Conventional Training And The Numbers Game

Baseball players at Surprise, Arizona currently audition for the 25 man roster of the Kansas City Royals under the watchful tutelage of the sage Buddy Bell. Mr. Bell, the manager of the Royals, a man who has difficulty completing a sentence, has been employed by the Royals to conduct the same sort of tryouts noted in the last post as done by T.J. Smith with horses. The aim is to put the best players on the field.

So, from a competitive aspect, is the numbers games as played by the big public trainers necessarily a bad thing? Well, as I noted last post, it might be, if it is your horse they are playing with.

For several reasons. First, the relation between a trainer and his horse and the trainer and his owner exceeds in both the fiduciary and the trust sense that of baseball manager to his players. Between horse trainer and owner there is a contract, written or verbal and thus a stated or implied duty, whichever you prefer, that the trainer will train your horse. The horse, in other words, makes the team by entry of the parties into the training contract. It would be highly unusual for the trainer- owner contract to indicate that the purpose of the transaction was merely for a tryout or worse, to run the horses as a group in an injury threatening manner to see which survive.

So, we have public trainer Mr. X, the leading trainer at track Y for the past two years having access to numerous horses due to a well deserved reputation for winning races. Is this fellow in breach of contract with his owners for running the sort of operation that T.J. Smith was accused of in the prior post by Malcom Johnson his stable rider of conducting training methods knowing they might injure horses because he has replacements for those that get hurt.

For openers on this one, I have yet to hear any trainer admit that they play the numbers game. Let's say that instead of playing the numbers intentionally, better trainers are merely placed in that position by their own popularity. They never train to hurt a horse. Rather, it just so happens if a horse would be injured there is a replacement. I had noted earlier that public trainers have their methods of dealing with injuries, and having "available replacements or new recruits" is such a method.

The problem with all of the above as I see it, the numbers game by trainers interested more in training for themselves than training for you permits the trainer to dilute the safety of their training protocol due to numbers. In other words, they care less than you would if your horse get's hurt, and they will do less to prevent injury than you would.

Of course, if you're an owner who's ok with your trainer playing the numbers game, then best of luck to you. Unfortunately, I have to report that your odds of success in this endeavor will be low. Sure, Baffert, Lukas, and in these days Pletcher can point to clients who made money, for a while. However, over the long haul I am bold enough to say that almost none of them make money. In the end, employing a trainer with these methods, all of them lose their shirt, even Eugene Klein who was a little slow, but finally figured it out quite a few millions to the worse.

But, for those who are other than ok with the numbers game, what can you do. I'll leave that for another time, but, for now, can we say Murray Johnson, Dr. William Reed, and Perfect Drift.

Training:
2/27/07 Abscess report: i'm rushing to finish this. Brief report. Good news, I guess. Nob today confirmed that the problem suffered Friday by Art is an abscess or possibly a bruise currently located at the quarters but in near the commisure of the frog. Since it was only 24 hours since the horse became lame again, Nob declined presently to remove much sole to discover the abscess--we wait 48 hour to let the abcess develop and lower itself into the sole before we start digging for it. Nob trimmed off a little sole just to see if it would pop. He failed to find it, and so applied epsom salt paste to the hoof and put it in a rubber boot overnight. This resolves an abscess about 50% of the time. more later.

Conventional Training And The Numbers Game

What is the numbers game as it applies to training race horses? Here's one Malcom Johnson, ex-stable jockey for legendary Australian trainer T.J. Smith, who won the Sydney training premiership 33 years in a row. Says Malcom about Tommy Smith and the numbers game:

"...Tommy can afford to do it. Tommy'll either make them or break them. If they can stand his training methods, they are the fittest horses on a racecourse. Human hands can't get 'em any fitter. But by the same token, if they don't make the racecourse, they go out to the paddock that afternoon. Tommy will have something in its box to take its place, so he can afford to do it. Young trainers can't afford to adopt that policy because if they do break 'em down, where are they going to get another one from? So it's a no-win situation for them. They've got to try to cuddle, and nurse, and look after them because it's their livelihood. They've got to try and hold them together whereas Tommy says, "Well, I want to get them fit and if it breaks down, well, I've got the numbers."

Huh? Do we read correctly? "...if it breaks down, well, I've got the numbers". Please note Malcom Johnson talks here instead of the deceased T.J. Smith, possessed in his time of the best record for a trainer ever. Yet, Mr. Johnson's statement exemplifies an approach to training injuries that might make our new auction buyers, Mr. or Mrs. Joe Schmo, a little nervous despite T.J.'s record. One might visualize the scene of these folks just having bid a bit too far into their life savings to acquire the newly minted two year old.

"You are going to do what with my horse at $2000/mo?" "That is correct ma'am. We'll send them to the breakers for some basic lessons, bring the whole 50 horse string of T.J.'s two year old crop in here to Tulloch Lodge (next to Randwick Racecourse), put 'em through T.J.'s program, and in 45 days the one's that survive (without injury) will be ready to race. T.J. really is a good trainer. Just look at his record"

"Your saying that T.J. will put 'em through a 45 day prep and the one's that survive race. What happens if my horse fails to survive?" " Well, ma'am, how's his breeding?"

And so we have an answer. Or we have "answers" to my questions beginning at Ak Sar Ben and later as an owner and trainer, how do these public trainers stay in business while they injure everything in their shedrows? Its quite a bit easier to make a mistake with a horse when you have ten others waiting in the wings. For reasons that I'm still trying to figure, there is always another.

Today's Training:
We've rested since we did a nice breeze Friday and I reported that the horse pulled up lame on the right front. I decided due to lack of symptoms--bruised hoof. KH left an interesting comment on using infrared hand helds to check this last post. Saturday and Sunday the horse walked without a limp but it was too wet to trot him. This morning rushing to the office very early during feeding the horse was severly limping about 7 on a scale of 10--no heat, swelling or pain discernable. This has got to be a developing abscess, and, I've already informed our abscess expert Mr. Nob. Will give a report on treatment next post.

INJURIES AND CONCLUSIONS

The blog has painstakingly established conclusively what we all know. Horses get hurt even in the stable of yours truly.

With my small sample and sporadic racing all I can say over twenty years is that with appropriate training and persistent attention to detail I "believe" you can race injury free. As I posted, for us the test is still to come when we get a season of consistent racing.

I've also written that the injury problem is the bane of racing, catastrophically affecting small owners and stables, and untalked about and ignored at the upper levels.

For those small owners that tire of and basically cannot hear "that's racing" concerning injuries, in my opinion there is only one thing to do, which is to develop a system of training and care that minimizes the injury problem. I'll be bold enough to say that unless you do this your stay in the game will be short.

The above analysis essentially explains why I have never trained any horse by conventional methods. Think I have exposed rather conclusively that except for those few owners struck by dumb luck, none of you or almost none of you will succeed with conventional training. If any reader disbelieves this pronouncement, ask your current public trainer where his prior year's trainees presently reside.

This is other than to say that conventional public trainers are unaware of injuries or are without any method of dealing with them. How injuries are dealt with in current racetrack environmenst, next post.

Training:
2/23/07: Day 3: 6 or 7 speedy riderless heats on drying mud. Horse injured with probable hoof bruise. We'll know when we next exercise.
2/24/07 Rest--rain.
2/25/07 Rest--an inch of rain on top of what we already had. Newsflash--good weather to 3/15.

Injury To Art

With little Art on Friday effortlessly keeping up with the oldsters in a speedy riderless paddock workout on drying mud, going through my mind was his stride. You see classic striding horses, and there are the Arts of the world pogoing themselves along in similar fashion as I recall Chief's Crown. Hardly pretty, but very effective. Instead of increasing the speed of turnover as they accelerate, they merely lenghten the stride a bit creating an illisuion of floating along. I became a specator for a time instead of a trainer, and it may have cost us.

Toward the end of a far more strenuous than planned workout little Art suddenly pulled himself up, very lame on his right front. I was some distance away, but saw him refusing to put the leg on the ground and then stamping the ground in pain. The end of this blog, small deal i know, and the racing end of my little horse blurred before me. Bowed tendon, supsensory or, in the mud, pulled sesamoid or low bow seemed the only plausible explanations.

What the heck was I doing driving the little fellow at full speed for way too many heats under these conditions and at the present level of de-training that was caused by the weeks of bad weather? To set the stage the horses have done very little speed work since early January, and last week due to weather they did nothing at all. Additionally, this workout was the fourth in five days all in deep mud, and, to cap it, I'd done a speed workout the day before.

I had good intent going into this, but, in retrospect did everything wrong. Primarily I violated two basic rules of my training, part of the RR rules i developed way back in 1993 to avoid injuring horses:

1. Never do a more strenuous workout than planned.
2. Always take the conservative route.

These rules work if the human handler will observe them. You violate them and Murphy's Law will bite you every time.

You never exceed the planned work because competitively you always plan the most difficult workout you think you can get away with. Exceeding this risks injury. Additionally, we're frequently faced with choices due to competing interests. Do we breeze 5f safely, or, do we go 6f which might be pushing the envelope? I solve these sorts of dilemas with the second rule above that you always, every time, make the conservative decision. You do what you know you can do instead of what you speculate might be possible.

Friday, but for the two inches of rain coming in Saturday, was a scheduled Burch Day 1 of rest or very light work after the Day 3 speed work Thursday. But, facing two or three days off with weather, I thought we might get away with a second day of speed. I made the decision pre-workout to go ahead with this, BUT, to let the horses dictate the pace and to avoid driving them at all.

When the actual workout started the horses were hepped in brisk blowing wind. They were moving but then trainer, between spectating over Art as stated above and getting caught in the ever dangerous "they're going so good" syndrom, started to drive the horses and move them even faster. I forgot to count the heats and we probably did six or seven before the injury, which would qualify as 2 or three more heats of speed than I'd ever done with Art.

I had exceeded the plan, skipped conditioning steps, and forgotten all about being conservative, which the state of conditioning absolutely required. Result: injury and for all you young fellows that want to be trainers, prima facie on how never to proceed.

The irony that this came on a day I was posting of lack of injuries for six years prior is hardly lost on RR. However, lady luck may this one time have been with us.

Injury checks revealed lack of heat, swelling or pain. There was a big hard mudball in the shoe of the leg, and when i removed this with the hoof pick he seemed immediately better but still limping. Due to lack of symptoms I decided we might have a bruised hoof. Immediate adminstration of bute, and within the hour the limp became slight and then non-existent. The horse is walking normally today, and unless there's a chip of some sort or a hiding fracture we've dodged a bullet.

Today's training:
1/22/07 Day 3 Burch: riderless fast work and nice walking under tack.
1/25/07 Repeat a Day 3: riderless fast work at volume resulting in injury to right front.
1/26/07: Rest due to rain and mud. Horse walking normally today.

A Startling Conclusion

The photo showing Mr. Nob up on Groovin' Wind relates to what suddenly hit me the other day on the question of injuries in my stable.

For anyone new to the blog, we've been at it 20 years through several serious efforts. The last series of posts has been a summary of our injury situation over the years with the goal of comparing our experience given our training methods to those of conventional trainers.

I've written here that we had few injuries but those that occurred were highly damaging to the operation. Maybe this states the obvious that small stables and small owners have to keep their horses instead of losing them. Everything about racing requires our athletes to be performing free of injury. And, as a correlation, the manner in which you preserve your athletes may well dictate your level of success or ultimately your continuing participation.

I figured this out early, as I posted, with RR Rule #1 that you never do anything with a horse until you're 100% sure you can do it without injuring the horse. Following that little epiphany in 1993 I aimed to avoid injury only to have several hit the stable starting early '98 at the KY Horse Center. I was despite the rule, still injuring horses. But, why and how?

After looking back on all this, what suddenly occurred to me was that we have been without any injury at all since the year 2000. Since that year, through a lot of miles on track and at the farm and a whole series of races with two horses in 2003 the injury rate has been zero. All eight of my horse injuries had occurred in the first 13 years of operation.

Thinking on this i then realized something indeed drastic did occur in the stable beginning in late 1999. That was the year that Mr. Nob the self-taught farrier became our self taught rider. Late in '99 we threw Nob up on a horse and away he went riding and breezing our horses. Nob was riding only occasionally in 2000 learning the skill, but, by 2001 Nob was doing all the riding including the breezing. We've been injury free since.

While from day one of the stable I had always employed the best riders and on most days got perfect rides, it seemed every rider screw ups cost us a horse. With Nob, starting in 2001, suddenly we were without screw ups. A horse would run away, Nob would reign it in. A horse would refuse change of leads, Nob would pull it up. We now had an educated (albeit complaining) individual on board gaging horses in action. The horse is winded, Nob ended it, and so on. While I might trade Nob for a hall of fame jock in a New York minute, the observation that since we've had our own rider with a direct interest in our stable, as to injuries, we simply have yet to have any with Nob (Until today. Jeez... see below).

Today's Training:
1/21/07: 7 min. riderless aborted due to deep mud. Nice tack work.
1/22/07: Day 3 (Burch Training): 10 min riderless with several 1-1.5f spurts in the mud. Again, nice tack work on day 4 of walking in open space.
1/23/07: Day 3 repeated: I'll expound on what happened today next post. Suffice for now that during a second consecutive day of riderless fast work little Art suddenly pulled himself up very lame on the right front. Training error here for which I'm still kicking myself. The good news, after injury check we're without heat, swelling or pain. 80% it is a hoof bruise from running with balled mud in the shoes. Immediate administration of bute. We'll see .

RR Injury Stats: Startling Conclusion

Looking at injuries in my stable leads to a few memories and some thoughts.

We've had a high volume of training and very few races, around 40 I'm supposing. Though the races have come in closely spaced clusters--when a horse is ready I really do race it continually--the goal of a consistent season beyond 5 or 6 races for any one horse remains ever elusive over 20 years.

Though we've had few injuries, I want to avoid the impression we were completely without problems. Strenuous training produces a string of constant justifiable concerns that come to fruition in various forms. Cannon bone heat, fetlock heat, bleeding, that inexplicable limp--numerous have been the times we've backed off from these sorts of symptoms. As I related, the only horse of mine that has been essentially symptomless through hard racing and training has been the Northern Baby horse Aylward.

The next observation is that the few injuries we have had were devastating. The stupid mistake with the talented filly Windy Lea essentially scotched most of my early efforts. After that I was down to one raceable horse. A humongous effort of time and money in 97-98 ended in a fractured splint and developing saucer fracture and no purses to support continuing. My Bones in 2000 was ready for big stuff before the bowed tendon. And, the most absurd of all, that one moment of walking to the gate instead of warming up in 2000 ruining a life time effort to date with Groovin'Wind.

And, we put in a lot of hours training over the years without any injuries at all. And, yet, it's fairly easy to avoid injury when you're running on pasture, wood chips, or manure,which a lot of this was. My success in avoiding injury in training proves really very little.

Thus, for myself, our training methods and my stable, the "injury" test really is yet to come. After I put together an injury free consistent season with a horse, then I can brag about injury free training.

That's enough for one post. I never got to the startling conclusion and several other thoughts that I'll save for tomorrow.

Training:
1/20/07: rest due to mud.
1/21/07: 7 min. riderless in deep mud and some nice tack work.
1/22/07: Day 3: sometimes things just go so exactly as you plan that you just have to smile, and today was such a day. The horses pretty much on their own in riderless paddock galloped over very wet but drier ground did several heats of 1-1.5f speed work. Enough to get us back on track and qualify as a Burch Day 3 (speed day). The spleens were emptied and fast twitch restored from de-training. And, then day 4 of tack work in open space went as well as it could. The little fellow Art now responds to right and left turn, and halt. But the command walk seems a challenge with every riding aid failing. So, Nob invents a new one by waiving his crop at another horse. When that horse walks so will our little fellow. Nice progress today.

RR Injury Rate--1994-2007

Kids and horses would be right up there on my level of interest as long as they belong to me, of course, and so beware that this post will summarize our stable again with emphasis on injury from 1994 on.

I've already related that the 3 fillies purchased in '92 never raced. By '94 two of them and Windy Lea were broodmares to the cover of Pancho Villa(Cedarcrest Farm, Palestine, Tx., Dr, Steve Hicks) and a son of Groovy named Groovin'Time standing at U. of Ill., Urbana. Pancho was the Secretariat connection, and I'd had really liked Groovy and Smile for their raw speed. When Smile died I later bred to his full brother Sunshine Today standing at Millennium Farms north of Austin, Tx.

In '96 I attended KeeSept and came back with two nice colts by Northern Baby and Broad Brush, $23,500.00 total price. Thereafter I closed my office and headed to the KY Horse Center in Lexington with three yearlings and three two year olds in tow. In '97 I added a $12,500.00 Danzig Connection at KeeSept, prior owner, Kenneth McPeek. Mr. McPeek's father assured me this was a nice horse, and he was, but he had a wind problem, which explains my ambivalence toward the McPeek crew. I was unhappy.

I'll note a couple of deadspots in our racing--after 1998 when i ran out of money with 14 horses and $25 bales of hay in Lexington, and in 2001 when I was injured. We had zero races from late 2003 on. Here is what they did:

1. Groovin' Wind: Still hoping to race this year at age 12, primarily Wind has been injury free, but is responsible for a couple of the stable injuries. An awesome series of breezes every four days in early '98 included the horse running away almost every day at slow gallop. The runaways were often 2 x 1:50 miles. You hardly get away with that very long and we didn't--developing saucer fracture, goodbye Derby, off four months. Should have switched to Burch training which is without slow galloping. Training failure, rider control failure. Wind's first race was a tough allowance in 2000 where he almost ran down horse of the meet "The Cowboy." Next he won by 20 lengths no other horses in the pic., then shipped to Remington for another allowance but the jock walked him to the gate without any warmup. Result, near low bow and as close as I've come to the crime of jockey murder. Lots of high hopes down the drain that day. Wind later punctured his lung on a tee post on his way to becoming a daddy. This ruined his speed, but he continues to train and race. We'll see yet about Wind and 2007.

2. Gold Brush by Broad Brush: this major league horse was also the victim of lack of rider control. The same rider that rode Wind ran this horse in a :36 in a first breeze instructed at 1f at :14. "He was going so good" were the famous last words. Result, fractured splint. This horse trained for a couple of years then injured an eye and was retired.

3. Aylward by Northern Baby: my least talented, most expensive, best bred, dam won 120,000 proved also my best performer. Interesting correlations. Al was a late bloomer, grass foundering as a two year old and thereafter a victim of our brand new and self-taught farrier Mr. Nob. In Al's early years he carried toes that were too long which compromised his training and speed. Al won several races over the years. His 2000 record was 3 wins 1 second--that includes a training race--then fractured his nose from a kick. Al raced again in 2003 and after three or four races where the jockey related he was unable to get through the wall of buts, a jockey change produced an immediate win. Injury wise Al through eleven years of the toughest training was amazing. Besides an occasional slight check ligament looseness from running in the mud I've never felt any heat or swelling in the legs of this horse, and that includes through two months where he breezed 5F or raced every 3rd day per Burch. Al at age 12 is still in the plans this year.

3. The Pancho Villa Colts and the Danzig Connection. The cause of Bone's bowed tendon caused by my error is on another post. Bones won a couple of races on the bow after I sold him. The others were ready to race at Woodlands 2001 when I got hurt and were sold. Zero injuries besides Bones for this group.

Next post I'll give some opinions on the injury rate in my stable.

Training:
2/19/07 rest due to ground conditions.
2/20/07 ditto. rest.
2/21/07 deep mud again but runnable. 7 min riderless work aborted over concern for check ligs and sesamoids. Good tack work today. Art's third day walking alone in space. Given Nob's fear of falling, we're taking it slow. Figure about 20 more sessions before the horse is under control.

Did I Read Correctly?

Training at the Kentucky Horse Center in Lexington in 1998 about every three or four days one of Nick Zito's horses would enter the track right in front of the window of my tack room- residence. On board would be a female rider with striking blond hair. This was also the era when James McIngvale(McIngvale Furniture, Houston Tx.) pulled all his expensive horses at the KY Horse Center from Zito and put his sister-secretary in charge, a hilarious scene. Said he was supplying all the time, effort and money, and Zito wanted to tell him how to train. How absurd is that?

So, I would watch the girl work the horse because it was Zito's horse. They always breezed. I never saw them gallop, and, as you'd expect, the girl could ride.

I was reminded of this Monday night when I read that the above pictured horse won the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park and that the trainer was Ms.Jamie Sanders, former exercise rider for Nick Zito. Given Ms. Sanders blond hair in her bio on the NTRA website, she has got to be the one I saw in 1998 or it was her twin sister.

Whether it was her or someone else riding those horses, this appears just a great great story, an inspiration for every small stable in the country. The lady, with a little experience and a fiance-trainer named Danny Kelly in tow go to the sales and come up with apparently some cheap horses including one Teuflesburg purchased for $9000 at Oct. FT Yearling sale--which would be the exact same sale which produced our Art, and also the exact amount of money I had budgeted to spend--see my October posts. All this does warm the RR heart a bit. Nice to see some confirmation here that's it's preparation instead of price that separates the horses.

Nevermind that a Johanesburg out of a Devil's bag mare went for $9000.00. Somebody had a sharp eye, and somebody else including the prior owner was asleep at the switch. Comatose might be an accurate description. Please notice in the above photo: no shadow roll, no blinkers, no flash noseband, no stupid stuff. 13 races for the horse to date.

RR has a prejudice against women coaches, managers, trainers. I was a girls H.S. Basketball coach, and quite successful at that and developed respect for female athletes. But, I find female coaches by and large have yet to rise to the level of their male counterparts. The understanding and intuitive sense of athletics seems missing from the gals. By my experience women trainers more want to groom the horse than send it to the track.

But, this might be different. A former female rider training a Derby prospect. Big challenge ahead. I've tried it and failed miserably. Will they be able to get the horse there uninjured, how many races now to Derby, will they use Zito training or has Ms. Sanders wised up?

I have but little info on this, just what I read, but also that image of the girl rider with the blond hair back in '98 that could ride. The photo of this lady in the NTRA bio supports that sense of Ms. Sanders, and the feeling that something interesting is about to happen. I wish these folks the best of good luck!

Training:
2/18/07: riderless paddock work over puddles. Walked under tack.
2/19/07: Deep mud rest.
2/20/07: Mud less deep, but trying to work on this ground seemed pointless. Rest.

Could we repeat Jeckimba Bay?

In a word, yes. Pictured is our next injury free and much more successful performer named Aylward galloping under Nob on the farm on a muddy fall day.

But, first, why would we want to repeat the experience with JB who won less than $3000.00 on the race track in 17 races over his 8 years?

My philosophy has been if you can get them to the races and keep them racing they will win. When they race consistently they get tougher and faster. Every trainer knows this.

With JB, as a new owner, I proved to myself over four years of intensive training and racing--'88-'92 that we could get to the races and keep racing without injury. Three horses trained, two raced, three track injuries total all attributable to avoidable error.

The Ivers training prevented injuries as advertised. Was it competitive? I would say it so, but competitive along side some other methods that require less effort, money and time. To see this in JB you have to look closely. Prior to the hip the horse got a check 7 out of 8 races. Off Ivers #1 he quickly broke his maiden. The prior shoulder injury (one of our injuries) was chronic for a few months and there was a period of layoff before Ivers #2.

Off Ivers #2 the horse in three races raced first with the best sprinters in the midwest and in the next two with the best horses on the track. This :12/f horse held his own, and I'm without a doubt but for the fall in the washrack this little fellow would have been, off this training, a hard knocking allowance performer for several years. I am additionally convinced that a more talented horse in the same program might do precisely what Ivers thought, which would be a world record at 1.5 miles. This may be hyperbole, but at the time I really believed JB might get that far.

The above pictured Aylward was a Stone Farm consignment yearling purchased by me at Keefys in 1996 for $13,500.00. He is by Northern Baby out of a Bold Forbes mare that won $120,000 in the late '70s. Most money I've paid for a horse and a new level of genetics for the RR stable. At the same sale I bought Al's partner in crime, a Broadbrush colt for $10,000. Put 'em in the trailer and hauled them back to KC. More on the injury levels in our stable next post.

Training:
2/17/07: 10 min riderless work in the snow. Nice work for first work in about 5 days due to weather.
2/18/07: tough ground conditions. 12 min slow gallop through puddles and bumpy frozen terrain riderless. Walked under tack. Nob replaced a lost shoe.
2/19/07: Six inches of mud, we'll probably rest, but, I have yet to get to the farm.

Injury Prevention 1987-1994

I bought Jeckimba Bay in '87 with my eyes open forwarned by a horse owing friend named Mary Moore of the money and effort. From my observation at Ak Sar Ben I'd determined that those Nebraska trainers could be out trained, which proved a two edged sword. First you'd have to do it yourself. Unable to out train them by employing them. Second, exceeding Mary's warning, from first moment of purchase the life changed. I equate it to arrival of a new baby.

Despite sufficient saved cash, a life time experience in athletics and an intuitive knowledge of what success in sport requires, I underestimated the expense and effort of getting a horse to the race track. From the moment we hit Altoona in 1989 there were three weekly 410 mile round trips to Des Moines, and the minute you passed the stable gate everybody and his brother had their hand in your wallet. Twenty dollar bills were passed out like sticks of gum.

But, there we were, with RR employed and trained rider, groom and our brand new QH trainer, Griz Trittle sworn on his beard and winstrol he'd leave his grubby paws off my horses. We commenced thrice daily Ivers breezes with JB highlighted by the day the substitute spanish speaking jock did understand "yes" three times in one day, "yes" 1:20, 1:16 and 1:13, but some how missed the part about the 5 minute rests between. He did the first breeze and the second without stopping and was heading to the third when the outrider finally caught him.

Can this sort of thing be done without injuring the horse? I refer the reader to the Ivers tape "Interval Training the Thoroughbred"where the horse got all the way through training and later injured by questionable riding. I can relate. As for us, yes, it can be done. The memory stretches, but, here is some of it:

1. Decent riding observing all the rules: leads, warm up, abort at first hint of trouble, avoid stupid stuff, etc.
2. Gradual adjustment to new surface and new riders.
3. Paying close attention: Every work planned, supervised, recorded, analyzed. I had a mole (employee) in the shed row to keep Griz Trittle away and do the actual work.
4. Gradual progression: I never moved a second faster or inch farther unless positive the horse could do it. Numerous times we had to tred water or back off, a little heat there, slight swelling here or, oh-oh, was that a bad step? Increases in intensity progressed at snail's pace.
5. Persistence: "I want a tally daily to be taken how much the trench in hand is gaining room" (Faust). The horses trained in everything. The days of ten below in the late '80s. We were out there.
6. Athletic first aid and icing: early on I concluded we'd be unable train this way without icing after to prevent fluid build up around micro tears of tissue. Icing was in tubs to above the knees for 20 min post fast workouts. A constant necessary pain. Additionally, every physical problem that popped up received immediate appropriate attention.
7. Advanced nutrition and husbandry: including daily turns outs even when at the track.

If you've got the stomach for it, the wallet, and the time, there it is. It can be done was the lesson of those years. Of course, you go back to K. McGlaughlin's comment: why breeze 7F when you can get away with 4 and so on. I soon modified this protocol, per my posts on Ivers.

Today's Training:
2/16/07: 3 degrees this morn. Then a driving snow storm and 30 mph winds. Rest.
2/17/07 Got in decent riderless paddock work in the snow. The weather still cold. Spring arrives tomorrow.
2/18/07: Shedding our jackets today, we have 45 degrees and a mess for ground conditions. I've yet to see horses completely refuse gallop in the paddock. But, they did at first. As it on one brave fellow commenced to splash through the puddles over still frozen ground, and soon they were all into it. 10-12 min of riderless slow galloping with rests between. Walked under tack. Art went were he pleased and I'll skip the gory detail. We got it in.

What We Learned From Jeckimba Bay

Here he is as a late two year old, and little did he know he'd become a guinea pig and one of the luckier racehorse dudes in the country in terms of care.

Jeckimba Bay (Exclusive Call-Petite Mary-Idaho Red), we called him "Snort", a name given to him by his first owner, Oaklawn Trainer Tom Pryor.

One may suppose from the pedigree an inherent ordinariness in this horse which resulted, over innumerable efforts, in a lifetime best :35.4 for 3f. He was slow from day one, but, you have to remember, he started off with a bowed tendon when his new horse-stupid owner RR thought the Swede's plastic shoe might reduce concussion. Was wondering about these elevated shoes as the old blacksmith applied them. He never said a word. Three days post purchase the horse bowed on the Swedes all by himself in his paddock. Goodbye two year old season and much of the three, and hello horse racing. I still wonder were Mr. Swede has gone.

By the time Snort was ready for serious training RR was deeply into "The Fit Race Horse", and what better way to bring back a bow than six miles per day around our manure track behind the show barn were we were stabled. As I think back, it might be surmised that Snort switched a few fast twitch muscles to slow twitch by months of inactivity followed by another six months of trying to get up to six miles a day at the Tom Ivers prescribed 3-3:30/mile. In those days they said stall rest a bow. Oh well!

Watching a horse go six miles at a time takes about 20 minutes. It's 7 times around the 7f wood chip track, 7 times the horse disappears behind the oak trees, and 7 times back around in front of you still going strong. It's a bit painful to watch. You do wonder if you're taking things too far with an animal. The two times I did this with Snort in 1988 and then again in 1990, the six miles proved the most difficult of the three Ivers stages to obtain. Remember that I said we did this without injury as we did with all the training. However, there were numerous times in Ivers training when we had to back off and just maintain what we were doing or rest for a spell. Snort never got the Ivers "wind puffs" that Ivers wrote about, but, getting up to the six miles, tendon heat and fetlock heat between getting to miles three and four slowed us down. Both times it seemed getting to 4 miles was hell, but after we got there getting to six was no problem. By the time I repeated the slow stuff in 1990 I was smart enough to throw in some occasional speed.

Snort's race record is interesting. I looked it up today on Equibase. He raced a lot more than I had recalled. 17 races total.

What do you learn from the racing of an interval trained horse? Several things. There is first the interesting pattern of the spacing of the races, and you'll see below that when we came off the second go around with the Ivers program at the Cuba, Mo wood chip track with Feliciano on board, I entered often and in whatever was available at any level. With Ivers training, when you're done, you do know exactly what your horse can do, how fast he can go for each furlong, and whether he can survive what you're asking. It did not matter to me where the horse raced. I knew what his speed would be. He're the race sequence after Ivers go around #2:

7/21/91: Leavenworth Stakes 6f. 1st race after layoff. In his first race in 14 months Snort finished 7 3/4 lengths behind winner crack midwest sprinter Urbanity, and 2 lengths behind the aging midwest legend Who Doctor Who. Why this spot? After a month of trying to get in, it was all that was available. I forgot why. Morning of the race Feliciano drew off. Substance abuse without a doubt This is Snort's 6th race and first time he finished out of the money. The substitute jock was too shy early. Finally realized he had a horse at the quarter pole and came on.
7/25/91: Non winners of 4 life time claiming. Again comes on. Finishes 7 lenghts back in 5th.
8/2/91: Non winners of 4 life time allowance won by stakes horse Blues Dark Wind. Snort is really coming on but again 7 lenghts back in 5th. He's running with the best horses at the Woodlands. Next race will be a win. He's got his legs.
8/10/91 falls over in wash rack morning of race and fractures pelvis.

4 races scheduled in 20 days. no injuries till the fall. This you could do after the Ivers. 8 races so far, 7 in the money.

After the hip healed I raced this horse for fun on my new modified Ivers that I described in my Ivers posts. The next sequence of races (and these are all lower level claimers):

9/7/92
9/12/92
9/16/92
unable to get in here
9/30/92 end of meet.

no injuries.

1993 same deal: races 9/29, 10/3,10/10, 10/19--then injured in a 2 miles at :15 sec/f work. This work was planned and risky. Final effort to make him competitive again failed.

During the racing string of Windy Lea she also raced four times in a month without injury.
Next post some thoughts on this training and how we prevented the injuries.

Early Year Conclusions

Google "Paul Feliciano" and you get this. The guy's dead ten years (DWI accident) but he still comes up, forever associated with the horse. I'll volunteer they were wise, prescient in fact, to replace Paul. That Secretariat raced above in 1:10.3 when he might have raced in 1:09 would be by my experience, typical P. Feliciano. A bit pea hearted, a bit of a mess, a young fellow some how put into a position above his natural abilities. Paul always had a picture of the big horse hung up in his living room. Those two rides, despite several Fairmount Park riding titles, is what he talked about. Paul drank a lot, but never came to the track under the influence. He was of below average intelligence, just a very ordinary dude who carried that pride you see in good jocks.

The other thing that strikes me about this picture is the degree to which Secretariat passed on his genes. I later bred three Pancho Villa (Secretariat-Terlingua) colts, two from the chestnut filly in the last post. My two standing side by side with the horse above, you'd have trouble telling them apart.

Pancho stood at Cedarcrest Farm, Palestine, Tx, Steve Hicks D.V.M., nice fellow and competent. I asked why they gave up on Pancho so quickly in KY because my foals were "lookers". Doc Hicks replied, "they all look good, they just can't run".

That was contrary to my experience. Both my Pancho full brothers were powerfully striding horses with blazing speed. Like other Secretariats ive seen, they gained too much mass and muscle as they went past age three, and therein I suspect lay the problem with the progeny of Secretariat and possibly the whole Princequello line.

In terms of racing success my early training proved abject failure due to three or four isolated events. In another sense though things went as I planned and expected. I got into owing horses because I've spent a life time training athletes. I'm like Mandella in the DVD, I enjoy watching horses develop as athletes. That is what makes my day to this day as opposed to winning or making money.

What I did learn even in this early period with my inexperience and small sample, was that if you could get the horse to the races and keep it racing, it would win. Winning is a by-product of keeping them going. And, the delicate nature of how to keep them going is really the subject of this whole blog.

With these early horses I proved to myself that I could "keep them going" through both racing and intensive training. In about 21 races there was never a scratch, and instead of a surprise, this was expected. I would have been amazed had Jeckimba Bay broken down in a race. By the time that horse was raced I knew exactly how fast he'd go for every furlong of the distance because he'd done the same thing so many innumerable times on the training track. He'd never injured himself training and so I was without any fear that he would injure himself racing. Consider the broad implications of that last statement. I was without "any" fear. Nada.

Just one horse though. Did I project J Bay to racing in general? That was the uncertainty of the early years. Could we repeat Jeckimba Bay?

Training:
The horses have rested three days due to frigid weather. I'll post today's training after it's done.

More Stable History...

36 straight days below 25 degrees here in KC. Brutal i'm supposing in Des Moines, and forget about it in Grand Island. Guess they're training at Fonner Park.? 10 degrees at 4 pm as I write. And, damn. It was 20 degrees this morning and should have run them. But, decided a full three day break. Why? According to Accuweather the cold snap is "outta here" starting Friday and we enter a sustained period of "warmth". We'll be negotiating mud soon. Oh well.

Above pictured, Feliciano's girlfriend and Windy Lea at the outset of her four year old campaign in 1992 at the Cuba, Mo. woodchip track, and, the three fillies purchased at Fasig Tipton in '93 that never raced--the chestnut formerly owned by Alan Paulson had a severe breathing problem (and, yes, they knew when they put her in the sale, and, yes she had scoped clean for me before I bid.), the fat one by Gold Stage (Mr. Prospector), a talent that fell over and fractured her skull first day at Woodlands, and the spitfire Double Maggs (at left) out of a full brother to Bold Forbes named Brookover (then $1000 fee in Texas) who insisted on rearing and doing 360s at the slightest provocation. Maggs later foaled Big Time Bones to Pancho Villa, a Bold Ruler over Bold Ruler cross to which I am enamored. Bones had the exact markings and appearance as Bold Ruler. Unable to tell them apart except one was 16'1" and the other 15'1". Really big heart though in Bones, and he could run. Many Bones stories, but, that was the one I take direct responsibility for ruining.

What did I learn pertaining to racing injuries from my first group of horses '87-'94? Somewhat inconclusive, I would say, for the following reasons.
1. Much of the training was done on forgiving surfaces--a manure track, a woodchip track. (the manure track was as nice a surface outside the race track as I've used.)
2. Though the Ivers three times a day breezes were done at Prairie Meadows in 1989 and at Woodlands in '91, for those familiar, recall that strenuous training under Ivers only lasts a couple of two-three weeks. That's the problem that I had with Ivers--see my Ivers posts--that you take forever to get to a short period of serious work before you move on to the next stage.
3. Too few races and too inconsistently spaced to make solid conclusions. There were probably 20 total.
4. Only one "rat". Jeckimba Bay was the experimental rat. Windy Lea also went through Ivers, sort of. Under Feliciano she became a refuser, which in her case was to avoid overexertion except in the last 2f of a race. I'll remember her first scheduled "breeze". Think it went in 16s.

So, could you conclude anything from this period? I believe so, and will comment next post.

Training: last three days have been rests due to frigid weather.

RR Stats Analysis--KH Comment

KH, thanks for adding the Ivers thread to last post. Reaction? Brilliant writing, brilliant fellow who makes as always good points among the nonsense. Early in the blog I rejected "horseperson" as misleading and hypothetical. That Ivers believes "stuff" never happens to these sorts indicates maybe % of actual hands on experience. Chuckled when I read, recalling, among many, Redattore of the Mandella tape and his trainer trimming the frog so close the horse misses the Dubai Cup. Nob, the shoer, still smirks over that one. Later I'll address the interesting topic of trainers, coaches, managers, their methods and how they decide how to train. I've some interesting stuff there from Standardbred trainer Fred Kersley.

But, the subject of "stuff happens", now that KH brought it up, and, agreed that i've yet to see a better rendition than the Ivers post--actually my prior post originally was lost in cyberspace and when i redrafted in a hurry i forgot the "stuff happens" part. I had used as an example my late three year old Windy Lea one week from race #1 and mostly through the Ivers program coming off the trailer with a silverdollar size patch of skin missing from a fetlock putting her out for the meet and the year.

Of those first seven RR horses, five out of seven were lost to non-track related stuff a lot of which per Ivers might have been avoided with more experience. But, lest the reader think this was some amateur operation, more perspective. Four of those horses trained intensively for multiple years both at Prairie Meadows and at a beautiful 7f woodchip track in Cuba, Mo., with leading Fairmont Jock, ex-Secretariat jock, Paul Feliciano putting them through Ivers. Feliciano worked for us exclusively for 1.5 years when he was taking a break from race riding. Hitting me that day in '93, superior care and riding in the end produced nothing, though RR retains some awesome mental images of several of those talented horses galloping under Feliciano in late Ivers. We, me, Paul, his girlfriend, my gf, we thought we were going places, but, it all came to naught.

That's enough for this post. Back to what we learned from all this stuff relating to injury, next.

Training:

2/12/07 riderless paddock work in mud and rain. decent speed for conditons.
2/13/07 rest. frigid weather.
2/14/07 rest. even colder today.

RR Stats Analyzed

The cosmic moment for me on race horse injuries came sitting on the side of a grassy hill at the Woodlands watching one of my horses gallop. A bit of stable history is in order.

Of my first seven horses only one could be remotely called successful:

Jeckimba Bay: raced to age 9.
Windy Lea: career ending suspensory. 4 races.
Smooth Machine: fractured pastern.
Smooth Spot: died.
Triptis: breathing problem.
Double Maggs: dangerous rearing, unraceable.
Jubilation Rose: fractured skull

To say the above qualifies as a desultory start in racing is one thing, but, with the effort, money and care taken, what happened to these horses, several with major talent was a disaster and cause for puzzlement.

To put things in perspective, I probably spent 6-7 hours a day on these horses seven days a week for seven years. There was constant intensive training, and by 1990 aiming for races. Generally these horses did as much on the track in a week as most horses in two months. Over that period I recall only the two career ender injuries. I'm unable to remember even any minor injuries besides those two. To put it in further perspective, we were without bucked shins, chips of any sort or anything else for seven years including about eight races.

The training in this period underwent continuous evaluation. In horse care we were going by the latest book, and the track exercise consisted of an experimental program consistent with principals of exercise physiology. It was very scientific in every definition of that word, and we had good horses that were going through the program.

Sitting there on the hill, that day in 1993, a lot was going through my head, but the main question was to figure out what it took to suceed at this horse racing thing. We were in a new year, another opportunity with JB at that time coming to hand off of 1.5 years on Ivers. And there I was looking at the various riders: this one failing to change leads, that one jumping around with his mount, the next one trotting his mount side ways, that one taking off at speed without a warm up, probably one in ten following instructions, and so forth

I had understood for a good long while that rider negligence and trainer ignorance are the bane of racing. But for me there was more. Somehow we had to guide the horses through unscathed. How was this to be done?

Given the quality and quantity of care in my program was the max, was anything more possible?

I suddenly had recognized after all these years and work that it was more than care that is required. Of all the things that happen, all the "variables" that affect training, the key to it all is "control". Really, what it is, the trainer must control all the variables all of the time. If this could be done, naturally we'd be in the Derby, and so the light bulb had turned on and the RR Rules were born.

RR Rule #1: Never do anything with a horse unless you are 100% certain you can do it without injuring the horse.

Next post I'll expand.

1/11/07: 15 min riderless paddock exercise. Horse walked alone under tack for the first time.
1/12/07: 10 min intense riderless paddock work in rain and mud.
1/13/07: Rest due to frigid conditions.

Weather Again

A little bit of a tired blog tonight, but, wanted to catch up on training and conditions, and hopefully this will be back on track by tomorrow. In my office today I'm going through the horse racing version of "they don't just give you the money". After they pay, we work, and hence less time for the blog.

The weather, what can I say. Another horrendous forecast. It's getting to the point this may affect two year old racing. All plans revised. Was just looking at a post from mid-December as to how far we were in training then. We're behind December 15 at the moment. Very frustrating!

Down to 1 degree in a day or so. 1.5 inches of rain today before the freeze will make for less than ideal ground conditions in the next days. But, lest the blog become one big weather complaint, we forge ahead.

On the positive side, the fence is 1/4 up in the Astride Paddock, and the past few days training has gone pretty well given the conditions. Translate that we have been able to get in some exercise.

2/10/07 rest
2/11/07 Warmer. The paddock was soft wet ground on top of the melting ice. The horses looked like they were ice skating. Hardly ideal, but, they seemed to handle it ok.
12-13 min of riderless mostly gallop. Nice work given the conditions. News Flash: the blog predicted Art would be walking without assistance under tack about the 20th under tack session. This day was it, and Nob in fact walked the horse around the paddock with the help of a horse buddy who volunteered to walk along. Lasted about 10 min. Nob reports the horse responds to stopping and starting, but turning seems to be a challenge. And, he was ok with the bit instead of playing with it, which is progress. All in all, an encouraging day.
2/12/07: light rain most of the day. by the time i got to the farm about half an inch had fallen. it was warmer and the ice underneath had melted. So, we had mud to run in and did so riderless for 10 min. Nice hard workout. About 4f heats as snappy as the mud allowed with brief rests between. The older horses would have gone on, but with the youngster we need the rest to rest the tendon and sesamoids until conditioning improves. Skipped tack work in the rain. Failed to get closer to the track this week, but, at least avoided going backwards as we were able to get some exercise every day.

Miscellaneous

I seem to be suffering writer's block again. And, yes Marge, that's using "writer" loosely. Lots of distractions, including the weather. I'll try moving forward on the RR stable injury stat analysis tomorrow.

I corrected a Goethe quote from a few posts ago. Thought I had the fellow memorized. Here is another one that I deleted yesterday on "luck" applied to horse racing:

"We gaily turn from meadows lush with sap.
A bird will croak. What does it croak?
Mishap."

I'd done a post on racing luck pertaining to my stable. Think I've decided personal stuff makes questionable copy. Better to stick to main points, which is in this blog the training of the new two year old Art, and why we do it. Criticism welcome.

The materials arrived for the new Astride paddock. $600 so far. Another dent in the wallet. But, after we fence it off, this 100 yd. by 60 yd. field will allow us to drive Art at speed carrying the weight of the Astride way before he'd be ready for the same under tack. Thus, we'll be speed conditioning and breaking simultaneously. Now Marge reminds to take a look at the forcast. Holy cow! It's getting warmer!

Training:
2/8/07: nice riderless pasture romp and paddock exercise for conditions. Reintro of tack work.
2/9/07: about 10 min of riderless gallop-trot on near concrete. Aborted due to conditions.
2/10/07: rest today. Might have caused a little inflammation with concrete gallop of yesterday on that still soft epiphysis. We'll go in the morning with an extra 12 hrs. rest.

RR Stats

Here is former trainer Ronald Brandsma in the winner's circle at PM in the early 1990s. The onsite trainer in fact is standing at the left holding the halter. I'm in there somewhere.

JB was a favorite horse who almost daily for nine years gave it all he had. When he retired at age nine without any doubt he had more miles on the odometer than any racehorse in the USA. He went through the Iver's program twice, once with Paul Feliciano who broke Secretariat's maiden, as exercise rider.

One morning on the day of a major coming out race JB fell over in the washrack and fractured a hip. I'll always remember the incredulous look on Feliciano's face as I led the limping horse back to his stall. "What happened", Paul asked. I was just shaking my head.

I'm supposing if I'm going to ferret out the injuries in the Lukas and Mandella stables and indict the entire conventional training establishment, it would be fair to record the injury history of the RR stable through the years.

I'm finding it more difficult than expected to condense 20 years of stuff, but, give it a shot.

I've had 18 horses. 11 from auctions and 7 homebreds. I only train my own, and I had sole control. Seven is also the number that never trained. Eleven trained and five raced. There have been something like 30-40 races. There have been six wins. For a good long while I prided myself on never ever having finished out of the money. After JB fractured his hip I just raced him for fun, and that streak was broken.

My racing was unexpectedly interrupted in 2001. I had seven racers ready to roll on day one of the 2001 Woodland's meet. On day three I suffered a serious injury that kept me out of commission for a year, and forced the sale of all horses but four.

Of the horses failing to make it to training: one was too small, one talented filly there was never time for, another fractured her skull, another won at Oaklawn and died a month later, two had wind problems, and one was a danger to herself and rider due to rearing.

In chronological order to my best memory the injury record of the eleven trainee's follows. An (R) indicates the horse raced. There are a total of eight injuries below. Two were career enders.

Jeckimba Bay (R): bowed his tendon on a swede's plastic horseshoe three days post purchase. Next, injured a shoulder, out two weeks before first race. The horse was retired after a low bow late in year eight from a last ditch effort we knew might cause an injury.

Windy Lea (R): three years training, suffered career ender suspensory. RR gives new trainer at Remington directions for first gallop. Ooops. Instructed one mile too far. 50 phone calls to correct never reached the trainer. She faithfully followed instructions, three miles--one mile too far, in the slop under 150 lbs. goodbye suspensory.

Smooth Machine: this magnificent animal--people used to come out of the barns to watch this 17 hand Seattle Slew grandson work, fractured a pastern when Feliciano did a 5/8 instructed at 1:07 in :59. The mistake of lack of rider control. A $3000 pastern which we could have raced on, but, declined.

Aywlard(R): still going at age 12 without a pimple on him. Several wins.

Groovin Wind(R): still going at age 12. GW was heading to the derby but kept running away every day. Consecutive days of 2 miles at1:50 pace between breezes caused the beginning of a saucer fracture. The only other injury was mild tendinitis above the fetlock suffered in a race where the jockey walked him to the gate--a failure of warmup.

Gold Brush: This Broad Brush was a major league horse. His first 1F breeze was instructed in :15. The rider did 3f in :36. Wanted to see what the horse could do--lack of rider control again--horse was in no way ready for that--result, splint fracture. Later retired when suffered an eye injury.

Dr. Jackson, Code Name Doc, and Big Time Bones(R) and Danzig Connection Colt: Three were Pancho Villa Colts and all four had major talent. Bones went on to win two races after bowing a tendon. Bone's bow was directly attributable only to my own stupidity. Major error here. The regular jock was hurt out on the track the day we were to do a final breeze for Bone's first race. A substitute jock weighed 15 lbs more. I made the mistake of proceeding so we could get in the race, which was near the end of the year. Big mistake. Way too much weight for the little horse, and to compound things, after I had pounded into this new rider's head to abort if he failed to change leads in the stretch, that is exactly what happened. the idiot persevered with the horse. result bowed tendon. These horses suffered no other injuries over three years of training. All were sold when I had my accident.

Acesmash: Another that I thought early would be a break through horse. Tremendous athlete who turned into fat pig as he aged. My injury prevented early racing. Trained five years steadily without a scratch

Today's Training:
2/6/07: Mild exercise riderless pasture romp in bad ground conditions
2/7/07 Rest due to frigid weather
2/8/07 I was very pleased with today's result. The ground had softened some. We got some decent riderless speed out in the pasture, then came back in the paddock and went a few rounds. A good strengthening day to get back on track. Did some bellying with Art under tack.

"Amart" It Is

A respite today from racetrack injuries as name confirmation arrives from the Jockey Club. The 3/28/05 Vision and Verse-Nipsit-Deposit Ticket is officially "Amart". This came after a Jockey Club letter requesting to know the "meaning" of the name. Unknown that thoroughbred names must have a meaning, though we can smile vizualizing the secretary in charge pondering the one and only proposal.

"Amart" incidentally came to me on the Internet chess boards on a day I just wanted an easy game. And, lo, there appeared on my board one "Ammart" an exceptionally poor player who did ingratiate himself to RR by sending such messages as "you r good" and "nice move". I replied to this guy abbreviating Ammart as Amart. Considering cute personalities for horse and player, the name seemed to fit. This narrowly beat out another chess low life by the name of "Ardythefrog".

Then, there is the weather forecast. Truly horrendous for the horses we're trying to race. Looks like in the 30s for the duration of February. Zero luck on mild winter weather this year. Brings to mind Goethe's lines from Faust:

"Let him stand fast and gaze around alert.
To able man the world is not inert."

Got to do something here. Quick. I'll have to string about 600 feet of fence, and we should be back in business despite the weather, presuming I can get the truck started and can find two days.

By now a reader of this blog will have discerned why we avoid conventional training. There is the injury thing, of course, and earlier I opined that you are unable to train like Lukas and compete with Lukas or the top trainers at any track who have numbers, money and riders. Confirmation of this yesterday reading Fred Kersley. You all know him. Based in Perth and perennial leading standardbred trainer in W. Australia. Racing family going back to the 1880s.

It seems Fred as a peach fuzzed youngster enjoyed quizzing top trainers on their methods including the leading one Phil Coulson. Here's Fred's statement about copying the top trainers. You'll see some major league common sense in this fellow who I'll quote often:

"Whilst he (Coulson) was a model--I was trying to get where he was at--I worked out that I couldn't do it his way, that it wasn't going to work." Fred races ten horses a day. Nice to see him agree.

Next Up: The RR Injury Record, and then the long awaited "Conventional Training On Trial".

Today's training:
2/5/07 Rest after 4f sprint yest.
2/6/07: failed attempted pasture romp. mild exercise.
2/7/07: 19 degrees up north where I am. Given inability for meaningful exercise due to ground conditions decided to pass. Get office caught up and plan to lay fence tomorrow aft. In the thirties after today. Best use of time thing here, so, rest today.

Racing's Biggest Problem? Arguably, Injuries

On Friday they announced that Strong Contender, a Grade I horse entered in the Donn Handicap against Invasor was retired due to a tendon injury described as a tear. Aside from the question as to why rich owners keep giving that nice gentleman John Ward good horses which he ruins as predictably as the sun comes up, the story of Strong Contender and the Donn provides another small sample of what plagues the sport. From Lukas, Baffert, and Frankel on down they're unable to keep the good horses or most horses running.

Forget about the early retirement of Bernadini. The vast majority of stakes horses retire due to injury most way too soon. For every hard knocking nine year old still going to post there are a hundred others that fell by the wayside due to injury. Check the Derby fields a year later and see how many still race.

I'm just musing here what all this does instead of making a study. Of course, first thing, the injury problem deprives the fans of their horses, and the races frequently of competitors. Injuries make the sport "less" of an attraction than it might be. They reduce the fan base as a direct result.

Some stats from vague memory, they'll be close: 50% of two year olds in training never make it to their first race due to injury. 50% of an entire foal crop never race primarily due to injuries. Once they get to the races they drop out due to injury at the rate of about 50% every single year.

If you are an owner for any of the various reasons to be an owner, does this sound like any way to spend your money? Investing in horse racing is like digging for oil. Mostly you strike dirt. I suspect most owners could take losing races and even losing money. But, losing their horses ends their investment and their hopes, and drives them from the game.

Racing has many and various problems. To RR the biggest, and I doubt there is any question of it, is the injury problem and its ripple effect through the sport. This problem robs thoroughbred racing both of its equine and human participants. If those 1000 horses on the Woodland's back stretch this fall had been owned by local Kansas Citians, perhaps a rabid bunch of enthusiastic ex-athlete owners with their own little professional franchises, who root their horses on, bring their families to the racetrack, and collectively contributed financially, horse racing in KCMO might be thriving instead of the mordant simulcast operation it has become.

With the injury rate this scenario of owner participation will never happen. I've been amazed over the years the short shrift this problem gets from industry leaders. It's nice to have a symposium on catastrophic break downs and listen to the same old tired research about toe grabs done by someone who's never owned a horse, but where is the concern for injury rates generally and a systematic approach solving the problem.

I keep expecting such as Ray Paulick at the Blood Horse or one of the Phipps, or the Van Clief's or maybe one of the Race Track Presidents, the big breeders in Lexington, or somebody to pick up the ball that the present training establishment injures quickly almost everything that comes through. The silence on the issue is so deafening at the top that RR wonders sometimes if it's all his imagination. Then, back to reality, and the article on Strong Contender.

Today's Training:
2/4/07 Day 3: 4f riderless pasture sprint.
2/5/07: Day 1: Rest
2/6/07: Day 2: Attempted pasture sprint failed to materialize. Sometimes horses are into it and take off. Today, they were neither into it or willing to extend themselves under the ground conditions. So, mild exercise slightly better than nothing at all.

Injury Rate: Disclaimers and Conclusions

I've taken a lot more time than planned in setting out the obvious. Lots of race horses get hurt-- Santa Anita, or Belmont, Beulah or Delta Downs, its all the same. Half of this year's participants or more will move on next year to new careers due to injury. All across the training food chain from Lukas down to hard working Steve Jones at Eureka, they all quickly hurt almost everything.

The blog has hardly produced a smoking gun. This information we have to ferret out. No one keeps stats. A microscope on Lukas and Mandella, Equibase a few of their horses to confirm findings, a little more reading here and there, Baffert, Nafzger, the Green Monkey as Exhibit A, a look at scattered available data, and personal information and observation provide the conclusions.

Despite all this, a few things still give pause for thought regarding any conclusions set in stone. First, it's been three years since RR is regularly stabled on a backstretch. We've shipped in for a while due to personal circumstance, and so, I puzzle whether things perhaps have changed. It's more difficult to keep finger on the true pulse from far away.

Additionally, you consider how things are now compared to, perhaps, 50 years ago. Did they have this same horrific injury rate then, or maybe even more. If it was then otherwise, how did this current situation evolve. What is the history of it? I wonder if anyone even knows.

There's also some logic we have to consider, for how in heaven's name is this topic anywhere but on the front pages continually until we get some answers. Of course, Barbaro provided temporary publicity. But, even his tragedy has served as much to cover things up as expose. The analysis of how the Barbaro injury, Pine Island, and others occurred, the lack of pre-race diagnostics, etc., have been quickly swept under the rug.

Along this same line, when will we see the first owner lawsuit against a trainer for injuring an animal? Where are all those owners suffering these continuing losses? Why is nobody screaming bloody murder?

All the above are valid points, and these and others should cause continuing analysis on this issue. Has the blog overestimated, puffed it up? I doubt it, but the question of what really is the overall injury rate will remain till they start keeping stats.

Next post: Some conclusions about what the injury rate is doing to the sport.

Today's training:
2/3/07: Rest due to frigid weather.
2/4/07: Day 3: by the accident of a 4f riderless pasture romp all out after a 10 minute warmup we get a Burch Training Day 3, and we're back at it.
2/5/07: Day 1: Rest due to frigid weather and yesterday's speed work. I've decided to keep weight off for now since we seem to be having a growth spurt.

Across the Board, What is the Rate of Injury?

Time to look at the stats. And, yes there are some, even though injury rate stats nationally will come in the future. So, we put together what's available, in the blog's attempt to prove the sky is blue and conventional trainers injure horses.

As RR is training a horse and will suffer the results including those based on false premises, I'd like to avoid a minefield of bogus conclusions. We strive for accuracy even while this seems available only as educated guess work.

Everyone has their own opinions about race horse injuries, and so, in this blog, I'd like to approach it from my perspective and experience for somewhere since I got into racing I developed this realization of the large injury problem in the sport.

During my handicapping days at Ak-Sar-Ben in the second summer, I was happy to see some old favorites back to race. Such memorables as Nebraska filly Sandhill Diamond, Mr. Wire to Wire, Roses Turn, Herb Riecken trained Who Dr. Who, Alum Fork and others. Equally noticeable to this ever more experienced handicapper of that time, most of last year's horses had disappeared, unable to find them with a search warrant. And so from RR the very first hmmm and uhmms as to these disappearing acts.

Next was the novice, wide eyed thoroughbred owing RR right on track at the brand new Prairie Meadows, Altoona, Iowa with his three horse stable in the shedrow of the infamous Griz Trittle, trainer of record, but sworn on his winstrol and flipping halters never to touch my horses. Hard to escape notice in this period that only a few of the 40 horses in the barn with their several trainers were racing. And then some shedrow tours with new trainer friends that still reverberate in the memory: "this one has a splint, that one a chip, the one over their races with a bow" as the trainer pointed to the leg of each animal. "Do you ever gallop these horses?" new owner me deep in Stage III of a Tom Ivers protocol wanted to know. "Naaah, we just race 'em as long as we can."

By the time I hit the Kentucky Horse Center in Lexington in 97-98 I was taking whole facilities into the injury equation observing this time that maybe 2-300 of the 1000 horses on ground were actually shipping to Turfway or River Downs. Again the wheels were spinning, here in the capital of racing this being the case, might it be so everywhere?

Indeed it is. First we see it in the field sizes, racing secretaries begging for entries from trainers with shedrows full of horses most of them hurt. And, we can quantify this problem by looking closely at the entry rate of any meet. I'll take the recent Woodlands meet as an example. We have a back stretch with 1000 horses, trainers falling all over themselves for stalls, and 25 racing days spread over 6.5 weeks. Might we hope each horse would race at least 4 times during this meet?

There were 250 races and let's project the national average 7.6 starters per race though at Woodlands it would be less. This is 1900 starters for the meet. Had each horse raced 4 times we would have 4000 starters for the meet. In percentage terms 47.5% of horses eligible entered. 52.5% stayed in their stalls.

We have other more peripheral indicators. If you watch the Santa Anita track cam here at the outset of the season you'll see numerous horses galloping. As the meet progresses you'll see less and less. Then there are the various studies, seminars, compendiums and other alarums across the industry. Regional studies here and there invariably point to a 30-50% injury rate.

And then there is that endangered species the disappearing owner. So many of them have reached that point where horse after horse was hurt, they bite the bullet and get out. The City owner in our area, and I suspect over much of the country, has gone the way of the dinosaur, dust covered wingtips giving way exclusively to cowboy hats and boots on the backstretch.

Of course the injury rate is a fluctuating figure. Any attempt to pin it down always has a margin of error. Much study and examination have supported the initial RR speculations: a 65% per year career ending injury rate for 3 and up with 10% margin of error, and 50% unable to race at any given moment due to injury with again a 10% margin of error. Unfortunately, I doubt this is, in the slightest, overblown.

Today's training:
2/2/o7: Rest. Frigid conditions.
2/3/07: Rest. Ditto.
2/4/07: The weathermen exaggerated the cold in our area. Today I was pleasantly surprised that the ground had softened. The expected slow gallop pasture romp turned into a 4f sprint.
The Art report: Art was drafting in second for a couple furlongs, and then bursts to the lead and flashes a bit of speed. I've decided to keep weight off for the present as we seem to be in a growing period.