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.