It Is An Interesting Question

Hard to believe but I'm a ways from being done with warming up. Why? If you think about it, it is an interesting question. Warm up is the maybe one significant way besides training that we can affect the performance of our horse. Among the numerous possibilities we'd like to find that one warm up that will get max performance out of the gate.

This was all brought home to me with a rather amazing scene at Eureka Downs a few years back. If you enjoy animal cruelty watch a quarter horse warm up. Truly pitiful. Most of these stall and walker trained animals walk-trot to the gate with the lucky few getting a few strides of slow canter.

But, on the particular occasion the finals of a large quarterhorse futurity with a $70,000 pot was being held at Eureka.. Every horse had won at least two trials, and i was wondering whether with this scope of race they'd conduct their typical warm up.

All the trainers for the race were either local or from near Texas or Ok except one who I believe was from AZ with a reputation. Maybe it was John Hammes but I fail to recall. Whoever he was he had the two favorites in the race. There were several fast horses.

On race day, out they came for the warm up. Lots of electricity in the air for this big purse at the little track with the $2000/race purse structure.

The AZ trainer's two horses, both almost jet black large colts, in the warm up quickly separated themselves from the post parade, headed to the back stretch and pulled what for me was a complete shocker. Both horses left their ponies and commenced three heats of short sprint burst one on the inside of the back stretch and one on the outside Japanese style. All heads on the track cranked to the action--pony riders, jocks, gate crew, outriders, everybody was watching these two warm up, and this seemed to send a message through the field as suddenly most of the other ponies got busy and actually began cantering their horses. But, no one else came close to the speed warm up of these two horses from AZ. You could feel the race was pretty much over in the warm up.

They all came out of the gates with the AZ trainers horses actually more mid pack, but both horses smoothly and powerfully accelerated past a fast field, reached the front about 100 yds before the wire and finished 1-2 a length apart from each other at the finish line. The next horse was about 20 yards back.

I'm sure I've seen a few other warm ups win a race, but, this QH race from a few years back sticks out. Two two year olds under complete control warm up fast riderless proving to me by an obviously great trainer that it can be done.
Training:
Groovin' Wind was off after Wednesday's breeze.
Art was back in action doing another riderless two miles after a 1/2 mile warm up. This one was snappy with a lot of two minute stuff. Call it Burch Day 1. Again, too damm dark to ride. I've got to get myself together on that.

Last Night's Warm Up

Of interest to warm up posts, the recent work of Groovin' Wind. After last night's work I'm ready to pronounce him race ready, though we'll smooth things out a bit at Eureka on Saturday.
How is Burch training going? Wind has been at it since early May, and I'd say very well to this point. For once last night I was prepared to take photos of the breeze but the camera flash card shot craps. Hopefully we'll have some action photos of this very "in shape" twelve year old horse soon.

Given my posts on warm up, last night thought we'd experiment with the warm up a bit. I'd considered the warm up schematics of the last post and the various possibilities for warm up for maximum performance. I'd never thought of warm up exactly in those terms. Performance and getting the horse ready to run, yes. But, getting the horse warmed up to where it can run its very best is different matter.

In giving it some more brief thought was thinking perhaps it's best to go do one longer slow gallop--say 3-4f followed by two short 1f spurts one on each lead. I was determined to try this last night and wondering as I was saddling the horse how it would work out.

Here's Winds last three days since Sunday:
Sun: 4 x 2.5f max speed (at the farm about :12.6s)
Mon. Rest
Tues. 1 1/4 mile in :17s--this was other than snappy. The horse seem placid and a bit tired.

And, even last night as we were saddling the horse was other than bouncing. He still seemed tired and we decided to do the scheduled continuous mile at the horse's own pace. Give him an easier one after the gut Sunday gut buster then resume at Eureka Saturday was the plan. Here is Nob's account of how it actually went both as to warm up and breeze:

Warm Up: the planned 4f + 1f +1f turned into a 2f + 1.5f +2f. Why? First Nob decided in the first heat after 2f it was enough. Unnecessary to carry it a half mile. OK, we learned something. Might retry this to see if we get the same result next time.

As to the planned 1f +1f spurts--the horse cooperated with the first one, but it went longer than planned before he stopped, and the second after 1f the horse wanted to keep going and it was another 1f before Nob could pull him up. Learned something again--after the first fast one, the horse is going to be gung ho in the second.

Breeze: Would Wind be ready for a max performance after this warm up? In a word, yes he was. Forget that the horse "seemed" to us a little tired since Sunday. He had three days to rest with optimum nutrition all the way. Nob said the horse totally woke up the minute he hit the track and that in the mile of the breeze every single stride went as strong, fast and energetic as the condition of the farm track would permit. Nob said he was holding on for dear life around the sharp turns and just saying prayers on the down hill.

We estimated a time of 1:51 with 5.5 of that being at max speed and the rest compromised by the course. We believe after this warm up the horse was ready to go at max. We'll try to confirm it next breeze and nail it down a little more.

Art:
Art's training lately seems to go out the window. Between impending darkness, shoeing, escaping the paddock etc. there's been an interruption. Think we're back on course now. Last night was a rest night after two consecutive days of 2 mile riderless gallop. The sun has been surprising us by going down really fast.

Warm Ups

I've experimented with various warm up routines for years, and so the warm up prescriptions in this post are hardly anything new. However, in consideration of presently "blogging" about warm ups, I've also specifically tried the formula's in this post recently just to refresh my mind on how they work for the horse and compare the effectiveness of each routine in terms of getting maximum performance coming out of the gate.

The variables in warm up routine are:
1. distance.
2. speed.
3. stride--trot, canter, gallop.
4. Leads--left or right.
5. rest periods between warm up heats.

Think the RR stable at one time or other has performed all the possibilities. Maybe there are others, but, think that the below about covers it.

1. Routine #1:
a. walk-trot 1.5f.
b. Canter beside pony for 2 minutes.
c. short walk.
d. (only for the lucky) canter another furlong.
e. 5-7 minutes of mill around walk--this is more energetic than appears from the stands.
f. again, for the lucky, a few steps of trot before being loaded into gage.
Let's be impolite from the get go and dub this afternoon race track warm up as the "ridiculously stupid" routine. More on the "stupidity" part later.

2. Routine #2:
a. trot 2f.
b. gallop 3f with a bit of acceleration at the end.
c. trot 1.5f
d. 2f at about 80% speed.

3. Routine #3
a. trot 1f.
b. 4 x 2f gallop. Each heat will accelerate a bit toward the end, but the speeds go something like: :20s (20 seconds/f), :17, :15, :14 with a few strides at sub :14. (HINT--this one seems to be the most consistently effective.)

Routine #4: continuous exercise-1f trot, and 6f gallop accelerating to doing the last 2f in :14s.

5. Routine #4: This is the routine maybe closest to what a human might do preparing to run a 440 yd dash:
a. trot 2 x 1f with walk between.
b. gallop 2 x 1f with walk between at :18s.
c. gallop 1 f in :15.
d. Gallop 2 x 1f in :14 with walk between
This routine consists of short spurts. Hint that this fails to work for horses. It's a species thing.

I'll discuss these routines specifically in terms of max performance next post.

Training:
Groovin' Wind was off Monday after his Sunday Breeze. He'll gallop 1.5 miles in :17s tonight in prep for tomorrow's breeze.
Art: Back into it last night, the paddock secured so they're unable to escape. Art and Ace galloped riderless for 2 miles slow after a .5 mile trot w/u. Too dark again for tack work. We're shoeing right now, and it's tough to get it all in.

Indian Flare And Imperial Eyes

How ironic that Russel Baze (photo) gets suspended for a whipping incident aboard Imperial Eyes down the stretch at Bay Meadows as that horse suffers a fatal condylar fracture, and exactly, on the same day as the Baze suspension, we turn to Saratoga to witness Javier Castellano pounding Indian Flare ten straight times down the stretch and one more for good measure after the poor filly fractured her pelvis.

What can you say? It's a tough, tough sport. I've yet to see the Baze incident, but could that have possibly been worse than what I just saw with Indian Flare? Do we blame the riders? give 'em days? Self-preservation will prevent any race rider intentionally persevering with a horse they think is going down. What about negligence or misjudgment? Watching the Indian Flare tape today, how can the rider in the heat of a race or in this case down the stretch possibly know what's going on physically with the horse, barring an obvious loss of action. At best there will be some considerable lead time between the injury, the effect on the action of the horse, and the perception registering with a jock in the heat of battle. We saw how long this took Sunday at Saratoga with Indian Flare where Javier Castellano was blameless imo. Bobby Frankel? Yet to hear a word from him. Thus, the usual!

As to the RR stable, catching things up since Friday--the horse of the moment seems to be Groovin' Wind. This has been Wind's sequence since last Wednesday:

Wed: 4 x 2.4f farm breeze.
Thurs. Off.
Frid. riderless 1 1/8 mile fast in the mud.
Sat. 1 1/4 miles in :17s.
Sun. 4 x 2.6f farm breeze probably in sub :13s. There were no stops between heats--only gallop downs and trots back to the starting point.

Last night's breeze was yet even a little faster than they have been, and rider Mr. Nob reported that the horse was strong every stride of all four heats. We tried to carry the speed just a little farther than the 2.4f course. One little chink in the armor appeared. This breeze was a real effort for the horse, and Nob reported a light whistling sound in the breathing. Wind has always been noted for his ability to breathe. Maybe as he's aged the wind pipe has narrowed a bit. We'll see.

I'd guess we have Wind to where he'd do a 1:44 mile. Depending on how the week goes, we might hit Eureka on Wed. Eureka got 1.26 inches of rain by Friday, so we stayed at the farm this weekend.

Art: --two out of last three days they've escaped the paddock as we commenced work in near dark. I'm having a little trouble with diminishing daylight right now. They got in a little work last night before they jumped out.

Ducking And Jiving With The Weather

Friday I left the office with every intention of taking four under tack, but was considering this scene:
You may left click any photo to enlarge. 1.25 inches of much needed rain in the buckets when I got to the farm. Part of the track has been washed out.
I like this shot of the boys walking to the barn to do their work. Do they look eager?
Pre-workout, everything is cool. Notice the condition of the ground compared to last photo after we get done.

There's a little too much water on the ground for productive tack work. The decision is made to go riderless.
The 12 year olds galloped with Art and Ace through about 8 minutes of hard gallop 3f at a time between rests. Art was given as much work in the mud as I dared just short of pulling a check ligament or worse, a splint. Art was removed and the two 12 year olds then ran 9 furlongs continuous as fast as conditions allowed. Aylward below post w/o, The last heat was a fast 1 1/8 riderless mile, deep mud leaving Al blowing a bit.
Wind, on the other hand had hardly a hair out of place. He' closer to racing than Al.
Below the paddock track after we're done--"drenching" rain forecast tonight for Eureka, so tomorrow's Eureka breezes are bye, bye. Possible Sunday if there's a lot of sun tomorrow. We'll see.

Warmup Max Performance: Is It The Aylward Formula?

My 12 year old Northern Baby-Northern Dancer look-alike is a classy horse named Aylward out of a mare by Bold Forbes that won 120,000+ way back when. Al was conceived and raised at Stone Farm in Lexington where Northern Baby once stood. In different hands than mine big Al might have won a lot of money. Presently he's an old racer having some trouble with maintaining his breath beyond three furlongs, and retirement looms in the next three weeks if Al is unable to hold his speed for longer distance than the 3f.

Al breezed Wednesday night after Groovin' Wind, and like that horse did a 4 x 2.4 f without stopping to walk except between heats 2 and 3 (the midpoint). After each heat otherwise there was a gallop out, and trot back to the starting point.

Al warms up quite differently than Wind because Al refuses to go into a gallop except at certain points along the track. This is due to a mouth problem, and instead of fighting with the horse every day, we just trot him to his designated starting point and, off he goes. I've lately decided, after much tooth investigation, that the bit might just be pressing the tongue against a tooth, and so we've ordered a (surprisingly light) Myler Level 2 ported bit to relieve tongue pressure. We'll see.

So, for his pre-breeze warm up Al trots about 3f from the barn to his starting point and commences a continuous slow gallop at about :20s for 3f with some acceleration to :17 in the last strides. Al then trots 1.5f more to the breeze starting point and walks prior to the breeze. The whole exercise is about .8 mile.

You'll note the fairly close similarity in this warm up to the conventional pre-race warm up.

For the first heat I intended to start Al fast, but then let him cruise along on his own with minimal urging (same thing I did with Wind after a more thorough warm up). How did the first heat go?

Al got into his speed about 30 yards in and it was about 75% speed--I'd estimate 14.4f/sec, thereabouts. Al easily maintained this the entire 2.4f, but even with the slight urging was without any desire to go faster. This speed seemed quite enough for him, and so his first heat was really nothing more than additional warm up.

What might have happened in this first heat had I forced Al to 100% speed? Educated conjecture would be that he would have done it, been fairly strong, but been gassed at the end. Had this been a race, given his state of conditioning, Al would have backed up severely probably to a :14 pace.

How did heat #2 go? Al was now warm up and like Wind he was driven through heat 2 and performed it strongly, though Al at this stage is near cooked at the end. Heat #2 was much smoother and stronger than Heat 1 but by far the best and fastest heat turned out to be Heat #3. The 3rd acceleration, as I've noted over and over, almost always is the strongest heat. Al's conditioning is such that his fourth heat was only about 90% speed and he was tired by heat #4.

We may conclude that for the horse Aylward the warm up was grossly deficient unless you want to include Breeze Heat #1 in the WU. After he breezed 2.4f Al was quite strong and indeed "warmed up" for max peformance for heat 2.

Training:
RR took a horse day off Thursday. Everybody rests.

Warming Up For Performance: The Formula

So, how do we warm up our horses to get maximum performance out of the gate? Anybody know? Anybody considered it? Todd Plecher perhaps, or Bobby Frankel?

You'd think they have, but, if you watch their horses it looks to me they turn the warm up over to jocks and pony persons just like everyone else.

I'm paying particular attention with my own horses to the warm ups since I'm on the subject.

Last night, after my latest weather rant on the blog, quite luckily for the second scheduled breeze session in a row we dodged the rain--it was dry at the farm when I got there--and we got in the breezes. Maybe our weather luck is on the upswing.

Groovin' Wind last night did 4 x 2.4f after warm up pretty much as fast as our track allows. After each heat we gallop down and return to the starting point. The horse stopped to walk briefly only between heats 3 and 4 (the middle).

Wind's warm up last night was instructive: The breeze course is exactly 2.4f and for Wind's warm up I take him from the beginning of the course to the end, turn around, and go 2.4 f the other way. I then turn around and start the breeze sequence.

In the warm up the first 2.4f is preceded by about 1f trot and the horse commences a slow gallop. I generally go with the horse according to what he likes to do, which is maintain this slow near canter pace for about 2f. Since we're warming up for the breeze I only allowed it for 1.5 F and the final F of the first warm up heat I accelerated the horse to about :17/f pace in the last few strides.

We then walked a little, turned around and started slow (we're on a different lead now), but commenced a faster acceleration and the last 1f of this 2.4f warm up heat was at about :15/f pace.

We then walked a bit, trotted 1/2 f and walked to the starting point of the first breeze heat.

I use the Breeze heat #1 as more warm up to get into speed by starting the horse, but then allowing the horse to cruise along at it's own speed. What did Wind want to do after this 2 x 2.4f warm up with probably another 3f of trot-walk thrown in?

Here is how the first breeze heat went--and please note I considered the warm up a little deficient--too little distance and too slow--
Wind took right off almost all out. I was surprised at his strength and smoothness. BUT, here's the kicker--Wind for about 1.5f speedballed down the track at near max speed all on his own without any urging, but after about 1.5f he slowed himself down quite noticeably to the end of the 2.4f.

Heat #2--new lead--we're on the left lead now--the horse obviously was now "warmed up" and ready for max performance. The horse was urged right into the heat--started right off at max speed and maintained it smoothly and efficiently all the way through the 2.4f, hardly blowing at all at the end.

Heat #3--there was a short walk before Heat #3, maybe 30 seconds. The horse then took off under strong urging and pretty much speedballed all the way through the 2.4f again. At the end of this one he was breathing a bit. Heat 3 went a bit faster than Heat 2.

Heat #4--we turned right around and trotted to the start and took off--less urging on this one as I'm seeing what the horse has left. On his own he goes maybe 95% speed most of the way. This one he's tiring a bit, overheating, and definitely puffing at the end. A little trot and we go home.

Conclude: the warm up was insufficient. As it turned out last night, the horse was still warming himself up in the first heat of the breeze.

The other horse, Aylward warms up differently due to a mouth problem. I'll describe how that one went tormorrow.

Art:
Scheduled for riderless breeze with Acesmash--both horses escaped the paddock right before the start and were last seen in the near dark galloping toward the pond 1/3 mile-- two kids running away with the cookie jar. Too dark to round 'em up. We'll recommence tonight. There was 7 min walk under tack for Art earlier.

*~@****ff

RR very upset. With farm breezes scheduled tonight its raining outside like cows pissing on concrete. That's one of 3 rains since 6/30. Yes, that little blue area on the map is directly right over the farm. Unbelievable!

Evaluating Warmup: Signaling

Serious human athletes I believe would agree that the warm up process really is a signaling process with analogy similar to a computer booting up, the nervous system alerts every cell in the body that something is up. As the warm up increases its intensity, cells, whatever their function, prepare themselves for performance--muscle cells tighten and contract, bone material girds itself for motion and concussion, bonds in tendons and ligaments engage, cells that line the blood vessels expand and dilate, and energy processes in the mitochondria of cells all over the body "engage".

For the human athlete the point at which warm up ends and we're ready for maximum performance is a bit of a subjective thing as we visualize the athlete announcing to themselves "I'm ready".

How is this state of "readiness" determined? Thinking about it in terms of running events I'm convinced that for performance the key factor is the last one that really seems to engage, which is the cardiovascular system and in particular the heart. Non-athletes can ferret this out for themselves if you imagine yourself from a position of rest going out and doing a 40 yard sprint. You will be seriously out of breath toward the end, your heart racing and you may even feel some light headedness, and this regardless of your conditioning. The cardiovascular system has yet to do its thing in terms of maximum performance.

Do a second sprint after the first and things will get easier, and probably by the third you'll be churning along with far less effort and distress than in the first sprint and even the second.

For our horses also there is a signaling of readiness. Its difficult to perceive this from the ground, but, if you're on the horse it goes something like this: Commencing the canter and gallop you can feel that the horse is without any desire to sprint a way. They always start slow as if they know they need to do more work before sprinting. At some point in the gallop the horse will start to speed up as its systems engage. This speed up I generally find comes at about 3f of galloping or after about 45 seconds into the work.

Then there comes a point where the energetic horse is willing to take off, and increase speed. However, the initial acceleration goes only to a certain point. Instead of being full speed it tends to be two minute lick speed. This "willingness" generally occurs at about a minute, minute fifteen seconds into the gallop, and again, you can feel it on board.

If the rider desires speed prior to the minute of galloping they can certainly get it by speeding the horse up, BUT this pre-fully warmed up-gallop will be unsteady and you'll quickly note the horse going into oxygen debt as the energy used exceeds cell energy production due to lack of efficient engagement.

In the warm up how far and how fast and at what intervals do we need to take the horse to achieve its best performance? That is the question.

Training:
Groovin'Wind did another steady 1 1/4 mile gallop in :17s last night as prep for tonights farm breezing. Noted this morning Wind is getting a little ribby. You expect this as work proceeds, but the pasture going dormant probably contributes. The horse gets fed thrice daily with designed supplementation. With the weight of our rider we welcome a bit of weight loss in the horse. Given the work load to date, however, Wind is losing weight earlier than expected, and this is something else to watch.
Art:
8/19/07 Sunday Day 2 Burch: 5 min under tack
8/20/07: Mon: Day 3 Burch: 5 x 2f riderless at 90% speed with some all out stuff.
8/21/07 Tues: Day 2 Burch (we skipped day 1 because the Mon. work was in the morning) 2 miles steady riderless gallop after 1/2 mile warm up at about :18. 7 min walk under tack. Very windy. Horse trying to buck. Nob was careful.

Evaluating Warm Up: Performance--Is There Any Research?

Like any science exercise physiology employs the scientific method in research attempting to uncover whatever laws or facts there may be with regard to athletic performance. Hypothesis, theory, testing by appropriate research is the way it goes with the end point hopefully being some actual knowledge as opposed to conjecture, belief and old wives's tales.

Those who want to "know" what's going on on the race track instead of just guessing are completely aware of the deficiencies in equine exercise physiology in terms of available information. There have been some studies, but most of them, if you read them, are tremendously flawed usually because the persons conducting the research are other than racing people. As a side note I'll volunteer that the Maryland shin study and some of the associated work is very good and seems an exception to the general sloppy work you see with regard to horses even though I might have done without them killing their trainees to do autopsy's.

In abscence of scientific study for horses it's occurred to me over the years to turn to human studies coming out of the exercise physiology labs of the Universities. Tom Ivers obtained a lot of his information this way. Making sense of this information or just finding it however is difficult and if you read Ivers you'll note his struggle in information gathering and trying to make sense of what is out there. It's an ongoing process with a long way to go!

Given the lack of helpful equine studies, my own thoughts in uncovering whatever scientific information is available with regard to training horses has been to look at human track and field events that have similarity to our races. This primarily would be the 440 and 880 yard dashes and any in between as being closely equivalent in time to our 6f to 1 1/4 mile races.

Over the years I've searched for books on 440 and 880 training, found a few and read them, but I've yet to see a book on human track and field that is really helpful. Oddly the few books I've found and read on the shorter track events are so poorly written and thrown together as to be practically useless. In terms of warm up I've thought of attending a live track meet to watch what they do, or talking to a track athlete and getting some info that way, but that's for the future. Beyond talking about "stretching" I've yet to see a word written about warm up for for either human track events or horses.

So, we answer in the negative the question--is there any research on maximizing performance by appropriate warm up. In terms of really finding out what's what here the blog is left to speculation based on a lot of personal experience and reading. What I've learned in terms of warming up and performance I'll include on the next posts.

Training report:

It seems we're training both our horses and our overweight rider. I'm having trouble finding a sense of humor that the overweight rider Mr. Nob, instead of continuing his CRON (calorie restriction-optimum nutrition) diet and exercise after getting down to 158 lbs. Saturday instead seems to have lapsed the last two days back to skipping his running and overeating to the point he refuses to step on the scale. Luckily there's time before tomorrow night's breezes for some weight loss. I'd hate to do them at heavier than 158 lbs.

As to the horses, Monday morning Groovin' Wind, who performed 2 x 3f in :38 and :40 Saturday at Eureka, seems uncharacteristically tired. The horses are carbing up for tomorrow's works, and hopefully energy will return. Presumably the work Saturday got into the horse a little, which probably is good. There was some minor shin heat, expected given the transition to the hard track, which we're watching. Monday morning Wind galloped riderless for 2 miles slow after a warm up, and tonight he'll do a snappy 1 1/4 miles under tack as pre-breeze work for Wed.
Art:
8/18 and 8/19 after the 8/17 breeze work were off days except there was 10 min walk under tack on 8/19.
8/20/07 Monday morning, Day 3 Burch: 5 x 2f riderless breeze work with Acesmash at about 90% speed, though there were several 1f all out bursts as the two horses raced each other. Nice work and the horse came out of it well. We're starting to get into more serious stuff with Art.

Evaluating Warm Up: Performance

Saturday at Eureka Downs the deficiency of pre-race warming up was brought home to me again as I put my twelve year old, Groovin' Wind, through his work. Use this one as an example of what I've learned over the years, that almost always you get the horse's best performance in fast heat #3.

What Wind did Saturday is below, but, first some June pictures of the Eureka track It's 5f, and the wire is down near the grandstand. You enter the track near the bottom left of the photo.

Next photo shows middle of the track with the 3f pole on the back stretch on the left. The 4f pole (about where we pull up) is on the right out of view.

Wind's work Saturday was 2 x 3f and it turned out to be a :40 and a :38 under 158 lbs rider on a hard, very fast surface.

We entered the track and slowly picked up speed to :17/f, galloped all the way around picking up speed to about :14 at one half furlong from the wire; then gallop out and pulled up on the back stretch--7f in all for the warm up. Note the :14/sec 1/2f lick is fast heat #1.

After this warm up, what might we expect from the first heat? I'm looking smoothness of stride, signs of good breathing and cardiovascular sufficiency, willingness and ability to carry speed smoothly, acceleration and strengthof gallop.

The warm up ended with a trot at the 4f pole then 30 sec. of walk and we're off trotting to the 3f pole to start the first 3f breeze.

The first breeze in :40 went ok. The horse was strong, he accelerated, he pretty much maintained things to the wire with little urging. However, this was hardly the horse's best effort--a little herky jerky, a little anxious; the strides a bit choppy. There was some uncertainty especially in the first furlong with horse struggling to find his legs. After we finished the heat the breathing, though less than blowing, was much deeper and far more stressful than it would be after the next breeze. Again, it was ok, but it was less than Wind's best effort.

After this first 3f breeze, we galloped down and were trotting by the 4f pole. 45 sec of walk this time before he takes off again, trotting again to the 3f pole and 3f breeze #2.

Night and day difference in this second breeze from the first. Horse is into it from the very first stride, total energy, smoothness and maintaining acceleration without urging pretty much all the way to the wire. At the finish the horse of course was breathing heavily but much smoother breathing than after breeze #1.

To personally experience the difference in performance between the first and second breeze on Wind Saturday you'd really have to be on the horse. Without any doubt, the best of the three accelerations for Wind Saturday was the second 3f breeze which was the 3rd acceleration.

Training:
Friday Day 2 Burch Wind galloped strongly 1 1.4 miles at a steady :17. Sat. at Eureka 2 x 3f in :40 and :38.
Art:
8/16/07 Thurs. Day 3 Burch 4 x 1.5f riderless full speed.
8/17/07 Fri. Day 1 Burch Off.
8/18/07 Sat. Day 2 Burch: 10 min under tack. refused trot. first tack work in a few days.

Beat The Weather

Some photo's of Saturday's Eureka trip. There's a different brand of excitement it seems, every trip. Saturday it was the weather. "Isolated thunderstorms" on Accuweather became "scattered thunderstorms" by noon with 40% rain chances. It's do or die this year for the stable, so we took off anyway, the thinking being that it would be dry in Eureka. Turned out it was, and we had some nice works.

For us rider weight is big. Nob is 6 foot 1.5 inches. Put him on the scale before we left. I'm relieved it's below 160 lbs.

We were driving into this on I-35 30 miles from Emporia. Thinking about turning around at this point.

Then this, but, straight ahead.

Barn R as we arrive. It's clear to the Southwest.

Rain threatened from 7 p.m. to dark.

Zero humans and very few horses. Eureka is mostly abandoned now. Had to take my own photos, and you can see, I've yet to master the art of camera work while on a fidgety horse. Photo shows track entry point, and you can a little see the track condition which was tight, hard and fast after the rain. Grandstand is down on the right.

Farm Report

Quick update. RR in total surprise to see rain forecast tomorrow in Eureka, Ks. "Isolated" Thunderstorms presently. We'll chance "isolated". If it gets worse we'll cancel. Groovin' Wind will gallop 1 1/4 miles easy tonight and hopefully 2 x 3f at Eureka tomorrow. Initially I was planning full speed as, knock on wood, Nob might be down to 156 lbs Saturday.

Then I thought about it and realize it's first time at Eureka in a while. For safety of horse and rider we better just let them cruise and readjust everything. Then, plan "all-out" stuff next trip.

Every time I consider that this stuff is just a bunch of work we have a training night like last night when Art and Acesmash put on such an entertaining show in their riderless breeze work. Makes it all worthwhile.

Training
Thurs. 8/16 Groovin' Wind on Day 1 Burch is off.
Art:
8/14/08 Tues. Day 1 Burch: 5 min trot-walk under tack.
8/15/08 Wed. Day 2 Burch 1 mile WU and 1 mile riderless about :16/f. no tack.
8/16/08 Thurs. Day 3 Burch 5 x 1.5f riderless. The first one was 75 % speed. The last 4 were all out--Art and Ace chasing each other. By the time they roll into and gallop out of each heat it's almost 1/2 mile for each heat. Hardest work to date for the young fellow. Too much for tack work.

Evaluating Warm Ups

What difference does it make how a horse warms up? Any serious human athlete may watch a typical North American warm up and understand intuitively that due to the deficiency of the warm up sadly the horses come out of the gate unable to give their best performance. I'd venture to say 90% of our races are run this way giving us such ridiculous pronouncements as Richard Mandela's statement in "On the Muscle" post-race observing his horse Kudos after a dull performance, "looks like the race woke him up, he's ready to run now." Earth to Richard, have you considered waking up your horse "before" the race?

We care about warm up with horses for two reasons:

1. Performance.

2. Injury prevention.

and, since we're in an athletic event we're interested in maximizing both of these. We want the horse to come out of the gate physically ready to give its best and in such condition as avoid injury to the extent that appropriate warm up can assist.

Given the range of possibilities, what sort of warm up will maximize what we want, next post.

Training:
At some point we also maximize our farm breezes, which means the horse went as far and fast as our farm track allows. Once the horse gets to that point on the farm we stop moving forward with subsequent farm works, and it's time to hit the race track. Last night we were on the second breeze since the 8/1 "back off" and planned to let the horses go at their own pace in sort of a strengthening work. Groovin' Wind did this at 3 x 2.5f on his own, as planned, without raising a hair about as fast and strong as the farm track allows. This performance I consider testament to the nine breezes in July. Wind is just about were he was 7/29, and we'll finish that process with a planned 2 x 3f breeze at Eureka Saturday.
Art:

8/13/07 Mon. Day 3 Burch 4x 1f riderless all out.
8/15/07 Tues: Day 1 Burch 5 min trot-walk under tack.
8/16/07 Wed. Day 2 Burch 1 mile WU + 1 mile at about :16/f riderless. The disappearing daylight finally got me. To dark for tack work.

Bone Warm Up: One More Thing

To make sure I fire all my bullets on this topic, this post will include some miscellaneous lines from here and there, which, if you put it all together tend to support the conclusions I made last post:

"The level of hydrostatic strain in bone must be increased to cause adaption".

"...understanding the mechano-sensory bone system".

"Bone cells and/or cell network tend to adapt to external mechanical loads--they have a reaction to 'load signals'."

"Bone adaption depends on strain size, lasting time, frequency, history, type (pressure, tension) and strain distribution."

"There is a vast body of evidence that the flow of fluids within canaleculae and lacunae of bone is mostly responsible for the transduction of the mechano-chemical signal in bone cells."

James Rooney DVM: "While much has been written about the treatment of fractures, very little attention seems to have been directed at the actual mechanism of fracture--how and why they occur".

Rooney again: "Here we shall look at how and why on the gross macro level. The microscopic details of fracture are complex and mathematically difficult and will not be attempted."

Rooney: "...search the Internet for fracture mechanics will reveal a wealth of information, much of it highly technical, not to say mind-boggling, in nature". May I add, Doc, that most of it seems to be 'for sale'.

Physicist Paul Hansma: "bone...a sophisticated material with a hierarchically complex structure making it extremely resistant to fracture, given its light weight...a great deal of work remains to be done to completely understand how bone works to resist fracture."

"Study of bone fracture mechanisms aims to discover...what arrests the development of fracture." (appropriate warm up perhaps?)

"Load signals", mechano-chemical signals", "mechano-sensory bone system" all phrases indicating bone's response to pre-event stress or lack of stress. The missing element here is whether the warm up period is sufficient to increase fracture resistance. I believe that it is with appropriate warm up.

Training:
8/14/07 Groovin' Wind, rests. Receives this date full spectrum of newly bought Platinum Performance products. Will these affect the breezing tonight?

Art the Two year Old:
8/12/07: Sun. Day 2 Burch: 1 mile W/U + 1 mile at :16/f. 10 min walk-trot under tack.
8/13/07: Mon. Day 3 Burch: 4 x 1 f riderless driven full speed for each f.
8/14/07: Tues: Day 1 Burch: An off day. Did 5 min. walk-trot under tack. he's getting the hang of the trotting.

Bones and Warming Up: Conclusions

Last warm up-fracture resistance post 7/20, then major side track. But, now, drum roll please, as I'm ready to make whatever conclusions are possible given the paucity of research.

The question was whether the manner of warming up the horse makes any difference in terms of fracture-resistance of bone material during the race? This has yet to be answered and so we're left with speculation based on available information.

Others way before me have considered the question. I found an article dated 1967 were the scientists documented the "shaking up" of bone material as movement and stress commences. I also believe there is enough on the Paul Hansma website from UC Santa Barbara Department of Physics to indicated definite changes in bone under stress compared to bone at rest. The UCSB studies are at the atomic and cellular level. I've included several of the atomic force microscopy images in the earlier posts that clearly show changes in the bonding process as stress on the bone commences. The key illustration in this is this one (left click to enlarge):

Looking at this image of the protein based "bone glue", the problem I have in concluding absolutely that there is any sort of preparatory or girding process against additional force is that the "sacrificial bonds" discovered by the Hansma group and illustrated above can be seen to merely lengthen with the onset of stress. So, does this mean that with the onset of stress each bond is then stronger than at the relaxed position above "before impact"?

One would presume so. I think you have to presume this that with the change in millions (I'm also presuming that number) of organic bonds covering and surrounding the type 1 collagen fibrils which surround the mineralized portion of the bone matrix that there is a girding effect.

Interestingly, in my own hand clapping experiments (see my July 12 post) I could feel this girding effect in my wrist bones as I continued hard claps, BUT, the girding seemed to be more effective after some initial clapping and a five minute rest. When I recommenced clapping after the five minute rest period my wrist bones seemed much more accommodated to the force than during the initial clapping. In other words when you start clapping your wrists together I did not after a series of 10 claps feel increased resistance on the 11th clap. It seemed that "girding" was related to both the amount of force applied and also the time period that elapsed from the commencement of the clapping.

Thus I believe that the amount of force applied in the warm up is important but so would be some time lapse to the application of greater force. Luckily in equine warm ups we do have this luxury of time because between the initial warm up there is the lengthy walk to post which does allow the time to lapse.

So, I am prepared to believe that exposing equine leg bones to more concussion than merely trotting or slow pony assisted cantering or galloping would significantly increase the fracture resistance of the bone material during the race. Relying on the initial strides of the race itself to "shake up" the bones and provide the resistance is insufficient due to lack of time lapse.

Leave it at that for now, and I'll get to the overall conclusions on appropriate warm up in the next posts.

Training:
8/13 Groovin' Wind: Farm breeze 4 x 2.4f with only the middle furlong of each heat at max speed. The rest of each 2.4f was gallop in and out of the speed. Horse very energetic, strong and willing. We'll repeat 48 hours later and hopefully on to Eureka Saturday.

Art:
8/11/07 Sat. Day 1 Burch: 10 min under tack walking, attempt trot.
8/12/07 Sun. Day 2 Burch: 1 mile W/U and 1 mile riderless at about :16/f. 10 min walk under tack, the first extended trot.
8/13/07 Mon. Day 3 Burch: 4 x 1f heats riderless at full speed. Horse was driven into the speed and maintained it over each furlong. This was preceded by appropriate warm up heats. Skipped tack work as we'd been under tack five straight days before.

Minor Improvisations

Whatever I retain from trainer Bill O'Gorman's book the phrase "minor improvisations" is going to stay with me. O'Gorman used the term to describe what he does when bad weather hits. But, there's really lots of stuff that causes improvisation in the training program, and if you consider carefully you'll note the slight sarcasm in the term "minor". Whether you're preparing a horse for the Breeder's Cup or the 9th at Eureka, no training interruption is ever "minor".

Such I was reminded here in early August in the RR stable when after a nice series of breezes for our oldsters in July we decided to "back off" a bit in early August to allow the horses to pull themselves together and with plans to proceed rapidly forward from there. One thing I'll admit to doing very poorly over the years is handling rest periods of any kind. There seems to be two problems. One is that I never know how to get the horses back to where they were without losing a lot of time. And secondly, quite frequently I use horse rest as an excuse for personal rest and breach of discipline.

In early August I've had both of these problems over the last two weeks, resulting in some less than energetic decision making for the stable, and some floundering around in terms of training preparation.

To illustrate what has occurred, here is the work of 12 yr. old Groovin' Wind since 7/29:

7/29 all out breezing without stopping 4x2.4f (decision made for brief rest).
7/30 rest
7/31 rest
8/1 some short riderless bursts at speed. seems logical part of rest, but, really, we should have galloped under tack because:
8/2 rain. we have to gallop riderless again, which we do for 10 min slow.
8/3 We've now gone four riderless days. This day we're stuck with reintroducing weight by trotting and about 3f of slow gallop.
8/4 1.5 miles of slow gallop.
8/5 1.5 miles snappy gallop. Nob is too heavy for breeze work.
8/6 Monday rest. They'd gone 5 days in a row.
8/7 1.5 miles slow gallop.
8/8 Wednesday. This was the scheduled breeze that was cancelled till the morning then scotched as it rained all night. Bad turn here.
8/9 riderless gallop in the mud.
8/10 1.5 miles slow gallop.
8/11 Sat. 1 mile at about 14.5 sec/f.
8/12 rest.

Though the horse had only 3 days off since 8/1, this schedule is a far cry from the 9 all out breezes of July. Wind will breeze short and fast every other day for a few days till we're back.

Art the two year old:
He's been doing his work.
8/11 Sat. Day 1 Burch: 10 min tack work only. Attempts to trot resulted in Art bucking. Walked only.
8/12 Sun. Day 2 Burch: 1 mile W/U + 1 mile snappy riderless gallop + 10 min tack work-- so you want me to trot, light bulb turns on--we finally get extended trot work after a week of working on it.

In And Out Of Mode

After viewing the Time.com photos of the Asia Monsoons in Bombay and Bangladesh I promise never to complain about the weather again. How'd you like to train horses in this? The whole Indian Ocean fell on these folks!

I bring this up because we did have a "weather event" that helped to interrupt our planned breezing Wednesday night, but mostly, let's say for the record, it has been a questionable two days in the RR household where it comes to horse training.

I'm going to rant on a bit for anyone that wants to follow this. As to the commentor on artficial surfaces, I'm watching it as everyone else, and seem to have a preference for dirt, but, jury out, as I'm considering poly for Eureka :).

Now, when I last posted all was right with the world, and we were planning some serious breezing post 7/30 layoff period on Wednesday night 8/7.

Never happened. Now, RR is well aware that the intricacies of this minor disaster would only be of interest to me, but, since this is a tough business how I became diverted and "out of " horse mode on Wednesday afternoon 8/7 I'd like to just one time put out for future reference.

Background: horse racing provides a wonderful hobby, or profession satisfying all sorts of interests from athletics--where else can you be in pro sports this cheap--to animals, breeding, auctions, handicapping,etc. Those who actually race horses themselves understand the difficulties. It's 24/7, 365 days year after year. It's fun, but success requires a concentrated doggedness that never lets up. To this we're sworn when we're IN MODE, but, follow along how easily I was diverted.

Things were going very well Wednesday to about 3 pm. as we were considering the evening breezes. My alter ego, the rider, Mr. Nob, was down to 158, dieting, doing his running and lifting, looking good for Wed. Night.

Then 3 pm rolled around and Nob included a handful of Kashi Autumn Whole Wheat Cereal biscuits (quite good)with his vitamins of the hour. This was Mistake #1 for in the next hour, all discipline out the window (where did it go?), Nob had downed more than half a box of this cereal, over 1000 calories, forgot to take Carb Blocker to mask the effect, and now we're looking at 162 lbs. for the breeze. Bad!

Then, Mistake #2: 5 pm rolls around, and after a hard day, one game of one minute computer chess for RR before spinning on to the farm. Won the game. Another, then another, obviously playing idiots,9 game streak. It happens. 5:30 p.m. the thought enters RR head--in the morning Nob will be back to 158 lbs if we run 6 miles tonight. Do the breezes in the morning, said the little man.

This was entertained to around 5:55 pm., chess althewhile, when it was decided to check Accuweather for temperature. What's this? A huge storm breweing over St. Joe. I look out the downtown KCMO office window to see dark clouds and lightening over the farm, but, there's no radar showing any KCMO rain. It's all farther north.

That and a prediction of 8 pm. KCMO rain storm was enough to tip the scale--breeze in the morning.

Horrible decision. It never rained at the farm Wed. night. But, Thurs. morn at 12:30 a.m. completely unpredicted, 3/4 inch came down and washed us out for Thurs. morn. BS. Could have been avoided by an IN MODE RR at 2:55 pm. Wed. Aft. Never happened. The good news, I'm back in mode. I'll catch up on "minor improvisations" with the horses next post.

Breeze Day

RR still grousing today and generally seething--if that's a word "the bell but tinkles and I seeeeethe"--over the Eighty Dollar, ten pound tub of Platinum Performance fat and iron sitting on my desk masquerading as a horse multi-vitamin. One whole side of the big plastic tub prints out "ingredients per dose", and, to give one more ludicrous e.g., this contains 75% of the Vitamin A contained in my personal daily multi-vitamin.

But, I digress. This is breeze day at the RR Farm. Four horses going fast tonight after a nearly perfect "Burch Day 2" yesterday wherein all horses galloped fairly easily in the day preceding the breeze, and all went nearly perfectly despite the heat. I say nearly perfectly as Aylward's mouth problem that he's had since a race in 2003 flares up again making him a harder horse to ride and control. But, generally all has been well, and I must say that this has been the most gentle sort of hot weather. Very pleasant really for the evening work time.

We'll be doing "catch up" breezes tonight after the layoff. Last breezing for the oldsters was 7/30 though all three horses have incorporated fast spurts into their gallops since. The decision had been made after strenuous 7/30 breezing to "back off" a bit, and thus in the next two breezes, tonight and Saturday, we'll be trying to get back were we were. For tonight this means slower, longer work, and then Saturday we'll increase the speed so that by Tuesday we can repeat the 7/30 work and it's on from there.

The "break" obviously has put us behind where we otherwise would have been. However, it was well timed, for had we continued right on after 7/30, right about now I'd be thinking the same thing--that these horses need a rest--and we'd be into that in mid-August. Instead, we're back to gaining momentum and hopefully stronger horses.

Forecast now is 102 degrees for Eureka Sat. I'm mulling this over. Drama of the week--will rider Mr.Nob make it down to 155 lbs. by Sat.? He weight 158 lbs. last night. Would be able to work harder at the lighter weight!

Training:
Last night each oldster galloped slowly with emphasis on technique (crisp lead changes, stride efficiency, covering ground for the speed--instead of just a lazy gallop) for about 1.5 miles.
Art:
8/5/07 Sunday Burch Day 3: 5x2f at 90% speed riderless with some full speed licks thrown in + 10 min tack walk.
8/6/07 Mon. Day 1 Burch: Walk under tack only, 10 min. Took a first few steps of trot.
8/7/07 Tues. Day 2 Burch: 1/2 mile WU + 1.5 miles riderless at about :17/f + 5 min tack work. WE'RE TROTTING. Trotted three times about 100 feet each trot when Nob said that's it, let's avoid pressing our luck.

Nutrition

$276.00 worth of Platinum Performance supplements arrives on the RR doorstep. Chromium Yeast, Hemo-flo (nitric oxide booster), Equine Electrolyte, Vitamin C, and Glucasomine Sulfate and also the multi-vitamin "Platinum Performance". Here's something to consider while I'm constructing the final warm up-fracture resistance post.

Please note I'm new to PP, though apparently they've been around. I noticed a PP add on the "On The Muscle" DVD which came out in '04 or '05.

If you have familiarity with performance nutrition, and I spend a lot of time studying about this stuff using myself as a guinea pig, you'll be struck like a lightening bolt by the PP website compared to all other horse vitamin companies. Jeez--it's almost all here--full spectrum proteins, alpha lipoic acid, BCAAs, nitric oxide enhancers, bioflavines, etc. etc. Missing is CQ10 and some of the more intricate human supplementation you'll find on websites such as "Optimum Nutrition" and T-Nation, but, overall, this is good!

And, RR is all excited as the package arrives, but, what is this...the website listed ingredients but for most fails to list dosages. The large 10 lbs. of Multi-Vitamin entitled Platimum Performance does list dosages on the tub and, to their credit, manufacture date, but quickly becomes a major disappointment on closer scrutiny:

Iron 264 mg. 10 times human dose of unnecessary and excess iron per serving--this, e.g., added to Omelene 200 will (presumably)give very excessive iron daily to the horse.

Chromium 264 mcg. Sounds like a lot? Chromium for glycemic control and insulin regulation. Let's see. My personal bottle of Twinlab GTF Chromium--200 mcg. PP gives our horse barely more than human dose chromium.

Vitamin C 250 mcg. for a horse. They should be fined.

Choline 6 mg. Human choline pills, 200 mg./day.

L-Carnetine 26 mg. A human dose is 300 mg/day. Again, fraud.

Vitamin A 7500 IU--the one I take for myself contains 20,000 IU

Vitamin D 1500 IU (as if D supplementation is necessary for horses) . My D supplement
contains 1000 IU.

Some trace minerals:
selenium .79 mg. human dose 200 mg.
zinc 132 mg human dose 30 mg. here we at least have 4 times human dose.
manganese 132 mg, human dose is 15 mg. finally, a horse dose.
there is no copper, boron, molybdenum

Let's look at the proteins. They're almost all here.
Arginine at 2020 mg. human dose is 900 mg. for this important nitric oxide booster.
Glycine 1294 mg, human dose is 400 mg. 3 times human dose.
Lysine 1122 mg., human dose is 700 mg.

and, on and on. Can we say major fraud. This company to the unsuspecting gives the impression of a complete vitamin supplement by listing their contents, but, when you look at actual dosages very few of them are horse doses except "fat" which is over 70g per dose.

So, another RR disappointment and in this case a very expensive one. On the positive side of things, PP does have a lot of products, and several of these are far advanced beyond what you see from other supplement manufacturers, most of whom still sell the same stuff they did in the early '90s.

Training:
August continues. We make very good progress in nice weather. It's hot, but, hardly feels like the 100s they're talking about. 100 degrees in Eureka Saturday. We'll see. Breezes tomorrow night for the oldsters, and we've been galloping up to them. Nob at 159 (so he says) last night).
Art:
8/4/07 Sat. Burch Day 2: 5 min walk under tack
8/5/07: Sun. Burch Day 3: 5 x 2f at 90% speed riderless with some full speed stuff in each heat. 10 min walk under tack.
8/6/07 Mon. 10 min tack only. Much effort by Nob produced mostly puzzled looks and a faster walk, but, did get three steps of trot. We're on the way!

August Review

Serious galloping for us commenced May 3 after five months of weather which began in late November 2006. The five months of bad weather are documented earlier in the blog with some photos conveying the daily horrible conditions, and, really, I'm unable to recall a more frustrating period since I've been training horses.

The weather cleared up in May and we began the current series of gallops, first acclimating the horses to our heavy rider then packing 165 lbs, and working around more weather all of June. We commenced short speed work in early June and now have behind us two months of consistent breezing with the two twelve year olds about every three days.

Two months of speed work have gone by, seventeen or thereabouts breezes, with our horses certainly rounding into racing shape. I'd believed that they might have raced at the County Fairs on June 20, and we've gone from there.

Coming into August I was ready to go right on with the every three day breeze work with possible plans to get some mid month timed workouts in St. Louis. This is what is under review. Do we make the enormous effort to travel to the closest race track 290 miles away (we're ineligible for Des Moines) with what we have, or do we wait for the 9/23 Woodlands meet that looms before us?

This all was affected by the 8/1 decision to back off a few days which then was lengthened by some unexpected rainfall late last week. Consequently right now I'm still in a day to day mode of seeing what is developing. Saturday breezes at Eureka are planned, and by late next week, we should be in a position of being ready for timed workouts. Whether we'll proceed from that to St. Louis is still percolating in the RR mind. It's an interesting period, and I'll let the horses do a little talking over the next two weeks.

Training:
A Wednesday breeze is planned for the 12 year olds. Acesmash, the six year old, is on route to become horse of the meet at Eureka next year, i.e. still training but shelved for the present.
Art:
8/3/07 Fri: 10 min snappy riderless gallop over mud.
8/4/07 Sat.: 5 min walk under tack.
8/5/07 Sun. Day 3 Burch: riderless speed work with oldster 5 x 2f at about 90% speed with 3/4f of each heat all out. Fairly tough workout. 10 min. walk under tack.

The Keeneland Sale

I've been a little derelict in blogging as I'm absorbing the September Sale catalogues just out. Bottom feeders will appreciate the RR stable search for "hidden gems" even while I'm sorry to report a preliminary exam has turned up very few so far. I'm thinking there might be enough Alphabet Soup and Honour and Glory hips late that one or two might slip, but, a lot of looking ahead.

Problem seems to be that even in the last books most of the hips show very decent mares. These are the sorts of yearlings that they're "hoping" will bring a price and will be bought back to race unless they do. Maybe the cheaper horses being definitely moved are reserved now days for Fasig Tipton October.

As to our stable, as noted earlier I'd planned an early August review of where we are and future plans. This has been done, and I'll post it in the next day or so. Just to catch things up for now, on July 30 we did the last strenuous breeze with the 12 year olds, and then decided to back off a bit last week. They breezed short but riderless Wednesday with plans to commence gallop Thurs., but Thurs. and Fri. got some much needed rain. This changed the out of town plans again. But, we commenced galloping Fri. with plans for some speed bursts on Sat. Those never occurred because, frankly, our rider was too heavy. Yes, during the off time Mr. Nob managed to pack on a few pounds instead of continuing to reduce, so last night we galloped each horse 1.5 miles. Nob reported that they were "weak", and so it continues to surprise how quickly horses lose it unless you gallop regularly. We'll continue to tonight and see how it goes.

Art:
8/2/07 Thurs. Burch Day 1: 10 min. riderless slow gallop in the mud with oldsters. He lost a shoe which scotched the tack work.
8/3/07 Fri. Burch Day 2: 10 min. back and forth riderless gallop with oldsters with some fast bursts.
8/4/07 Sat. Off after yesterdays strenuous galloping. He'd gone several days in a row. 5 min. walk under tack.

The Minnesota Bridge Collapse

Just as I become aware of the engineering field called "fracture mechanics" we get the Minnesota bridge collapse yesterday driving home the point again that fractures occur for a reason and are preventable with appropriate care. We're interested in equine bones instead of bridges, but this tragedy in Minneapolis will put the spotlight on that they study this stuff, and probably it will turn out that just as on the race track, somebody screwed up.

"Fracture mechanics is the field of solid mechanics that deals with the behavior of cracked bodies subjected to stress and strains."

It's been an overly busy RR week. I'll just summarize training and continue on the warm up posts as I get more time.

Training since the breezes Sunday: the nice thing about Burch training, it's very flexible. We perceived need for a little extra rest for the oldsters after Sunday's breezes. Each 12 yr. old had Mon. and Tues. off, and last night we continued the speed work with some short riderless bursts qualifying as a Burch day 3, but giving the horses a little break from tack work. We'll commence easy galloping tonight with the idea of segueing to a breeze at Eureka Sat. or Sun., whichever day we judge appropriate.
Art's training:
7/30/07 Mon: Day 2 Burch WU + one mile riderless continuous at :16 sec/f
7/31/07 Tues: Off--RR unavailable.
8/1/07 Wed: Burch Day 3: WU + 4 x 3f with oldster, riderless. Each heat was at :15sec/f except we threw in a 1/2f all out section into each one.