Training That Gives Pause For Thought

For all the would be Derby trainers out there, yours truly included, how about the training of this guy, Barbaro, for the 2006 Derby?

Going into last year's Derby before I became plugged into racing on the Internet, I knew next to nothing about Michael Matz and his horse except the two race prep and that they then disappeared to a place name Fair Hill somewhere near the Atlantic Ocean. Before the Derby and based on my limited knowledge, which I then believed included powder puff training, I thought Barbaro would be injured along the way. He was, but, I believe now for reasons other than his training, except possibly as it relates to surface.

As the Derby unfolded and since from bits and pieces that I've strung together it became gradually clear that this was a bang up training job, and that whatever they did, it was highly effective. The first indicator to me was the Derby itself. A horse never dominates a field like that without some pretty good work done by it's trainer. While that Derby was hardly a fast performance, it was very strong by an obviously fit racehorse.

Since the Derby I've looked at the pics on the Barbara Livingston website ("Goodbye Barbaro") such as the one above. Yes, Marge, you can tell by looking at the specimen. The above photo shows B galloping under Peter Brett at Churchill, and, again you notice this horse is put together. Such an appearance happens for a reason.

Then there was Steve Haskin's offhand remark in one off his columns about B's "layoff" between the Florida Derby and Ky Derby, a characterization quickly challenged on the Tim Woolley website direct from Fairhill Training Center that Alex (the author) failed to recall a "layoff" and that Barbaro was "in training" in this period. What precisely B was doing, Alex cagely omitted.

But, we can make an educated guess based on what we can see. It is the training between 4/1/06 and the Florida Derby and the 5/6/06 KY Derby that would be the question. If you look at the Florida Derby you'll see B going all the way around at right on :12 sec/f. Well, I have horses that can do that, even while we'd concede that any 1:36 miles is impressive. They did an easy Florida Derby with B, and so, some significant training must have been done after Florida D. to get that Derby performance a month later.

Of course, the Fair Hill work was unpublished, and to my knowlege Matz ain't talking. May I make a surmise, however. I believe the sort of Derby training we're seeing this year, frequent and fast breezes, and staged in such a way to produce logical strengthening and speed began last year with Barbaro. Matz trains at Palm Springs in the winter with all those big trainers, and, I believe the word is out. Coaches, trainers, managers have always been expert copy cats. We're seeing this year a duplication of Barbaro training, and this is what gives RR significant pause for thought.

Why? Well, suddenly these soft conventional trainers seem to be morphing into real trainers and thus beating them no longer becomes a slam dunk. When you take a talented animal such as Ravel or Street Sense or Stormello and actually "train" him instead of converting it into a stall bunny (see Brother Derek last year), then, well, I'll concede, winning the 2008 Derby is going be tough.

Today's training:
The vet came for the abscess. Interesting story, next post.