The Whitney

The first race in a while to catch my attention was the Whitney yesterday as I'd skimmed pre-race prognostications in the blogs and noticed running, Lawyer Ron(photo), a horse I'd identified early as a "man among boys" type. Let's see--the RR brain spinning--best horse, best trainer, who wins the Whitney? That's how you get lucky when you avoid confusing yourself by taking a close look at the horses.

Based on sketchy reading I expected a competitive, interesting race, and it was for a while, but then the usual bunch of rubber legs with one of Plecher's lasting all the way to the wire.

How's Plecher do it? Yes--the blog is still trying to answer this question. Looking at the PPs for this race, believe I was correct early in the year that some new training is taking hold. They've finally all taken note of Bobby Frankel, and so every horse in the field breezes about once a week 4-6f in moderate fractions, with only Wanderin Boy showing a fast breeze pre-race. Surprise, Wanderin Boy finished second. Lawyer Ron received Plecher's classic "three breezes in a row" prior to running off, but you see little different in this horse's breeze patterns than the others.

For the present I'm leaving it like this as to Plecher:
1. He breezes his horses consistently once a week at moderate instead of slow fractions.
2. His horses see the track almost daily, and there's appropriate down time instead of excessive down time (see Lukas) between breezes and races.
3. Hence his horses are reasonably fit going into their races and very energetic due to the light but consistent exercise schedule.
4. Probably highly intelligent husbandry.
5. Thus, with frequently the best(fastest) horse in the race AND everybody else conducting a weaker imitation of your training, you'll likely fairly often what we got in the Whitney.

Great performance and interesting pedigree by LR. But still, gives some hope for the little guys (and girls) as this sort of training seems eminently beatable to me.

Now, back to a much less important topic, the RR stable. Below is the Eureka radar. Eureka is 50 east and slightly to the north of Wichita.
About .4 inches so far at Eureka since Friday probably making the track perfect. But, the forecast shows more to come, and we declined (decision made last night) to risk a long trip.

So, farm breezing for the 12 year olds tonight. I'll report tomorrow. Present plans--a little easier breeze--we'll get 'em into speed immediately but decline to drive them through it. Distance I'm still considering. Nob reports weighing 158 lbs this morning.

Training last night:
Ace was back in a colicky state when I got there last night. Another shot of banamine and I do what I frequently do in colic situations, I exercised him. I ran him fast with Art riderless in an effort to shake up the impaction. It worked. Had the horse still colicked after this exercise, next action would have been to put him in the horse trailer with purpose of making him nervous and passing manure. If that failed to work, then we'd have had a serious problem.
Art:
7/26/07 Thurs. Off.
7/27/07 Fri: riderless, 1 mile WU and 1 mile continuous at moderate speed. tack work.
7/28/07 Sat: riderless Burch Day 3 with Acesmash: several short WU heats, and then 6 x 2f at 85% speed. I had to drive Ace and Art dashed by him. Ace was without a meal, but was hoping this would take care of the colic, and it did.