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.