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!