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.