Thursday Workouts

Perfectly planned farm breezes go awry might have been the title for last night as we had a hair raising evening trying to get everything in. But, with a little help from the shoe gods which allowed Nob to tack on a couple of shoes in less than half his usual time, everything turned out well in the end.

The trouble started in my office when a client announced a 5:30 p.m. arrival time to pay some significant much needed money. With breezing at the farm instead of Eureka comes $125 in gasoline savings, and combined with this fee RR was $550 to the better, but arrived at the farm only at 6:30 p.m. with horses to round up, feed, one shoe to tack onto Aylward and then four horses to gallop before dark. It was going to be tight.

Al's shoe went on in a "breeze"; good work Mr. Nob! But, when I corralled Wind for Breeze #1 i was met with this:
Unbelievable! The photo fails to show that 45 degree angle of the left branch of the shoe bent straight upward. Unable to breeze this horse, and with zero hope of breezing him Sunday at Eureka since we'd last done tack work with him Monday.

So, straight ahead. We breezed Aylward and galloped Ace with the two year old to go, and still had some daylight. And there it dawned on me, hey, we might yet get Wind's work in.

Nob indeed replaced the bad shoe in about 10 min with some bare daylight left. Tack horse up. I planned only to gallop in the near dark, but, Nob conducted the breeze anyway, saying that he could barely see the track in front of him and was dodging deer on the turn. The following photo that I snapped immediately after removing Wind's saddle shows how dark it was. Wind is in there somewhere.

On the race track with a pristine surface in the early morning you can do this, but, at the farm with its undulating up and down course, it's a little tougher. Nevertheless, it all got done except the two year old, and we'll be off to Eureka Sunday. Here's what they did:

Al: .8 mile WU and 4 x 2.4f at max speed no stops. Nob said the performance was less impressive than Monday. He wanted the horse to go faster but got no response. On the brighter side, the horse was breathing easily at the end of each heat instead of locking up his breathing as he had been. 13.5 sec/f was probably the fastest he went.

Wind: 2 x 3f WU and 4 x 2.4f all out, but Nob said it was too dark to maintain full speed except in the middle safest parts, so this breeze also was less than Monday. It was sufficient though, and the horse was full of energy and speed.

Art: Off after yesterday's 6 x 2f riderless speed at 85% . Wanted to do tackwork, but, too dark.