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.