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.