"Guess I'm Lucky"

Guess Who? Devil's Bag, and then Woody Stephens and Wife in Lexington, 1946.

I just finished Woody's 1985 autobiography "Guess I'm Lucky" ghost written by James Brough. I wanted to read this to confirm my suspicion that it was Woody Stephens, with all his success, that began the transition from the hard training of Max Hirsch et. al. to the softer training in vogue the last 25 years. Hirsch's Belmont barn was right beside Woody's and they were good friends.

Was I on the mark in this thinking that it was Woody that began to back off of hard training, and that Woody was then emulated by numerous copycats?

After reading the book, I'll agree with Woody, he got lucky, starting with that wife. As in Baffert's book "Dirt Road To The Derby" there's a list of W. Stephens trained stakes winners in the back, but, it makes Baffert's impressive list look like chump change. 13 pages of stakes winners spanning 1940 to 1985 when the book ends with the near Belmont Stakes dead heat of Woody's horses Creme Fraiche and Stephan's Odyssey.

But, Woody writes nada about what his horses do in the morning. We learn they go out in sets, and he even describes them as they walk off, but, Woody deigns to describe his training. Maybe it was a state secret. We do read in the 200 pages every othere aspect of horse racing through Woody's eyes. This is also similar to Baffert's book where Baffert writes so little about his contact with his horses that you wonder if the guy ever goes to the barn.

Maybe lack of training information in these sorts of books reveals quite a bit about the mindset of these "trainers" concerning what they're really about, and why they are in horseracing. If they valued their actual training, you'd think they'd give us at least a word or two about what they do. So, I'm unable still to report what Woody did on the track other than a few scarce hints. I do have a very good understanding though of Woody as a man and racing icon after this book.

Woody's account is entertaining for anybody in horse racing. The book shows Woody as a stand up guy, but, you'll see next post that I am other than an admirer of his. Think Devil's Bag.

Today's training:
Actually, I have to catch things up to date. So much these days failing to happen! Got to the farm Saturday hoping against hope Art's hoof patch had held in the mud and rain. But, as expected, with the horn expanding and absorbing moisture and the patch being static, the patch came loose and was sucked off in the mud. Too wet to repair Saturday and so, passed on training.

Then the silver lining maybe of doing so little training the last three weeks. I get up Sunday morning, and the little fellow looks visibly taller. Is this the long hoped for growth spurt? A measurement showed a definite slight increase in height. I put a little extra calcium in his feed and kept my finger's crossed. Sunday eve I eyeballed and he looked taller yet. Optical illusion? Measurement showed significant growth "since this morning"! The little fellow needs to get to 15"3.5" We're just a shade under 15'3" now. I repaired the patch with plans to exercise, and then the thought: do you train on the very day of a growth spurt? I think you leave it alone, and so, rested again on Sunday.

Recent Photos: More Weather

Mud puddle photos suffice for this week all taken yesterday as you can check out what a supposed .21 inches will do to your paddock after you have .11, .79 and .17 inches fall the preceding three days. Actually, the last photo was after the .11 inch Tuesday when we managed to get in a workout just as it started. Other than complaining mind you, but, how does one train horses in this stuff? 9 days of rain in April, 11 days in March, which is fine, it was only 13 inches, but, it is the spacing and patterns of the rain fall that is killing us by taking out whole weeks, and in the case of March the whole first half. Sunshine is back today and nice temps., so I'll report later as I'm reading a chapter in Woody's book where he brags about training through wind, mud, snow, rain and cold, er...make that his crew does that while he sits in his office and sips Sanka and reads through the racing form to check up on the competition. Somebody's got to do it. lol. More on warm ups coming. It's "under construction".

Warm Up Continued.

The photo shows Jerry Bailey at Saratoga in 2002, but here's Woody Stephens about 1950 on warming up:

"The times are changing sure enough. . . The ponies are used today to take a horse and its rider to the post because by the time they've galloped there, the jock is too tired to handle him. In my day, if a horse got tough, we turned his head toward the outside fence and galloped him. He might have had half a gram of heroin on his tongue, too, and he'd get so sharp he'd run through a wall if he was pressed."That's from page 76 of Woody's tale of horse racing woe, entitled "Guess I'm Lucky".

Woody was proto-typical hardboot, uneducated, high school drop out, grew up in Lexington, became a jock, and then as his weight ballooned transitioned to groom, assistant trainer, trainer, with enough native smarts and drive to fight his way to the top. He was married, and gives his wife a lot of the credit for his success. I'll give a full report after I've finished the book.

I propose here however to dig a little deeper than the hardboot explanation for warm ups, for after all it's 2007 and chapters have been written in the texts about warming up, testing it for duration and intensity in terms of resulting performance, and breaking it down into all of its components. Let's acknowledge that in human athletics warm ups are specific to the athlete and can range from the merely intuitive all the way to down and dirty scientific of the sort of warm up you see at the Olympic training labs. Human exercise physiologists can prescribe ideal warmups to maximize performance for a particular event . Can we in any way relate such precision to our horses? I'll try to be specific in the coming posts.

Today's Training:
two days of rain and my love of training in the mud provided enough excuse to cancel training for a second day in a row. Hopefully we'll be back at it tomorrow.

Warming Up

I continue to be confounded and dumbfounded by the warm up methods for racing and training. It seems that the country is without anybody that understands or appreciates the role of appropriate warm up in either injury prevention or racing performance.

Let's take racing as an example. The horse generally is cantered beside a pony for two or three furlongs. The lucky one's might get a second heat of this. There's a furlong or two of trot, lots of walk, and then the horse is expected to bang full speed out of the gate.

This passes as a North American "Warmup". I recently had watched a Japanese turf race in awe of what these horses do compared to this side of the Pacific in their warm up routine. Never mind how the Japs train, at least they know their horses are ready when they come out of the gate.

Wish I had the ability to save the clip. It is really amazing. The warm up was done devoid of ponies with each jock exercising his horse in staggered distances some on the inside rail some on the outside. Most of the horses did at least some significant two minute clip, and every horse warmed up to the race just exactly as you'd expect physiologically for maximum performance. None of the horses ran off or was out of control, though I feel sure that happens on occasion. This field by my eyes dashed out of the gate much more in control and comfortably than you normally see here.

Let's make one thing clear at the outset. If you have two equally trained and talented horses, the warm up will separate the performance. I have watched this countless times on a riderless basis in my own backyard with horses sprinting around in circles. Each and every time I will get the weakest performance with the first sprint, the second is a little stronger, and the third is the best. The fourth might equal the third, and by the time they get to five they start tailing off.

The point is that racing performance never can be at max efficiency without some speed in the warm up. I am so sure of this that I will declare it an immutable law. If you want the best from your horse, do some speed work in the warmup. If any reader disbelieve this premise, conduct your own experiment with it, and you'll confirm this to your satisfaction.

But, the other factor in the warm up is what so completely amazes me about the way warmups are done on our race tracks both in the morning and afternoon. Lack of appropriate warm up will injure horses. This bears repeating: lack of appropriate warm up WILL injure horses.

The word "appropriate" as it relates to warm up consists of far more than you might expect with casual reading. I'll elaborate in the next posts.

Today's Training:
We're back at it, the patch is holding. Left the office early today with incoming rain, and sure enough it arrived 1.5 hours early just as I was pulling into the farm. Luckily the horses were in the running paddock, and we got in some decent riderless conditioning work for Art before it started pouring. This is only strenghtening after the long layoff, but, at least we got it in.

Training Photos 4/23/07

Back In Training:

Shown here the first post hoof repair workout with Art galloping riderless behind a buddy just before sundown Sunday. The paddock is still dried crusted mud.

Several quandries and unknowns from the patch job shown last post. Will it hold without cracking the Equilox? Will it hold when wet weather expands the hoof?

Then, I'd like to spend a day as an atom of cornified laminae situated directly beneath that double patch to feel the pressure of the patch, the heat generated, the irritation from the toxic material of the Equilox (barred from air travel), and also whether the Equilox will slide on down to the ground surface as the coronary band produces more horn. Lot's of questions.

But, right now, the patch holds and we're officially back "in training".

Hoof Repair

Sacrifice Bunt

Baseball anyone? You'd have to be fairly "with it" to be aware that Sacrifice Bunt, a full uncle to our own little Amart, will go to post in the Lexington at Keeneland tomorrow. Expect a big race from SB. You heard it here first. SB's claim to fame is that he finished fourth in the 2007 Illinois Derby, and that he's a Bill Mott trainee as was his brother Vision and Verse (sire of Amart), winner of the 1999 Illinois Derby. Too bad of SB's 2004 birth date. Had he been a 2005 foal, Uncle and Nephew might have faced each other in the 2008 Derby.

In the "horses are trouble" department I've been encouraged at the drying out of Art's hoof as a patch can only be applied to a dried hoof. There was certain rain in the forcast last night, and so in the dark Nob applied a special boot and bandage to keep the mud out, a 30 min effort. Of course, it never rained. Additionally, it appears that Breeder's Supply has sent me the wrong type of Equilox.

The larger hurdle to the hoof repair, as I continue to study--this is a real engineering problem--will be getting whatever patch is applied to hold. The injured area at the heel of the rear hoof consists of a horizontal crack about 1.5 inches length that is "movable" due to it's location. The crack expands and contracts as the horse walks. I could visualize an Equilox patch on top and that the separation might "slide" under the Equilox and quickly break the Equilox bond. How to prevent such underneath sliding is the question of the moment. The camera is back in operation, and we should have some interesting shots soon!

More Farm News

Taking a short break from serious blogging and plan to get back to training and injuries shortly. The new $400.00 Samsung SCH-a990 3.2 megapixel camera phone with which I'm planning updated shots refuses to transfer pix to its memory chip. It's somewhere there in the 300 page manual.

So, post a couple of old pics, the first showing the under-construction woodchip track. The wood chips have been slow going as the arborist--great guy--who dumps them for free, we rake them out, seems to have less business than originally anticipated. I'll get to this full bore eventually, and we'll have something to train on in the rain!

The second picture shows a little fuzzy, but, you can make out our "track" in the mowed sections out in the field.

Dr. Jackson was by to give spring shots, take coggins, health certificate for Eureka Downs and inspect Art's hoof Wednesday evening.

Dr. Jackson is a highly intelligent man and conscientious Vet. But, I could tell, as expected, that he is inexpert at this unusual hoof damage and was only hazarding a guess that it's unnecessary to remove any hoof wall, and that a delicate patching job lay ahead. We made the decision to do nothing last night, and Nob will commence to attempt an Equilox patch this weekend. In the meantime I continue to google the subject particularly the art of applying patches to exposed laminae. What I'm seeing published, especially from the Vet schools, is that a number of methods of patching have been tried, none of them very successful, which may be an explanation why horses with quartercracks tend to be off quite a while, e.g. Tapit last year.

Actually, from the reading I'm suspecting in terms of raw knowledge on hoof patching that Nob may be as expert as any of them based on Nob's fairly extensive past experience. Who'd have thunk. We'll put this to the test this weekend, and if I can get this camera/camcorder going maybe even post some shots of the repair, presuming I can rouse my 16 year old camera person earlier than his usual 12 noon weekend wakeup time.

Farm Update

Here's a shot of our barn. There's a basketball court in the upper section. The lower section abutting the ground in concrete is the open barn area for the horses.

This farm is located 12.5 miles from downtown Kansas City, a 15 minute commute to my office. When I'm lucky I go down the interstate, hit two green lights and drive into the office parking lot.

I've rented this farm for 15 years from a judge's wife. Jane Elliot's father, an optomitrist, built this place and the classic old barn in the 1940's. There used to be 90 acres, but now, the back 40 where I once had a wonderful track, has apartment buildings. The bulldozers are to the edge of the property. Luckily landlord Jane is anti-development, and I think she intends to hang in there with the farm for a few more years.

Tonight Dr. Kent Jackson, my vet, will look at Art's hoof and we'll determine whether any hoof wall removal is required before hopefully a patch job this weekend to put the little horse back in business. I'll report on the vet visit later.

Tonight I look forward to the third straight night of galloping after last weekend's rains. Spring is here, and wallet, energy and weather permitting we hope to hit Eureka Downs in a couple of weeks.

Toe Grab Finale

Quite a race Saturday, but this snap shot really got my attention. Take a look at the position of the right front leg of Street Sense in the photo.You'll see the leg near the end phase of the stride with the fetlock sinking to the track surface. The next motion on that leg is straight backward at maximum speed with the whole weight of the horse at 12,000 lbs/square inch, and then forward again to the beginning phase of the stride. This shot shows the perplexity as to fetlock integrity in this vulnerable position. When you consider Notional and Ravel and how those injuries can happen, focus on this photo.

Adding a significant toe grab to the end of the hoof in the picture, and you'll understand the sort of thing we were trying to figure at Eureka Downs in 2000 with our own toe grab experiment.

Multiple questions: would a grab in the position shown in the photo slow down the stride, speed up the stride, put more pressure on the fetlock-suspensory apparatus in this position, less pressure? There are multiple possibilities and so you may answer these questions yourself differently than we did. The process of visualization is to think what occurs as the foot first strikes the ground heel first, and then follow that motion of the hoof on through the stride from the top of the fluff of the sand on down to the base and and on back. You consider the force applied by the toe grab in all stages of the stride. And then you consider also the other types of shoes available in the same sequence.

What to conclude then as to the injury effect of a regular grab in the position shown in the photo? The answers on close analysis may surprise.

Note first that the fetlock sinks regardless of shoe. And, does the fetlock sink to this degree with every stride, or is this sort of sinking action reserved to the latter stages of racing when the suspensory apparatus fatigues, or, perhaps this sort of sinking merely is an awkward step or optical illusion? I rarely see this degree of sinking in real time and conclude that sinking to this degree is occasional. Hence, the concern vis a vis adding a grab to the photo is minimized somewhat IF the leg is in the postion only on occasion. I've never watched extended slow motion photography, so this represents merely my speculation. Logically I'm unable to think fetlocks would hold together if the above photo were an "every stride" thing.

Secondly, as you imagine the stride continuing from the point shown, there will be a forceful action of the hoof backward to finish the stride, then forward again. Would a longer grab impede this motion and put more force on the fetlock than a Queens Plate without toes? Yes is the simple answer, BUT the degree of impedence depends on the composition of the surface and particular resistance of the surface. If the surface is deep sand, would even a long grab at speed really impede all that much, or by the same token apply all the much more pressure to the fetlock? And, if the said effect of the grab in deep sand is fairly minimal, would the injury effect then be all that much greater than a toeless Queens plate sliding around on ground contact?

A justifiable conclusion is that the grab would seem to have "some" negative effect with the degree being unknown even if some of the toe grab studies attempted measurement. Statistically horses race in grabs all the time, and in any given race the injury rate is small. Such stats would seem to provide some significant evidence of safety and point to other injury causing factors. If Street Sense was wearing front grabs, which he probably was for Nafzger, he was out trotting a mile Sunday morning.

Grabs have to be considered as a training-injury variable. My own answer fearing the unknown as illustrated in this post is to use the lowest grab that is competitive. Significantly, after much thought, Level Grips rather than Regular Grabs are my shoe of choice. On a deep surface, as I noted last post, the answer is other than conclusive against regular grabs, and so I'd personally go to them to compete. I would do so, however, with some apprehension.

Toe Grabs: Conclusion

Flashing back to 2000: Since my entry into horse racing the toe grab debate had loomed, more among the academics than those at the track. For those of us racing horses, we had to make a decision, and I'd decided to settle the perplexing question for my horses once and for all by putting the shoe options to the test.

I spent a lot of time just staring at shoes. I picked them up to feel the weight, considered shoe thickness and cushioning, imagined visually on grab length, depth of fullering, layout of the ground surface and so on, the multiple possibilities for performance, and injury causation for each shoe. Many possibilities here when you include putting different styles on the same horse fronts and hinds.

I arrived at my conclusions after several weeks of this sort of pondering combined with observation track side as to questions of traction, stride efficiency, length, and ease, and a quality that I term "stride confidence" meaning how confident did the horse act in moving down the track, were the shoes bothering the horse in any way?

Here is what I came up with:

Different styles fronts and hinds: this is a complex shoeing. It also seems to be getting popular of late to place a non-grab traction shoe on the fronts and grabs on the hinds. I've inquired, but am yet to figure out what type of shoe the top trainers are using on the fronts. I've looked at a lot of photos that seem to show horses racing without front grabs.

I tried several different variations on front and rear. My conclusions observationally were comparative to the same horse galloping in the same style on all fours. I concluded there is a slight but perceptible difference in the galloping when different styles are used front to hind. I observed the horse less comfortable, more uncertain of its stride and there was some negative effect on stride efficiency. Emphasize that the differences were small and hard to see. It makes sense. Different styles are going to give you a different rate of turnover front to hind. To the horse I suspect the difference is noticeable and uncomfortable. I elminated style variation from my options.

Straight Queens Plates: this completely toeless shoe I'd eliminated years earlier as non-competitive. However, for those advocating Queens on front and grabs on hinds, I had two problems: 1. horses tend to slide and paddle on deep surfaces in Queens, and 2. the shoe is thicker and of completely different character in its fullering and ground surface to any grab shoe. Queens were already out for me.

Queens XTs: These shoes were involved in my experiment, and I'd also used them on all four feet for years. XTs offer slightly better traction that Queens. Horses can race in them, but, the XT deficiencies in terms of traction on a deep surface were already apparent to me and the big reason for my experiment. XTs on all four legs were out for me after observing the more confident, sure stride of my horses in grabs.

Thoro'bred Racing Plate Co. Low Toes: this is a very light shoe weight wise (presumably, good) but the lesser weight is accomplished by thinning out the branches of the shoe so that there is virtually zero cushioning. Hard to see on a hard track how use of this shoe would fail to "sting" the horse. Additionally, due to the thinness, the fullering is so shallow as to make traction on this shoe soley dependent on the tiny grab. This is a low effect shoe--other than the grab it might as well not be there. On the track Aylward moved significantly better in Low Toes than XTs. He seemed more comfortable in them than myself who wanted to avoid fracturing a coffin bone with these non shoes. There were better options than the Low Toes.

Level Grips: The size of the grab on Level Grips is identical to Low Toes. It is a small grab. However, compared to Low Toes, level grips are an outer rim shoe--meaning that the outer rim of the shoe is higher than the inner rim along with deep fullering. In combo these qualities provide Level Grips with significant traction advantage compared to Low Toes. This showed on the track but was slight. You'd have to look carefully to notice. By these eyes the horse looked better in Level Grips than Low Toes, barely, but, it was there. Believe you'd see a bigger difference on a deep sand track(we were at the hard Eureka Track). Level Grips were a candidate.

Regular Grabs: Aylward showed improvement in all aspects of his stride in Regular Grabs Compared to Low Toes. Only Groovin' Wind used the Level Grips, though Aylward used them after the experiment was over. I decided against Regular Grabs for two reasons: 1. I was still influenced by the possibility that this size grab on the fronts might contribute to injury, and 2. the difference I was seeing between Groovin'Wind in Level Grips and Aylward in Regular Grabs was slight.

Bottom Line--after several weeks I decided that the difference competitively between Level Grips and Regular Grabs is slight. Given the injury possibility of the long grab there was zero reason to take a chance. Level Grips it is, was the decision, and I've been sticking to it. Please note that I've yet to use Level Grips on a deep surface. Should this shoe provide insufficient traction, I'd got to Regular Grabs without hesitation based on my observations and conclusions. There's a possibility that Regular Grabs contribute to injury causation, but I have my doubts on this for the conditioned horse.

Derby Trail

My Derby pick Stormello receives a little ink today. Nice Steve Haskin article in the Blood Horse. Fans tend too quickly write off horses with bad performances. In the long run for me it's conditioning and talent. If you have both, lookout. With Stormello the conditioning is a question as it's unknown what he does on non-breeze days, and I'm unable to buy that he faded in the Florida Derby due to his flight problems. He had the same flight problems in FOY and went on. While I agree Stormello look flat in his last race from the get go, the immediate fade at the eight pole was related to something else imo besides the flight. And so, I'm encouraged in terms of my prediction to see Currin take the horse the entire 1 1/4 miles in yesterday's breeze. This sort of legit training that will make this talented horse dangerous in the Derby.

As to the Blue Grass and the Arkansas Derby, again some interesting races building up. Let's just predict that the best training job in many a year has been done by C. Nafzger, and believe you'll see that on Saturday. As to the Arkansas Derby, a handicapping perplexity with numerous contenders. D. Wayne (I don't work horses) Lukas suddenly decided to "work" the big horse Flying First Class. Lukas is one of the better non-work day trainers, and so, consider the Lukas horse dangerous in Arkansas.

The RR predictions: Street Sense is the no brainer. I've written that Asmussen might be under estimated as a trainer, and I believe thus Curlin will be tough, but, a lukewarm thought that Wayne Lukas might pull this off.

Update And Some Hope, And More Weather Perplexity

http://www.quartercrack.com/ is a nice website by a fellow who specializes in hoof injury repair. There's a lot of info on the site as well as photos of the repairs. Amazing stuff. This shows options to get Art back into training quickly.

One problem though. The intricate hoof surgery described on the site followed by skilled patching first requires a drying out of the hoof and cornification of the underlying soft tissue-laminae. After drying the damaged parts of the laminae and the hoof wall are removed and patching material applied.

Would you know it! It's raining at the farm, and despite my best efforts to keep the injured area clean including application of a boot, the whole thing is now covered with mud (we're without stalls). The weather is what we'd call "raw", and so even placing the little horse in an all grass field is a questionable option with the hard wind and rain and cold headed our way. Every weather system in the country keeps coming at central USA from all directions. Our entire racing season right now is in serious jeopardy. Last week it was temps in the 20s followed by exactly two days of trainable weather, and now a week of steady mud and rain. What's this is doing to the operation right now and has been since last August is starting to boggle me.

On the hoof, for the time being, I'm inquiring the cost of either shipping in this specialist from New York State or having him talk us through the surgery locally. I may just have myself and my Vet, Dr. Kent Jackson, do the best we can. Dr. Jackson is a superb medical man and has an uncanny insight into what it takes to resolve injury problems. Given the $2600 cost of this talented little horse and the fact that his size at this point puts into question whether he'll even race, I may go the conservative route on this financially. I'm other than poor, but, supporting a stable, there's very little money laying around either. Presumably at some point we'll have dry weather to allow the hoof to dry out.

My conclusions on horseshoes and toe grabs, next post.

Houston We Have A Problem

Here's the wire cut a week later on the right hind.

I have posts out asking for help at www.horseshoes.com and with my Vet. We'll see what they say.

The extent of coronary band involvement is the worry here. Though maybe a stretch at this point, this could be life threatening.

The area above the cut lift's away a bit from the hoof wall but can be pressed back into place just like the piece of a puzzle greatly shrinking the size of the fissure. I could screw the area together with metal bands and apply Equilox, the hoof setting material that farriers use to rebuild damaged hoofs. Problem is the the location here is very mobile--the place where the pressure exerted on the hoof expands and contracts it with every step. So, unknown if anything can be done to really keep this together. We'll see what the experts say. There'll be somebody on the farrier forums that's dealt with this and knows what to do.

Needless to say, a bummer.

Toe Grab Studies

1. 2001 OSU Vet School Study: "Lengths of toe grabs were not a significant potential risk factor in catastrophic suspensory apparatus injury in this study." Same study: Severity of under run heals was significantly greater in racehorses experiencing catastrophic suspensory injury.

2. Grayson Jockey Club Research Foundation "Research Today" Newsletter, Volume 24, 2007 from U. Florida, AJVR, Vol 66 No. 8, August 2005: This study cites the difficulty in getting a large enough sample size since severe and catastrophic injuries are rare. "Results regarding use of toe grabs as a possible risk factor for catastrophic injury were inconclusive." What was conclusive? "...an extended interval since, and reduced exercise during the 30 or 60 days preceding injury were risk factors for catastrophic injury".--i.e. those idiots that keep their horses in the stalls instead of sending them to the track.

3. UC, Davis AJVR, Vol 65, No. 11, November 2004: "Marginal associations were detected between moderate ligamentous suspensory apparatus injury and age and height of toe grab".
Lack of exercise was again fingered as the primary culprit in serious injury by this study.

4. The highly prejudicial 2001 study at UC Davis by Sue Stover DVM with her preconceived notions concerning the detriment of toe grabs results in the admission by Ms. Stover (see my last post how my own ideas developed on this) that "injuries are multifactorial and many of the causal factors are interelated. This results in 'confounding'--any finding that one factor (e.g. toe grabs) appears statistically related to injury." Ms. Stover speculates how the toe grab meets the ground or dirt surface and expresses her suspicion that toe grabs contribute to suspensory strain. (RR take: she's probably correct, BUT, I'm other than totally sure. Horses sliding around in queens plates also cause strain. Quite obviously overly long toe grabs should be banned. The correct length awaits more study, and polytrack is completely new.)

5. The RR studies at Eureka Downs, 2001: Mypersonal experiment with shoes types was small scale systematic and intensive. For years I'd wanted to change up shoes and do the observation for reasons of competition and injury. In 2001 I found the time and energy to proceed.

We used several different shoe combos on two horses over eight weeks. These horses galloped almost daily and breezed every four days. We had ample opportunity for direct observation. This personal study was without camera, video, applied force studies etc. The only thing done was to stand a trackside and closely observe hoofs hitting the ground and the gallop and seeming comfort of the horse in terms of stride length, stride efficiency, ease of turnover, traction and probably several other things that I'm unable to recall.

In the late nineties all my horses wore Queens XTs with their tiny relatively inconsequential grab. For my study I ordered several sets of low toes, regular toes and level grips from Thoro'bred Racing Plate Company.

When they arrived I visually inspected each type of shoe very carefully and attempted to imagine the effect of the particular configuration on what we were about here: strain on the fetlock and suspensory apparatus, delay or hindrance of turnover, traction or the manner in which the hoof would hit the ground, the effect of the shoe configuration on the heel first landing (note the thick heel buttresses of the Queens compared to the thin buttresses on the Level Grips.) Ivers observed that as hoofs hit the ground there is a natural give or sliding effect. He was worried about shoes that held the hoof on impact and prevented the sliding. Is this a legit concern?

With these thoughts in mind I then went track side to watch the horses gallop. I closely observed hoof impact, turnover, all the things stated above, and added intense observation as to what I was seeing in terms of stride length, stride efficiency, ease of striding, confidence of the horse in the landing of its feet. Also of great concern was whether having different "types" of shoes and lengths of grabs on the fronts and hinds would have any effect.

My conclusions:

Queens XT fronts
Low Toe Hinds: Compared to XTs on all fours this configuration produced a very obvious improvement in Aylward's stride. I'd owned and galloped the horse through six years of disappointing performance. Suddenly he looked like a new horse out there on the track.

Low Toe fronts
Low Toe hinds: Aylward looked better still, though the margin of improvement was smaller. I was seeing out of the horse much more stride length and power and confidence in his feet landing compared to what I had ever seen out of this horse.

Low Toe fronts
Regular toe hinds: more definite improvement though again a smaller margin of improvement. But, suddenly Aylward looked like a talented race horse on the track. He was motoring around now like he meant business. I'd never ever seen this in his queens. His trainer at the time, Mary Smith, was likewise wowed by the difference. Aylward showed this on the track. In four consecutive races he won three and finished second. (Aylward then promptly got himself kicked in the nose and was sent to MU Vet School for a $3000.00 nose job.)

Groovin' Wind: Level grips on all four: Wind showed a less dramatic change than Aylward. There is a reason for this that I'll discuss next post. But, there was the same sort of obvious improvement in Wind's stride compared to Aylward. Wind would soon in his first race hold his own with a horse of the meet and win his second race by 20 lengths. These were different horses wearing the grabs.

What about injury and these grabs. This and my overall conclusions, next post.

Training: It's other than a happy Easter at the RR farm. The hoof injury is significant. I'll post pics. soon.

This Morning At The Farm 7:30 A.M.

Toe Grabs

Ask a trainer why they put toe grabs on horses and they'll tell you it's done so that the horse can get a hold of the racing surface. All the trainers when I started were racing with grabs, and I never heard anybody question the practice until I read Tom Iver's 1983 book "The Fit Race Horse".

Ivers it appeared was mental on toe grabs considering them a signficant factor in the injury equation. What was this anyway? Someone considering the injury effect on the horse of a piece of equipment? By Ivers, grabs delay turnover, contribute to fatigue, play unnatural forces on all the suspensory aparatus including the sesamoids. Ivers had nothing good to say about toe grabs, and, by the same token shoes without grabs play just the opposite, according to Ivers. Under this influence early on I raced horses in Queens plates(a horseshoe without toe grabs).

In the late nineteen eighties and early nineties there were some studies in support of Iver's position. Was it Texas A&M Vet School? Somewhere. Some Vet, still around, studied grabs, did some slow motion camera work to prove the turnover problem, provided some stats and physics. Grabs are trouble according to this big study and some later smaller one's in California, all indicated a significantly higher injury rate for horses wearing grabs, never mind where they found horses racing without grabs.

As a horse racing novice I bought into this line of thought. Problem was I also had a set of eyes, and over a period of time I became a little weary of watching my highly conditioned runners going full blast down the straightaway getting caught and passed by faster horses running in grabs.

Following a couple such occurrances and a few resulting RR uhmms and ahhhs, I started paying more attention to my runner's stride efficiency in Queens and Queens XTs noticing that they seemed ok on the morning training surface, but, in the afternoon my horses were slipping and sliding in the deeper racing surface compared to the surefooted horses motoring down the stretch in regular grabs.

After commencing to watch stride and turnover of numerous horses, eyeballing hoofs as they made their way down the track, I observed for myself what I consider the first lie of the toe grab studies. I was unable to see visually where toe grabs were impeding turnover whatsoever. In fact, the horses I closely observed seemed to have more solid, more efficient strides at speed than my horses in Queens which seemed more to feel their way down the track.*

This and other observations put my mind into transition on the subject of toe grabs. I was getting deeper into racing and beginning to identify numerous injury causes having nothing at all to do with horse shoes. In this light, some Vet doing a study and declaring that toe grabs cause injuries started to look a little weak.

I also was reading the new (and superb, by the way) farrier bulletin boards at www.horseshoes.com where some of the top farriers post. I found a good one in Tom Stovall CJF, a respected farrier with a website carrying well reasoned article written by Tom about grabs. You can google "Tom Stovall" to get the site and the article. Tom advocates grabs on the rear and grabless on the fronts for reasons of physics which he outlines, a configuration I disagree with as you'll see next post.

By 2000 I was deep enough into the toe grab debate that I began to experiment with various horseshoes on my own horses at Eureka Downs. I used my best horse Aylward as guinea pig prior to a series races where he ran three times first and one second in four consecutive races. During this period and just prior to the first race we tried various shoe combos and evaluated them each over a two week period, as follows:

Fronts: Queens XTs
Rear: Thoro'bred Racing Plate Low Toes

Fronts: Low Toes
Rear: Low Toes

Fronts: Low Toes
Rear: Regular Toes

Fronts: Regular Toes
Rear: Regular Toes

My horse Groovin' Wind contributed to the experiment with level grips on all four. Results of my own on track toe grab studies, next post.

*Ease of turnover" depends somewhat on speed. Front grabs tend more to impede turnover at slow speeds than fast.

Today's Training to be posted: what I saw this morning in the 20 degree weather with our injured hoof was anything but pretty. I'll give a report on this later after I have a little more time to absorb what I saw.

Derby Musings

Some nice training of the Santa Anita Derby horses, at least judging from the published works. Adequate distance for the most part, and logically spaced. Breezing and works tell only part of the story. We only have to look at the Pletcher barn to see horses breezing slow who race well. Pletcher is doing a lot more than the breezes, and I've offered a reward on the Pedigree Forum for anyone who'll tell me what it is. Some of the horses in the other Derby preps this weekend, as usual based on the training of the horse up to the race, you ponder what is this trainer thinking?

These races require a first class handicapping effort to sort anything out, and what follows is only my superficial glance. No Biz seems like a no brainer in the Wood. Nice job by Barclay. Uniformed fans will talk about the blinkers, but with No Biz its the training. This horse will be in condition tomorrow, and, barring injury I'll be amazed at anything other than a strong performance. Barclay seems recently to have developed the Carl Nafzger disease. A couple nice works by Summer Doldroms, but, since I'm convinced that Richard Violette is one of those training imbeciles, throw him out. More crow coming in the unlikely event I'm wrong.

Cobalt Blue is one of my personal Derby favorites--raw talent and a top trainer. One work in 22 days fails to cut it for me. Cobalt will struggle but may prevail on sheer talent against a field that contains a lot of idiot trainers. Lukas's horse is in the Wood, but, look past performances of that horse to see an example.

Santa Anita Derby I'd avoid putting my money down--the "too many contenders" rule. I like Bwana Bull and it looks on the surface like a decent training job--the only horse that trained for distance. Liquidity seems the obvious choice based on works and comments. I think these two will be outfooted down the lane by King of the Roxy. Best trainer, most talented horse wins this race. King of the Roxy is out of a Bold Forbes mare. I have personal experience that these Bold Forbes types are spitfires.

Changing Track Conditions

Pedigree forum post this date: 16 fatalities at Bay Meadows already this year compared to zero at Hollywood Park. Bay Meadows has sand, Hollywood has polytrack. Is it the surface killing the horses at Bay Meadows or the trainers? That there's a lot of horses at Bay Meadows racing safely would be a hint.

What about changing surfaces on the horse, and this includes shipping for races, shipping to a new track, or racing on the same track under different conditions of fast, good, muddy and sloppy?

Tom Ivers fretted about a horses changing track conditions citing such change as significant cause of injury. And, indeed, do we ever want to race a horse on a muddy track. I scan the weather forcasts repeatedly before entering. If it might rain, I pass.

Switching racetracks to me is less a concern than it seemed to Ivers. The track crews are so conscientious and do such a terrific job I believe there is insufficient difference in consistency between the major tracks that shipping is that big a concern. Shipping to a different surface always naggs, and undoubtedly causes some otherwise unexplainable injuries. But with the ubiquitous shipping we see now days all around the world I'm hard pressed to agree with Ivers on this point. However, I'll state my opinion there's a large difference between changing surfaces on a "fit" animal than unfit. On the latter, I'd have to be extremely careful, which has to be the case with the unfit in any event. Additionally, I'd want to avoid moving from a fluffed deep surface such as shown in Barbara Livingston's photo above to a late August sunbaked surface in Texas with $5000 claimers running off in 1:08s.

In my own case, I am always delayed in racing because I train on grass at the farm. Grass fails utterly in bone remodeling, and thus, when I'm bound for Eureka Downs, the hardest surface in the area, I feel uncomfortable unless I've spent at least two months of steady work there before racing. Invariably after the first few gallops at Eureka I'll get some low cannon bone heat that I have to work through and be careful with in the extreme.

So, how do we conclude? Track surfaces are an injury factor, without a doubt, BUT, since this is known, a capable trainer will take this fact sufficiently into account. If the trainer is "incapable", then we have a concern.

(Re Hard Spun and Oaklawn, maybe there's something to that. Jahar in"On the Muscle" (Richard Mandella DVD), we see Jahar struggling with the track surface in the Oaklawn Handicap, even though Jahar caught up after being about 25 lengths back and won the race.)

Today's training:
We're still off due to the hoof laceration. I left too early to check it this morning, but, things looked a little better last night with the flashlight. I'm posting on The Farrier and Hoofcare Resource Center, www.horseshoes.com, to find out what to do about this two inch parallel to the ground hoof crack on the right hind.

Injury Studies

Over my years in racing I've noticed studies here and there detailing various factors thought to contribute to racing injuries. I read about the studies instead of the studies themselves, and recollect primarily studies involving race track surfaces, toe grabs, and the Maryland Shin study. There have also been various track and regional statistical studies detailing injuries. Perhaps a short look at what's been done in terms of studies is a good place to start on relating injuries to cause.

1. Track Surfaces: I recall in the early nineties several statistical studies in England and USA identifying hard surfaces as producing significantly higher percentages of catastrophic injuries than grass or soft dirt surfaces. These simplistic and incomplete studies indicate what we may suppose, which is that racing on concrete may fracture bones due to excess concussion. There's a difference I'm guessing between an equine front leg at speed loading at 12,000 lbs per square inch on a hard surface as opposed to grass. Let's acknowledge, without a doubt, hard tracks worry me, and the longer the race the deeper the concern.

I have multiple problems with the track surface studies. They tell such a small part of the story, and omit entirely what may be the real substance of the problem which is the "cuppy track" both in morning training, and horses racing over tracks preceded by other horses. How many condylar and sesamoid fractures or chips are started, instigated and concluded by horses landing a bad way when the track looks like a sand version of an egg carton? When someone tells you the horse was killed by taking a bad step, might this be what they mean. As a galloper and exercise rider, I can relate the frightfuly uncomfortable experience of galloping during the late morning over an deep cuppy training surface created by the prior trainees, especially at speed. It's always a wonder how the horses survive it, and also is the reason given by Australian trainer Tommy Smith (33 premierships in a row) for his early training starts. Tommy had all his 60 horses breezed and gone before the other trainers arrived at the barn.

Horses get hurt regardless of surface, and personally I've grown sick and tired of trainers of injured horses blaming the track surface. Either there's a hole in the track, the track is too hard or the track is too soft, you name the trainer and the story, and that's other than to say that on occasion there's a legitimate beef.

I've had arguments with trainers over whether the track should be hard or soft. The trainers wanting a soft track point to fractures; the trainers desiring a hard track point to bowed tendons and other soft tissue injuries caused by too deep a surface.

The truth of the matter is that a trainer can construct his training to adjust for the track surface. Horses can be "conditioned" to either type of surface, and I consider taking note of the sort of surface your racing on as a major variable in the training equation.

Do hard tracks break bones. Undoubtedly they contribute to the risk probably geometrically with length of race. I dislike galloping on a hard surface and as I'm on the horse at speed in that adventure I'm tending to calculate my exit from the horse with every stride.

However, I also know that I've done Burch training on one of the hardest quarter horse tracks in the country at Eureka Downs, breezing 4 and 5 furlongs every three days under 150-155 lbs rider weight without any discernible problem. Please note this preceded about three months of conditioning the cannon bones to the track surface BEFORE the serious breezing began. I conditioned the horses to the surface.

Do I like a soft deep track or a harder track for injury prevention. Obviously the best sort of track is a happy medium, and I think that most of the major tracks long ago figured this out. Between hard and soft, soft is always better.

As to track surfaces, let's leave it that the surface may be a contributing problem to the injury factor, but that very few surfaces directly cause injuries IF the horse is conditioned to the track. Given the fairly decent nature of most surfaces that horses race on, the "track excuse" wears thin.

What I see when I read that X number of horses broke down in the first two weeks at Delmar, instead of a problem surface, is problem trainers and training who are using track excuse. But I'll readily admit this is a supposition on my part and that the true answer for me is unknown.

The toe grab studies, next post.

Today's training:
As it turns out, Art's right hind has a serious laceration to the hoof wall which we missed when we removed the twisted shoe in the dark the night before. There is a two inch long "break line" running parallel to the ground surface about midway up the hoof starting at the area of the "quarter" and running backward to the heal. I've seen a lot worse, and believe this area will keratonize quickly and we'll be in light training in a couple of days. But, unknown. The horse is very sore presently on this, but, I'm suspecting it's due to the swelling, which will go down. There's some coronary band involvement also which worries me long term, but, again, this is bad luck that could have been a lot worse. Obviously the little horse got his rear leg caught somewhere. It is a relief that the tendon and fetlock swelling that initially freaked me out when I saw it is due to a cut instead of a bow or suspensory.

Quick Derby Seguay and Injuries:

Read Steve Haskin's nice Derby piece in the Blood Horse this morning, nice writing and cogent observations as usual, but one little paragraph especially caught my eye as a precise statement of what I spent post after post writing about on conventional training. Haskin says it all in one short paragraph.

Let me set the stage. I observed Johannesburg as one of the better two year olds. He won all seven races including the Breeder's Cup Juvenile, and while I could never see much in his sire, Hennesey, the broodmare sire Ogygian was another great two year old that stood out for me. The KY hardboots imho gave up on way too soon on the sire, Ogygian.

I've also observed the Johannesburgs in the two year old sales as awesome racing prospects. I've yet to see a bad one. If I could finger at least one sire that I'd suppose stamped himself--and there are many of course--but, Johannesburg just seems a good horse.

So, the question, if he was so good why was he a total bust on the Derby trail? Haskin this morning captures it perfectly--the sort of thing when I look at thoroughbred training that makes my blood boil:

"...Johannesburg never was given a chance to prove himself at 10 furlongs. He was sent into the Derby off one seven-furlong race on the grass in Ireland, had no conditioning at all, and still managed to beat more than half of the 18 horse field. He was injured shortly after and never got a chance to return to the form of this incredible 2-year old campaign".

What sort of mind numbing brain fog causes this sort of thing? That phrase "no conditioning at all" done by some meathead whose been training for Coolmore his entire life, and he enters this great horse in the Kentucky Derby without any work, and the horse is promptly injured. If you've yet to train a horse, know this--when you race a horse, instead of walking on egg shells you're walking on egg membranes. These animals are so incredibly fragile that there is one inevitable immutable rule, race an unconditioned horse and you'll injure it. Nothing in life is more certain. So, what is such a "trainer" thinking as they're "in the process"?

If it sounds as if this sort of horse training bugs me, it does.

By the way, Currin's got a talented enough horse to run away with the Derby. Based on a recent article, he's an interesting guy. Will he figure it out?

Pictured: Johannesburg.

Today's Training:
3/31/07: under water.
4/1/07 Sunday: after 3 days off instigated a few riderless paddock sprints and 7 min circling under tack without horses present. I neglected previously to include what's become relevant--after the fast work the horse had a twisted shoe on his right rear. I was thinking, how could the mud cause a twist this bad (thinking again how poorly Nob's been shoeing lately).
True enough, it had nothing to do with mud. Read on.
4/2/07: Monday: off. To my unbelieving disgust, as I was walking the horses in from the pasture I noticed Art's right hind fetlock significantly swollen, and the shoe thing from yesterday came into complete focus. Of course, the twisted shoe indicated the probable cause of the injury being a "rap" instead of a running injury or bowed tendon. The fetlock was swollen and also the lower suspensory-tendon, but significantly the swelling did not go all the way up the leg, and there was little heat and zero pain or lameness. The horse was galloping and playing on the leg without problem. Probable scenario--he got the shoe caught in wire, pulled away and hit it against something. This looks serious but probably will start reducing swelling by tomorrow, and that will be the test as to severity.

Training And Injuries: Preliminaries

Launching right in, a few definitions to establish some basic parameters:

Training: moving a horse forward, improving the athlete. Intrinsic in this, injury prevention. I've yet to see a better definition than the late Tom Ivers' "Preserve and Enhance". Training includes racing.

Trainer: do we give this title to everyone with a license? Is one deserving of the rank pontificating answers or asking questions? Mull this over the next time you meet one that knows everything there is to know about horses. Consider also the trainer as a "cause" when we're talking about cause and effect.

Injury: The Merriam Webster's definition: an act that damages or hurts. Specify that I'll be writing about physical injury, soft tissue and bone primarily to the limbs of the horse. To expand a bit, in athletes injury can be a process occurring over time or an instantaneous event or a combo.

I'll be dealing in the coming posts with "cause and effect". What causes injury? Can we indeed finger inappropriate training as a cause or are there other causes. Are injuries, including catastrophic ones simply part of the game, or are they preventable by certain "acts"? Let's define:

Cause: again, Merriam Webster: "something that brings about an effect or result" or "a person or thing that is the occasion of an action or state". In terms of injury I'd like to break it down, separate the elements, identify the variables. We discuss injury as a "process", an ongoing set of events that we may identify. Then, we may get to a solution, if there is one.

I'm considering how to proceed with this complex issue, and hope to have an answer next post.

Today's training:
3/28/07 Wed: Day 3: 5 x 2 riderless sprints. 10 under tack.
3/29/07 Thurs: 15 min under tack. First circles.
3/30/07 Fri: rained out.
3/31/07 Sat: Farm under water.
4/1/07: Day 3: Here's what we really did April 1. Revise the 6F out of the gate at PM slightly: with three off days from exercise, decided to put Art in the smaller running paddock with a companion and create some play. This resulted in a chasing scene, and despite alternate mud and dry spots (it was sunny and windy all day), both horses got in a good workout. Several short burst qualify this as a Burch Day 3 due to fast twitch work. Nob gave this report of the 5-7 minute tack work: I've yet to break a horse this young. The youngster has a nice temperment and is a sweet heart of a horse. At this point however, he still has a quick flash point and any fear may result in jumping in the air and dashing off. He's short, quick and fast, and hence in this sense very dangerous. Nob's fear is that while he's on the other horses present will go in the barn and the youngster follow them. The one time this occurred the helmeted Nob despite his best effort hit several beams with his helmet. This date, after Nob mounted two of the three oldsters headed right to the barn with one horse remaining. That horse also soon ended up in the barn. However, Art remained completely calm and Nob circled him in wide circles left and right. After 5-7 minutes of this Nob decided to avoid pressing his luck and ended it. Big break through today--walking in circles with all other horses out of sight.

Injuries and Training: My Intro

Excellent racing yesterday and more to come! Someone please inform me how far, fast and frequently in their training that Invasor and Scat Daddy are galloping and breezing. I want to know! It's been a while since I've seen horses running as strongly gate to wire as yesterday. My Derby pick, Stormello, just looked weaker today from the get go. You can tell a little by the depth of the head bob. And, Discreet Cat, I'll avoid even getting started on the training of that one. I feel sorry for the horse. Whose getting the boot first, Alberto Gonzales or Simon Crisford, who understands about as much as training an athlete as my fat secretary.

I'm ready to launch into my section relating injuries to training just when the injury rate on the Derby trail is lower than I'm able to remember. Notable by their absence are Zito, Baffert and Lukas replaced by a new crew that by all accounts better understand what they're doing. Coincidence or nice training? We'll see how they hold up as we go.

It's unknown to me really how I'll proceed with this subject. This after all is a blog instead of a scientific study. If someone put a gun to my head I'm sure I'd instantaneously recall all my prior studies, observation and experience in the field of human and equine sports medicine. But, the truth is that after you first internalize these subjects and believe you understand what's happening, you go on cruise control. In the daily training I know instinctively what to do and what to avoid, but, I'd probably pause if someone at this point in my career wanted a scientific explanation. Can I even name the parts of a horse. I can, but would have to think about it.

So, what I propose to do here, for any reader who happens by, is stumble along and paste this subject together. What will I be talking about in general? I previously posted about Ravel's condylar injury. The question is, how's this happen. What are the mechanics, causes, and physical action that results in a spot on the X-ray on the condylar aspect? It's fascinating as you think about it!

At some point in Ravel's activity, in that particular area of bone, the daily stress that produces a soft spot in the bone consisting merely of an excess of water between the bone cells failed to resolve itself in the rest period and became larger with the next bout of exercise, and so on, until the beginnings of a fracture line developed. That's one possible scenario, and this is the sort of thing on which I'll be posting. Were did they screw up with this horse?

Today's training: Nob took little Art to Prairie Meadows today and breezed him out of the gate 6f. Galloped out well. 1:12 and change. Our Derby hopes still alive and well. See below.




(Got ya!)