ignored.

Only have time to post a brief Nob report as our KC Chiefs today were playing poster boys in Indianapolis as to what questionable coaching can do.

Thurs. 1/4/07 9.5 min slow gallop heats under 20 lbs Astride.
Frid. 1/5/07 Rain and rest.
Sat. 1/6/07 The paddock was a muddy mess and i'm searching around as to how we might get our breeze today. When I arrived the horses were playing, so thought this had the makings of a possible race. That would do for today's breeze, and the chase was commenced.

Good results! There were several brief all out bursts and at least one 5f all out race with little Art as the initial trailer but the leader by the end. Pasture breezes are very safe in my experience at this stage of development, and the horse again showed a little speed.

Nob later tacked up, and we had our ninth session but only after Nob was sent sprawling when the youngster reared into him as Nob was bending down for his whip. Another horse had come up and bitten Art. I told Nob to keep his eyes open. The young fellow has a calm demeanor but we see what can happen.

We got 10 or 11 50 foot walks with Nob dismounting after each. The horse tried to buck a little on the last one and we called it. A little breakthrough today.