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.