Injuries And Other Things

In a week of being lazy, I'll touch on a little miscellaneous stuff. We've reached the stage of rigorous training with the oldsters, and, knocking on wood, have gotten here basically injury free. Ace did show some tendon sponginess for one night only, and Al had a one day check ligament problem, front left, that quickly tightened up, thought there was a minor vestige of that after Monday's breezes.

Of course, the horses instead of just commencing 4 x 2.4f breezes under 175 lbs were brought to that point, but, from here it gets ever toughter. More farm breezes tonight. We'll repeat Monday's work but tighten up the warm up a bit, and try to shorten the gallops out and restarts. We'll plan a Sunday w/o at Eureka in the 3 x 3f range, and then the promised first of August evaluation of "where next".

Here is last night's work:

Wind and Al, the twelve year olds--Day 2 Burch, I decided on riderless work in the paddock before today's breeze work with the horses to go at whatever speed they chose. They chose "slow" for 1.5 miles after warmup. This is the second time after tough breezes on Day 2 Burch that neither horse wanted any part of going fast. It's looking like they need the full two days rest between the breezes. Interesting, and we'll see how this goes.

Ace, age 6, riderless fast stuff in the paddock with Art after two days off. Lot's of energy, flashing that he's starting to put things together.

Art:
7/23/07 Monday: Day 3 Burch. Very snappy two miles riderless with a lot of energy.
7/24/07 Tues: Off.
7/25/07 Wed: Put in paddock with Ace, big horse, little horse with idea of letting them play and exercise at their own speed. The choice they made turned out to be 6 x 2f each one at about 85% speed. They were moving but a little short of all out. This is right were Art is at, and so, go with the flow. Art is late in the shoeing cycle and looked less smooth than normal.