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.