Hard Spun and Street Sense

Nice race yesterday! Did Hard Spun like polytrack or did Street Sense simply get outfooted?

Wish I had access to HS pps and that we knew exactly what the horse has done over the last month, for it looked as if Larry Jones, whom I have consistently blasted as an idiot on this blog, had his horse ready for peak performance.

Since HS training is unknown I'm unable to comment except that it looked like a nice training job.

SS on the other hand appeared to me handicapped by his trainer's lack of attention to every detail. I've observed over time that Carl Nafzger is a good instead of great trainer. You see this in his book "Traits of A Winner" and if you closely follow the SS training since January 1. Nafzger compared to his contemporaries does so many things right imo, but a lot of times Nafzger will also produce the big "huh".

Hard Spun has been the occasional beneficiary of very fast breezes or races. SS on the otherhand, though his breezing and racing have been text book consistent, has rarely to never seen faster than a twelve second furlong. The big races will expose you, and so when SS yesterday was called on for a little speed he came up empty, and instead performed exactly to his training in :12s.

It will be interesting what they do with SS to the Breeder's Cup. Nafzger certainly is smart enough to see exactly what happened, and we'll see whether he adjusts.

Training:
In the spirit of taking things one day at a time, Wind after a warm up had a strong 1.6 mile gallop at the farm this morning in mostly :14s and :15s. Legs were stone cold. The little bit of early heat in the condylar area about the right fetlock is gone! And, we're getting down to the nitty gritty in the next two breezes scheduled for Tues. and Friday. Thurs. is a dark day that we plan around. The weather absolutely has to hold, and I'll expect a much improved 5f breeze Tuesday. Art last night galloped a strong 2 miles riderless with the oldsters and some tack work.

Saturday Review

Any notion of mine that we could take a couple of young horses to Prairie Meadows and cherry pick by superior training pretty much evaporates as I see what's happening across the way from the ship in barn. Here's another snapshot from yesterday of this outfit. With the delay in the camera I never can get the shot of moving horses that I want. But, if you left click you'll see the nice horse on the walker, and this is a shedrow full off those fit looking, superbly conformed animals. The rider is about the size of Nob without the light equipment, and he's busy. Note the trainer in the orange shirt. He'll take that bike and go watch 'em gallop.
Running against this sort of outfit, a lot of people will be looking at second place.

Of course, it's a challenge, a high hill to climb to race against money, and, it gets steeper yet when you go against trainers that know what they're doing.

What can you do? For us right now things boil down to just keeping going. Luckily, my motivations for being in the game are purely athletic. I enjoy conditioning athletes, watching them develop, and hopefully enjoy a little success. To this end I took some snap shots of Wind this morning after yesterday's breeze. He's shown below. You see we spend little time on manes and tails, but this shows a bit of forward movement in muscular development since the last prior photos.
Where is this horse at physically? Probably needs another month. He's getting there, but has a ways to go. Here you see a horse who has breezed hard four times in the last two weeks, and probably 8 or 9 times in the last four weeks.
Yesterday's breeze, where Wind "hung in the stretch" happens when horses need a little more work. Unless there was bleeding involved (and, this may have been the case with this horse), next two breezes will show much improvement in stamina and air up take in the last couple of furlongs. I'll look forward to seeing how it comes out. Today's training yet to come. Wind is off today in the pasture with his buddies.

Times Are Changing

Note in the photo on the upper right they're saddling a horse.(left click and you'll see some strong, conditioned horses.) This outfit sends horses to the track continually from the time I get there till the time I leave. What a contrast from the last three years when the same shedrow was inhabited by an old, gray haired trainer that would send a couple of horses to the track a day, maybe. Of course, his walkers were always whirring. New stuff happening. Good for racing, maybe questionable for us though, lol.

Wind this morning in Stall 18 of Barn 12, the ship in barn. It's ours alone this morning.
The old rig makes it one more time.
Wind hit the track immediately after the break. We were missing the outrider. Nobody to report the breeze to, so Nob was without choice but to proceed without reporting the work.

Very disappointing this morning. The aim was 4.5f, but the horse was rolling at the 5.5f, full speed. Nob said the first three furlongs went very fast (maybe too fast), and then the horse died. Last 1.5f estimated at probably 13.5s to 13.8. The horse was gasping for air when finished.

In fairness to Wind, this was almost a 6f breeze under 163 lbs (total weight), and at least a full furlong farther than he'd gone before.. Additionally, the warm up left a little to be desired, and we may indeed have had that phenomena of insufficient warm up causing premature getting out of breath. + we had to do the breeze 4 days after the last instead of 3. He'd have been in better shape (lost less since the last) had we been able to go yesterday.

But, excuses, excuses. Norm Stewart, former coach of the Missouri Tigers Basketball team once noted when I was attending his "Coaching of Basketball Class" some 37 years back in their preseason "I just found a guy who could do it" referring to recent transfer and All America to be Willie Smith. Good athletes "can do it", and Wind's inabilities this morning disturb a bit. We'll see. This is a rest day for Art after some nice fast work yesterday.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Coincidentally with the start of the Woodland's meet RR has now suffered nine out of the last ten days as suit days in the office. Things have been busy and a bit frustrating as I'm distracted by business from the race meeting. Fortunately things settle down in the office in October and starting tomorrow hopefully I can spend some serious time at the track.

Wind came out of the Monday breeze in good order. He rested Tuesday, galloped riderless with the other horses on Wednesday--2 miles in :17s and then a 2f spurt at about 90% speed. Today, Thursday Wind galloped at the farm under tack 1.6 miles in :17s. Wind was scheduled to breeze today, but Thursday is the dark day at the track, and the farm conditions this morning were "wet grass" which makes taking tight corners at speed a little problematic with the risk the horse could lose his hind end and fall.

Thus, we plan to breeze tomorrow after the break another 4.5f. In consultation with my rider Mr. Nob we've decided that this distance maybe is about as far as we should carry things under 163 lbs. Burch training was carried on with other than 152 lbs riders, and so we do have a fear of pushing the envelope a little too far with the weight the horse is carrying. However, we should tomorrow have a nice surface, be without excuses, and see whether the horse is going in :55s or :50. I expect a decent performance.

A lot of trainers at this point would just throw the horse in a race. Wind has, after all, been breezing regularly since early June, and already has three decent breezes (faster than the slow times indicate) at the track. Our evaluation is that the horse is physically ready to run, but that Wind is still adjusting to being at the big track mentally. He's refusing change of leads into the clubhouse turn, he's refusing trips to the gate, and generally acting in terms of behavior like a firecracker about to go off. The horse needs to be more disciplined and relaxed to handle the pressure of a race day, and hopefully we'll get this in the next few appearances at the track.

We are full bore tomorrow to find a jock and pony rider. By a week from Saturday we should be good to go, but we'll be looking for a non-winners for the year race hopefully at a distance the horse can handle.

The little fellow Art has spent the last two days galloping riderless with the others. Wednesday was an easy two miles, and today was very fast in 2f heats at about 5 x 2f. Looked very good. He toys with the older horses and has considerably more foot speed then they do. Growth hormone on the way from Iherb, folks. We'll be spraying it under his tongue for the next two months.

Conventional Warmups: Are They That Bad?

Can this crew warm up anybody?
In a word "no". Well, maybe one or two per race track, but in general what you see is what you get. I'll repost the following beautiful photo of a Derby warm up to set the tone:
I've ranted and raved for months about the various inadequacies of this sort of warm up, leaving one remaining question: are they really that bad?

I got some insight on this a few years back at the starting gate at Eureka. We were standing right on the rail watching them load. I was taken with the amount of motion, circling around the pony, spinning, etc., as opposed to the impression you get from the stands that most of them load calmly. Close up you see those physiological attributes of the equine at work that permit sprinting away from the standstill the minute the lion pops out of the bush. Behind the starting gate there you see it at play--the rapidly spinning hearts, huge adrenal glands and sense of "anticipation" that separates this species from ours.

So, as part of my final post on warm ups I do want to clarify that I've never said that conventional warm ups in any way prevent sprinting from the gate. The characteristics of the horse permit this even with warm ups that are inadequate from the ideal.

Truth is under the present system in most races particularly the initial ones for our horse, we're stuck with what's there. We can take some solace the horses themselves are trying to take care of business pre-race even as the human handlers are so completely oblivious.

Training:
We'd finally decided on a 4.5f breeze for Wind at speed, and reported a 4f. The track was cuppy in the extreme and Nob reported the new thin, super light bit failed to work--"like a car with loose steering"--the bit was slinging back and forth in the horses mouth on each head bob with the horse unable to "grab the bit".

Additionally Nob said he misjudged the poles again and began the breeze at the 5f instead of 4.5 f, and that Nob completely lost his concentration down the stretch worrying about the bit and trying to find a safe lane. Nob said he failed to notice the horse slowing himself, probably about the 1/8 pole, and I'm sure that's were the final time of :55 came in.

Nob, however, was extremely pleased with the breeze. Said it was the horse's best yet, and that despite being unable to drive the horse due to track conditions, that the first 3.5f of the breeze before the slowdown probably went in near :12s. I concur. The horse looked good!

Art the last two nights has done riderless 90% 1f speed bursts with an oldster as we're trying to catch up on our shoeing.

Sunday At The Farm

An easy Sunday and a one mile leisurely farm gallop for Wind who was very up and energetic this morning. That's good to see, though I'd prefer that energy tomorrow for the breeze. The mildly warm spot above the right fetlock was largely gone last night. Maybe still there but I was unable to feel it. We're still mulling exact time and distance of tomorrow's important breeze. I'm figuring three breezes to racing, which means the first race in 12 days. Below photos from this morning show Wind warming up for his gallop and in the saddling area. Left click on the first and you'll get a good idea of the horse.

Evaluating The Friday Breeze

How's RR handle racing pressure? The last 24 hours I've forgotten the girth, forgot to switch the gas tank which killed the truck, fortuitously, on a road in plain view instead of the normal turn off that would have left us on a shoulderless two lane up and down road in precarious position. Today I drive to the office having forgotten to turn off the spigot in watering the horses. Neighbors gone of course, and it's hour drive to turn it off.

So, how are we evaluating the breezes? Here's the recent schedule for Wind:

9/11 2 x 3f farm breeze non-stop :12.7s.
9/14 3 x 2.5f farm breeze without stops in :12.8s.
9/17 3f in 41.1 at Woodlands.
9/21 4f in 49.6 Woodlands (extra day due to dark day on 9/20.).

Wind drove all the way through his breeze yesterday with almost zero blowing at the end and shows good energy today. But, how are the legs? I was reading Rick Porter's (Hard Spun) website this morning where amid rhapsodizing about his wonderful trainers and how well Hard Spun is doing Porter relates the various injuries to the rest of his stable. Kodiak Cowboy is doing well though, at least so far.

They say trainers walk on egg shells, and I actually say it's egg membranes, so we hold our breath a bit in the post breeze injury check. After the horse crossed the wire yesterday he "failed" to change leads into the Clubhouse turn on the gallop out. Nob had been instructed to gallop out to the back stretch so we could steer the horse into the gate area.

At that point(of the failed lead change) Nob violated an RR rule. The RR rules are set in stone, crucial that they be followed to avoid injury. The one violated: "never, ever persevere with a horse that fails to change leads". Zero leeway in that. "Never" persevere. Could I make it plainer?

When Wind failed to switch to his left on the gallop out he should immediately have been brought back to the trot. Instead, Nob, failing so to improvise on his instructions, in an exasperating failure of judgment, galloped an additional 3f on the right leg after a very hard burst down the stretch. And I'll note I was hardly too happy yesterday with that 2 mile trot home from the downed horse trailer (Nob leading the horse on the ground.) in the crucial post breeze "settle down" period.

So, how's the horse. Last night's injury check showed slight heat over both cannons, to be expected, which was close to stone cold this morning. There was, however, a slight warm spot on the condylar aspect of the right cannon where it joins the fetlock. Surprised??? Well, believe I just wrote above about the failed lead change. They're just too fragile to make any mistakes at all.

Hopefully all heat will be gone by tomorrow. It needs to be. We're planning an easy 1.5 mile gallop Sunday. I looked at Burch's book last night for the Assault exercise schematic just before Assault's first race in 1946. Max Hirsch was alternating long slow breezes with short fast ones. This seems like a good plan, and so we'll try for 6f in 1:20 or thereabouts Monday, with one eye on the weather, and see where we are.

Art last night was off.

Nob Gives "A Full Report"

Superb radio host-Attorney, Bill Cunningham, WLW Cincinnati (Radio 700), when the subject interests him will ask the caller for "a full report". Thought today a good time for one of those from Mr. Nob the rider concerning the day's activities that just brightened up considerably when I checked Wind's time this morning on Equibase. So, Mr. Nob, tell us what happened!

It seems Nob arose at 5:30 a.m. and weighed in at 154 lbs. We waited around a bit to avoid disturbing a possibly still resting Wind, and finally loaded at 6:15 a.m., still dark in these parts. Nice trip to the track, but, ooops, Nob forgot to load the fleece girth that had been washed last night (to lower the weight an ounce or so). Dammn!

But, as they approach the ship-in barn, what's this? Larry Sowers beat up old truck with Fred Sandford's junk yard in the bed appears in view. Forgot my flash card this day, but hopefully Sowers will repeat and we'll photo since he's a hoot.

We borrowed Sowers girth, but got on the track a little late consequently missing what I'd hoped would be a pristine track. Lot's of workers today for first race day Sunday. Nob was able, however, to find a pretty decent lane through all the cuppiness.

Wind, very sedate this morning and having neither pissed or dumped on arrival, entered the track at the 3/16 pole, walked to the outrider and Nob reported the breeze--"Groovin' Wind going 4f for RR".

Nob back tracked at the trot to the 3.5f pole. Turned around, got his left lead, and then charged down the stretch to the wire at a 2 minute clip, too fast too early. At the clubhouse turn, though, Wind rated nicely back to :18s. Nob reported him winded at the point--too fast, too soon. The gallop continued and speed was recommenced at the 5f.

Full speed commence just before the 4f. Nob said when he applied the whip at that point the idiot changed to his left lead and they're too close to the turn to change back So an extended left lead gallop, a problem under 167 lbs.

The horse went strongly all the way to the wire. final time 49.60 and 7th of 27 workers today at 4f. Nob said Wind weakened around the 2f and then 1/8 pole but responded to the whip each time and crossed the wire strongly Gallop out was scotched as he'd done enough.

We were most displeased with the work till I just saw the time on Equibase.

Nob said it was a different horse than he'd been galloping at the farm. Very little speed and certainly other than the Wind of old. While the horse was strong all the way Nob felt very little speed and zero response to the whip to increase speed. Nob came off shaking his head.

What's the problem? Nob said the horse acted as if he was without a clue as to what he was to do, that he expended himself in the warm up and lost his edge mentally. Additionally, the stride seemed devoid of hind end power and the horse never stretched himself into a wagon wheel stride. Instead the stride was just all legs, very inefficient. By feel Nob thought the breeze very slow and the horse capable of better.

Might be a surface problem here, and perhaps regular grabs needed instead of level grips, but, we'll wait and see on this.

The horse came back well. Oh, and of course immediately performed his dump, hopefully a learning experience for the horse. We gave Sowers his girth and loaded up.

The comedy that followed would take a book. Let's shorten it and say Nob forgot to switch gas tanks on the old truck and ran out of gas, and was unable to start the truck on the other tank since it's very very tempermental. This resulted in unloading the horse and Nob running and Wind trotting 3 miles to the farm. The truck and trailer were parked with emergency markers on one of KC's busiest roads, lol. Nob drove back, got it started, then had to run another 3 miles back to get the car. lol. The good news, I think we might have our 150 lbs. rider for the breeze to come Monday. Yet to plan it.

Art: 1.5 miles stop and start riderless last night and some tack work.

Groovin'Wind

They all have a story. Here's Wind's.

Sire:
Enlarge it and you'll see Groovin' Time. I like the name. As so many, they hurt him early. GT was by champion sprinter Groovy out of a Robert Sangster owned mare named Spankeys Seconds who won a hundred grand by noted sprinter Wig Out. GT was a stakes winner in :21s and :44s. Back '94 and 95 I was into breeding to speed via Smile and Groovy. Groovin' Time when I bred to him at the Vet School, University Illinois, Urbana was a big strong racy looking horse.

Here's the dam, Windy Lea at age 4 with Paul Feliciano's (think Secretariat) girlfriend.
Windy Lea is by English champion two year old Wind and Wuthering (by champion No Robbery by Swaps) out of Lulu Lea by French Champion Herbager. The other male grandparents were Johns Joy and Bull Lea. Bimlette and Bimelech appear close up in the pedigree. The mare is inbred to the Bulldog line combining Herbager with Swaps. Lots of champions instead of mere stakes horses in Windy Lea pedigree. What did this produce? She was loaded with talent with a classic stride but also a bit of a mess--slight breathing problem, refuser on the track, and terrible run down problems in her races. She was injured by a mistaken workout instruction over the phone, and then given to a lady in Lexington who bred her to some nice horses, quite justifiably if you look at the build and pedigree, but, maybe due to the breathing problem nothing of note was produced.

And, here is the Missouri bred-homebred- 15' 3.5" mud splattered, 12 yr. old Wind this morning pre-gallop giving you that $2500 claimer look. Left click though and you'll note a bit of scopiness from the parents.
(We've got the heaviest rider but the lightest equipment: 3 lbs. saddle showing a few whiskers, light back saver foam pad, 1 oz. imported plastic stirrups, nylon headstall and reins, and light, thin snaffle bit, with light whip and helmet it all weighs with the safety vest,10.5 lbs. altogether.)

My memorable moment for Wind perhaps in January age three when Kevin, exercise rider at KY Horse Center got off one day and said "this horse has a little talent". From Kevin that was high praise. Wind was Derby bound but running off with Kevin every single day. I should have gone with Burch training had I been aware of it, and we'd have avoided the slow gallop days. It was too much and Wind developed a "saucer fracture spot" on his shin and was off four months.

Wind was at his height in 2000. Finally got him in a race first week of December of age 5 (phew!), as I recall, an allowance at Blue Ribbon where most of the race Wind raced on even terms with horse of the meet The Cowboy, then a maiden win by 20 lengths and on to a tough allowance at Remington where Wind was walked to the gate and hence injured, an event which stopped the stable in its tracks just about as we were to get the big payday. This also explains in part my great concern with warm ups.

Wind was ready again by 2001 but that was the year of the RR injury. And then back to Eureka in 2003 after Wind had his lung punctured on a T-post when he jumped in after a mare. The Vet saved his life, but Wind lost his speed after that incident and consistently finished way back in 4 races in 2003. I will note however, in 2003 the horse I saw in the afternoon had zero resemblance to the dynamo I was galloping in the morning. There was a bit of a jock problem with Wind in 2003.

Since 2003 Wind has been training. There have been rain outs and more owner illness much of 2005. And now we're back to the race track hopefully to enter a week from tomorrow. We'll know a lot more after tomorrow's breeze planned at 4f.

Art resumed training last night. Injury was obviously a foot bruise. He's fine!

Getting A Warmup

Ok, so none of the horses, ponies, jockeys, trainers, racing secretary, or stewards are plugged into warm ups or they're physically incapable, or too tired, ignorant, drunk or spaced out to perform them. Pretty grim stuff! How do we get our horses warmed up?

Until the culture of warming up changes, as I saw in that one Japanese race, we're left with doing what we can in a particular situation. As noted, appropriate warm up for max performance and injury prevention are specific physiological parameters to arrive at instead of any particular exercise schematic, and we can get to or get close these in a number of ways. The flighty, nervous Groovin' Wind at the Woodlands on the first two days warmed up with slowly accelarating gallops instead of the stop-start farm warm ups--less than ideal, but it'll do under the circumstances.

Please note, however, that whatever warm up protocol is chosen, the horse may survive without getting max performance, but we need to get as close to max injury prevention as the conditions allow.

Here are some things I've done over the years:
1. Scout the pony riders. Pick out the athletes, humans and horses.
2. To get 'em, bribe 'em. Pay double and triple. If you want to stay on the track, it's a necessary expense.
3. With sufficiently greased palms pony riders tend to be fairly pliable. Instruct them on the warm up you want. Generally they'll give it a try.
4. Inform the jock of the warm up protocol. They'll ignore you, but this will prevent surprise. Avoid boring the jock with any complexities or reasoning, lest they decide you're crazy.
5. The aim is to train your horse to warm up without pony.. Regardless of speed, the poniles warm up is infitinitely more effective than the pony warm up. Of course, you'll have to train you rider too.

For trainers it's easier yet. Bill O'Gorman notes the desirability of training your own stable lads and lassies, hard as these are to find these days. But, this is the way to go, even at the expense of some riding talent. You may lose a race this way on occasion due to a better ride, but you'll increase the chances of keeping your horse on the track geometrically. If you keep 'em running, they'll win.

After you train your rider, then you train your horse. Horses get gate cards. They should also get a warm up card. How many horses would that save. By my estimate: countless. Ivers said "it'll all be cleaned up one day". Let's hope.

One more thing to get out about warming up. I've ranted and raved about the inadequacy of conventional warm ups for months? Are they really that bad? Next Post.

Training:
Tues. night rains cancel Aylward's breeze. Wind is off Wednesday. Art has recovered. As suspected the injury must have been a hoof bruise.

Ponies And Final Thoughts On Warm Up

Speaking of timely, on today's Foolish Pleasure Blog this snapshot of Presque Isle ponies between races. Hope she's ok with the "borrowing" as this is just what I needed to make my point.

If you take a closer look you can see the problems. A fat Pinto with heavier equipment yet and couch potato rider. Then the 200 lbs fellow and the little liver chestnut, bless it's heart, but at least they appear athletic. And you could go down the line and see: maybe two out of ten really physically up to more than a minimal warm up.

I'd like to illustrate the pony problem with a personal story. I once bred a beautiful chestnut filly to Pancho Villa and got a talented, speedy Secretariat clone named Dr. Jackson. Doc was flashy from the get go, but, unfortunately proved to have a wind problem. When I had my 2001 accident he was sold. He next pops up as a track pony owned by my good friend Connie Slade. Connie and Doc warmed up my horses at Eureka in 2003 and I paid Connie a few extra bucks to follow instructions.

She tried. The plan was to warm up both leads and let Doc take the horse in heats as fast as Doc could go. Connie was one of those that could fly around the track with horse in the mornings, but the problem turned out to be Doc himself. He was now as a pony other than fast. Fastest he could take my horses was maybe in :19-:18s. I never asked Connie to try to make him go faster. There was simply too much weight and lack of athleticism on his back, and they were giving it their best go.

The lesson here, and I've seen the same thing at most tracks, except for the one or two pony riders that are both athletes themselves and ride conditioned ponies, it's too much to ask most of these to really warm up your horse. There's also the fatigue factor of course. With what these ponies are asked to carry--and I think using heavy western saddles and all that ridiculous equipment they put on them needs to be looked at. What's the point?--over ten races how can we expect a vigorous warm up in every race?

I'll give the RR final thoughts on warming up, next post.

Training:
Nob weighs in this morning at 154 in his birthday suit, and yes ladies, he's available. Think Nob's diet discipline yesterday consisted of downing some extra fat and carb blockers.

It's 20 miles to the Woodlands, and we left early hoping to catch a harrowed track. Immediately ran into my old friend Larry Sowers, the original Lonesome Dove. Sowers jawed at me the whole time I was saddling up describing all the bows and fractures on his various stock.

We'd decided on 3f with strong gallop in and out. Wind has looked tired, but, we separated the horses last night, and put Wind in the barn with Art. It worked as Wind was more bouncy this morning.

It'll be interesting if the breeze appears on Equibase as to how I'm judging the times. I'm estimating a :38 and change, though Nob, who lost his glasses, said he mixed up the poles and missed the first few strides. Wind was strong every step, hardly breathing when finished, and needed maybe 3 light touches of the whip. After yesterday's weak gallop it was encouraging. Next breeze Friday.

Woodlands Day 1

Out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and finally in the office at 11:15 a.m. galloping all of one horse today. Another two hours and we could have made it to Eureka.

Nob weighs in at 154. We weighed the tack at 10.5 lbs, that's everything, saddle, bridle, pad, stick, vest, and helmet. Figure Nob's clothes--6 oz. running shoes, running tights, weightless shirt, briefs and feather socks, protective vest at 4 lbs. So, horses carry close to 168 lbs, which we're trusting will be 167 for tomorrow's breeze given a little diet discipline and tonight's road work.

As to the Woodlands, to quote another Goethe gem "Aye, that same dark linden swaying, now matured to aged strength. Welcome after years of straying, they salute me back at length." It's only been a year but we're glad to be back. I've trained at the Woodlands since it opened, and Groovin' Wind has been at it there since 2000. So, the 2007 meet that will be Wind and Aylward's last brings back some memories.

Wind galloped 1.5 in :16s-17s. Less energy than I expected. The horse seemed a little intimidated and I could tell he was struggling with the deep sand a bit after the hard stuff he's been on. Track assimilation might take a little longer than I'd thought. I looked at Wind later on the walker. He gave all the appearance of a cheap 2500 claimer. He'll be racing against the Prairie Meadow's bunch that's piling in. We'll see. Aylward was into the stallion thing and uncontrollable. We declined to take him on the track fearing he might be barred.

"You're Good To Go"

This was the response from the Woodlands racing office this morning to my telephone request for permission to ship in. Presumably we'll be there in the morning, though weather may be problematical.

Groovin' Wind looks light but muscular. However, he's eating, which is big. Wind had a tough breeze Friday, rested yesterday. This morning the horse seemed a bit tired and frazzled, but I'd prefer them tired and strong than fresh and weak. Typical athlete stuff. Workouts cause fatigue but then recovery and nutritional reloading for the next one. Like human athletes they love their sport, and when they hit the track they're ready.

Actually, Wind was bouncing around Saturday after the breeze, and today's sedate attitude may be nothing more than too little sleep, a little recognized thing with horses. Too busy grazing and whoops, there goes the 4 a.m. siesta.

Some miscellaneous thoughts going on the meet:
1. Burch training, how's it going? I'd say pretty well, but will be able to judge it better when I see what I've got on the race track. Our Burch guinea pigs have breezed every 3 to 4 days since June with the big workouts starting about 45 days ago.

Is breezing every 3 days the way to go? We're still evaluating. Maybe it's over training at times. Ivers said breezing every 4 days is the ideal, but, that has problems too including what to do on the off days. I've been mulling that maybe every 5 days might be ideal with a strong 2 minute lick between the breezes and max speed work or race on the 5th day. We'll see how this develops.

2. The horses: Here is Wind's projected schedule and I'll look back later to evaluate:
9/14 3x2.5f 12.8s.
9/15 rest
9/16 rest (we're transitioning to mornings here. extra 12 hrs. rest ok here.
9/17 1.5 miles :17s.
9/18 4f breeze with strong gallop out under Nob.
9/19 rest
9/20 1.5 miles at farm on dark day.
9/21 (Friday) 6f breeze hopefully out of gate with jock.
at this point we'll check condition of cannons, fetlock and shins to determine whether to enter. Plan would be to start with 6f race. Will cannons be ready for harder surface is our weakness at this point--that, and speed.

Aylward: Just as I was thinking his mouth problem and resulting behavior was under control, then last night, would you know, 2 days pre-Woodlands we had a session. Al's misbehavior, and it's mouth related, is backing up instead of buck or rear. When you use the stick he just backs up faster. It's a precarious problem at the track. Blinkers coming. Might be closer to retirement.

Acesmash: Aces galloping has been a little short of consistent as we've thrown in riderless speed work. Real race training is just beginning and he's still way overweight.

Art: Some horses have continual problems. Art was limping and last night when I tried to trot him to see where and what, he'd taken all of four steps when he was severely kicked in the chest by the horse in front of him. At least three days off. Funny scene this morning though as the gigantic gelding Ace and the little colt joust over the feed bucket. The youngster won. Stay tuned though who comes on top. Gotta bet on the big fellow though nice to see the feistiness of the young two year old.

3. A nobbier Nob. The cabbage and water diet clicks in. Weighing in at 154 lbs. Need to get to 150. The last 4 lbs. is the toughest.

It Begins!

Woodland's backstretch opens today and the one mile track for training Monday. We'll have a real race track to train on for the next 37 days. Woodlands track is a very nice track--well proportioned with a decent surface that's hard in the morning and deep in the afternoon. RR excited about the coming meet and a bit petrified also. This is where it all comes to a head, meaning all the work, and preparation, but, right now we're still nowhere. We'll see how it all comes out.

Txs. to KH for the comment last post, and recommend it to anyone else that might be reading the blog. I'm encouraged by Chris McCarron's school, and the cite in the comment shows what it's all about.

Training: Interesting warm up for Wind's breeze last night. After conducting my 1.5f + 1f + 1.5f warm up for several breezes in a row I'd thought that Wind was getting a hang of all the stopping and starting and noted that he even seemed to be enjoying and appreciating what was going on. But, first warm up heat last night all was forgotten as Wind barreled right on past the stop sign. But, most interestingly, after this he commenced a relaxed walk, memory apparently revived, and completely cooperative thereafter.

The breeze was 3 x 2.5f non-stop. Again, after each heat we have to gallop down, turn around and gallop about 1.5f to the starting point of the next heat. Those between heat gallops where as fast as we could maneuver. We deliberately let up a notch last night compared to the preceding breeze. I'd say the heats went in the 12.7-12.8sec/f range. Very strong again. Breezes planned at Woodlands on Tuesday and Friday. If we can get those timed and out of the gate--big if--we might be looking at a race shortly after 9/23. Wind's shins last night were warm for an hour post breeze but stone cold this morning, which is very good news.

Our little Art after Wednesday's speed work has come up limping. Has to be a bruised sole or developing abscess, but things are undiagnosed at this point. Final farm breeze tonight with Aylward. I'm relieved at that as grass has worn off the track and the bumpy, bare ground is getting dangerous.

Warm Up Obstacles: Riders

Nice photo of the jock, and instructive! Perfect position on the horse directly over the center of gravity, aerodynamic silks, stirrups level instead of acee-doocy, beautiful horse without blinkers or shadow roll to obstruct her vision--this group "seems" to have it together. Or, do they?

Jerry Bailey's book provides insight as what we're up against with riders. Lots of stuff really.

They come in all shapes, sizes and backgrounds, of course, but you can summarize riders as a group fairly accurately--uneducated, frequently hung over (see Bailey's book on the amount of liquor consumed nightly--astonishing.), motivation diluted by continual overwork, rarely attached to your situation, chronically late if they show at all, a disappearing species, etc. In a sport that requires expert riding at all times, "jock issues" plague the sport.

I'll post about this in detail at some point, but for now elaborate only how our good pinheads affect our ability to warm up our horses.

For non-riders, set the tone by noting that I have four horses to gallop on many days and I consider that number enough. Four rides exhaust me mentally and physically, and though part of this is tacking up, doing hoofs, rounding up, etc., I'd suspect after their 5th or 6th ride of the day professional riders that do nothing but are like myself. They've just about had it.

Yet, here are our top riders expected to 5 or 6 breezes in the morning, conduct their business, take a short break and ride 7-10 times for the afternoon, keep their weight in check, recover from their nightly trysts, etc. etc. year upon year. One may imagine the mental response of an individual with this agenda regarding any requirements viewed as extra.

"By the way sir, would you also conduct my multiple heat warm up, accelerate into each heat, make sure you warm up both leads, the pony will be there to help you out if you get in trouble. We're doing this so that all physiological parameters will be ready for max performance out of the gate. And, we'd like your cooperation to avoid any nasty fracturing during the race."

It's like Bill Russel (yes that Bill Russell) once commented while broadcasting a Portland Trailblazer's basketball game: "There's Jack Ramsey in the huddle(white guy scholar and Hall of Fame coach surrounded by 10 black players) explaining strategy to his squad in professorial English. One problem. These guys don't understand English."

Work overload though is the big thing on these fragile small people. Imagine for yourself doing 12-13 rides/day with 12-13 intricate warm ups, and doing that every day on end. Is it any wonder that jocks take short cuts in the warm ups.

What's the solution to this? It's simple really. No one in the U.S.A ever considers warming up or recognizes it's importance. It's out of the culture and out of the routine. If, as in Japan, warming up were expected and part of the pre-race routine, it would be done, without question.

Additionally, there urgently needs to be rider education provided somewhere regarding rider responsibility and injury avoidance. Jocks needless to say for self-preservation have their concerns. And yet, rider errors that do or may cause injury--you see them everyday including absurd lack of warm ups for breezes.

Getting a little long here. Hopefully I made the point.

Training: 9/13/07. Wind gallops 1.5 miles in :17-:18s in prep for tonight's breeze. All other horses off after their fast works of Wednesday. Wind's shins show he's working, but, the heat problem seems to be gone. We'll see on this, especially after tonight.

Warm Up Obstacles: Riders, Ponies and Horses

We'd ideally like our animals pre-race to perform a short gallop and then a couple of sprints sans pony, one on each lead. Last post I mentioned the physical limitations of this in terms of the position of the starting gate, the quickly diminishing warm up area caused by outriders perpetually starting their "roundup" prematurely, and general attitudes that prevail among the powers that be oblivious to the importance of pre-race warm ups.

For the enlightened trainer wanting to press on anyway, there's a lot more to overcome. Jerry Bailey in his book describes a scene half way across the world. It was the very first Dubai Cup. Sheik Mohammed invited Bill Mott, Cigar and (was it) the Paulson's, and everything went well for the American party except to Bailey's surprise ponies are barred at Nad El Sheeba. While this might indicate a certain enlightenment as to warming up by the Sheiks, Bailey fretted that he'd be unable to control the headstrong Cigar without a pony. Whatever the circumstances, they finally relented,Cigar got his pony and won the race by a couple of lengths, as I recall.

Of course you can understand Bailey's point. He may well have been unable to control Cigar, and the question becomes while RR in this blog can pontificate about ideal warm ups, unless we can get the horses to agree it's all much ado about nothing.

So the question, is it possible that but for the occasional pliable animal that we can get the run of the mill race horse to go out and perform our warm up routine like a trained poodle. I can relate from personal experience as a rider, for younger horses, doubtful, but, I'll limit that to the present state of things at our racetracks.

The manner in which our horses at the track are treated and trained--and by this I mean the psychological effect of 23 hour a day stalling combined with the get 'em out-get 'em back in exposure to the race track (as opposed e.g. to the hour a day Bill O'Gorman claims his horses got on the Newmarket track) makes an impossibly excitable animal in terms of any rational warm up schematic.

Yet, they perform these warm ups in Japan. How? There it's simply a little out of the box thinking and changing of the whole scene. The Jap pre-race warm up (in the race I saw) the horses were spaced without ponies some on the outside of the track, some on the inside, far enough apart that the jocks were able to go about their warm up business without fear of misbehavior or loosing their mounts. From the horse's point of view, it obviously can be done, because it is done in Japan.

I'll take a look at the role of our jocks and ponies in the warm up, next post.

Training:
It was bound to happen eventually as last night we had a collision between Nob and a "giant" grasshopper. This disaster occurred during an Aylward breeze with Nob at full bore and a grasshopper the size of a B-52 winging it straight into Nob's left eyeball. Bruised cornea, and Nob said just pre (violent) collision,the insect looked gigantic.

Al ran 4 x 2.4f last night (13.5s) but still get's winded despite all these breezes and thus looks increasingly problematical as a racing prospect. We'll see. Wind was off after his Tuesday Breeze.
Art: 9/13/07 Burch Day 3: With Nob's bruised eyeball all further riding was cancelled. Art performed 5 riderless 3/4 F sprints with gallops in and out with Acesmash. Both horses performed very energetically and looked good.

Conventional Warmups, Whys And Wherefores

"Man commonly is blind throughout his life. My Faust be blind then as you end it".

The hundred year old Faust has pissed off the Grey Spirit named Care. Bad mistake! She breathes on him and blinds him.

Is it possible that our top conventional trainers are blind to the benefits of physiologically adequate warm ups? Unknown to me, but, there are a few indicators. E.g. I'm unable to find the words "warm up" in books by Preston Burch, Bill O' Gorman, and in 'Winning Trainers' by Ross Staaden in a comprehensive look at Lukas and T.J. Smith. Even Tom Ivers the horse exercise physiologist, in a vast body of work, barely mentions warming up. 'Whittingham' by Jay Hovdey gives a fairly detailed analysis of the methods but in Hovdey's interview process Whittingham apparently never mentioned warm ups.

And, of course, if you watch 'em in the afternoon, you'd have to conclude they're satisfied with the warm up. Watch 'em warm up for breezes in the morning and most of the time the stupidity will shock you.

How can this be so?

There are a large number of reasons, and I'll type them out as they come to me instead of noting them by particular priority.

In terms of more vigorous, appropriate warm ups at our North American Race tracks there are some practical aspects which serve as close to insurmountable obstacles. The first of these would be the starting gate and the outrider.

Have you watched 'em warm up in a 5.5f race at a mile track? The starting gate is positioned right in the way of the warm up at the 5.5f pole so that the horses can at best gallop about 1.5f from the post parade. This quickly becomes about 1f as the outrider is moving almost immediately from the post parade toward the gate. Here is the absurdity of an all out sprint and horses left without the physical room for rational warm up. Same deal to a lesser degree in distance events as the starting gate and position of the outrider effectively block any warm up sprints coming back counter clock wise.

Why does this occur? Needless to say it's doubtful that racetrack management--racing secretary, stewards, GM ever give the slightest concern to warm ups. Oh yes, they fret constantly over full fields and that at any given moment half the back stretch is injured. But connecting cause with effect, well, better stop there...

Then there is the outrider problem. You try any extended warm up and you're going to run into that person before you're half way through. These idiots (and I use that term only with respect to their concern about the horses) seem intent on conducting their roundup almost from the inception of the post parade. You can see them in any race impatiently biding their time until they can begin to do "their" job, which is getting the horses to the gate.

The gate's being up during the warm up and the outrider attitudes would be things so easily dealt with were anyone at the track even slightly connecting the dots. Such I fear is the state of the sport. Continue next post.

Training:
We're getting excited about the Woodlands coming up after another nice Wind breeze last night at the farm. Though I'll really only know after we hit the Woodlands, jeez that seemed fast to me last night. I've smoothed out some of our track and we can now do almost a full 3f. Wind last night did a no stop 2 x 3f. After heat 1 he had to be stopped to turn around, but then it was a 1.5f fairly fast gallop to starting point of heat 2. The aim had been to go slower last night to see how the shins would react. Thus, Nob only sat on the horse during each heat. But, Wind just took off. Nob said there was a little backing off about the middle of each heat but then he'd take off again. It looked impressive. We'll see. Oh, and, it was a nice 1.5f + 1f + 1.5f warm up before the heats. Stone cold cannons this morning. Aylward breezes tonight.
Art:
9/11/07 Tues. Day 2 Burch riderless 4f W/U + 2 miles slow riderless. Dark got us again on the tack work.

The Logic (?) Behind Conventional Warm Ups

"Restrain yourself and speak no conjury."

Goethe's words (from 'Faust') set the tone for the blog's look at the whys and wherefores of conventional warm ups, but first a couple of qualifiers.

On those points on which I differ with conventional trainers--something oddly occuring frequently--I give every benefit of the doubt to them instead of my own opinions. These are after all the "nice folks at the track" (see my post of 3/31/07), my role models who make a living at the sport. Surely you'd expect these professional tracksters to have learned something over time.

Moreover, when we lump them all together we include several who are anything but fools, such as e.gs. Pletcher, Assmussen, Matz, O'Neil, Baffert, to name a few. I'd have to be pretty damn certain of my point before I'd walk up to Todd Plecher and call him an idiot.

The other preface is my lack of direct knowledge as to how these sorts are "presently" warming up their horses. Have their warm ups evolved over the last ten years as their training seems to be evolving? Unknown to RR, and so for the sake of discussion I'm going to assume that at the top the warm ups are still of the conventional sort that I've described in the prior posts with apologies to any of these trainers as enlightened on the subject as this blog.

So, why would Todd Pletcher or Michael Matz take an Any Given Saturday or Chelokee pre-race or pre-breeze beside the pony and warm up with 2-3 minutes of canter seemingly ignoring basic exercise physiology? Seems hard to believe trainers with the level of sophistication of these folks would have failed to consider in minute detail what their horses do pre-race.

What's the thinking here, next post.

Training:
All RR horses off Monday. Woodlands open for training 9/17.

Warm Up: What They Do, And Why?

By simple observation any serious human athlete can recognize the insufficiency of conventional pre-race (and pre-breeze) warm ups conducted at our racetracks--a couple minutes cantering added to a little-walk-trot-milling around, and our animal would be ready for it's all out extended sprint from the gate.

I've mulled this over the years before I ever owned a horse in my old days at Ak-Sar-Ben, and then through countless exercises as owner, trainer, and rider. Hopefully I've been able to communicate my views on the blog. RR is quite as certain as he can be that the conventional warm up is insufficient, dangerous to horse and rider, and patently absurd.

Yet, as in all things where one faces almost universal disapproval, there is that nagging doubt fostered by the hard fact that the rest of the world does it differently. Who are the idiots here, ourselves who would like to actually conduct a couple of pre-race sprints, or everybody else who, but for the occasional misfit, seem unable to see the advantage to their horse of appropriate warm up?

It's a big question really and one that also pertains to training generally. I'll delve into why they do what they do in warming up in the next posts.

Training:
Here is the schedule for Groovin' Wind in the preceding two weeks.

8/26 4 x 2.6f farm breeze at :12.7s.
8/27 Off
8/28 1.5 miles in :17s.
8/29 1:51 mile farm breeze.
8/30 Off
8/31 1 1/4 mile in :17s.
9/1 1:45 mile at Eureka.
9/2 Off.
9/3 Riderless 2 miles in :14 (training error--too much after Saturday's breeze--some shin heat afterward.)
9/4 Off. mild colic.
9/5 off
9/6 1 5/8 mile in :19s--slow.
9/7 1 1/2 mile in :17s.
9/8 Planned acceleration with breeze next day--1 mile in :16s with :24 2f acceleration.
9/9 Breeze cancelled. Horse showing mild shin heat. Galloped instead 1.5 miles in :17s.
9/10 morning--shin heat almost gone. will get the day off.

Wind, unlike Assault in Preston Burch's book, yet to be ready for back to back accelerations. This last week was a set back. We'll see how it goes. Woodlands opens soon.

Art: Has been doing two miles riderless daily fast and through the mud from a 1.35 inch rain Friday. Looking good!

Warm Up Exhibit A

Thanks to KH for the Georgie Boy comment (two year old winner of the Delmar Futurity)! Can we claim the comment as Exhibit A for the warm up part of the blog? KH noted that on TVG it looked as if Georgie Boy had the most vigorous warm up, and he adds to this by running easy out of the gate--nice job by trainer Kathy Walsh (my word!), though I'm less complimentary to see her valuable horse being persevered with on the wrong lead all the way down the stretch. Lucky they were on poly!

Racing observers have seen this over and over. One horse comes out and appears actually to be warming up for the race compared to the others. I always run to the windows when I see this. The warmed up animal may get beat, but it'll generally be competitive. Why? The rest of the field in the mile race will be winded when they hit the backstretch when the warmed up horse is just getting into gear.

Coming up I'll summarize my thoughts on warm up and delve into why the heck they warm up the way they do?

Training:
Groovin' Wind back in action Thurs. night for a 1 5/8 mile gallop. Wind has caught something. He has a dull eye, ribs showing, totally other than himself. We decided to let him gallop at his own pace to test the energy level. Nob said it was a workman like (as opposed to "eager") steady :17 up and down the hills. Wind never once pulled on the bit--very unWind like. Wormed tonight; I'm expecting improvement Friday then on to Eureka.

Art: This one was funny. The little f.ass was galloped riderless with Aylward who had had a light breeze the night before. I'd noted after good feeding that Al appeared to actually have put on weight over night--bad news for Saturday's breezing since we have a heavy rider. So, decided riderless with the youngster.
They warmed up a half mile then were to gallop "briskly" for two miles riderless. What it turned into was a very steady :14.5-:15s for two miles with the old vet either running behind the youngster egging him on or occasionally taking the lead and the example. Al was completely the instructor and crashed the young fellow every time he tried to slow down or play around. It was hilarious, and while hardly the fastest Art has traveled, the length and consistency made this Art's most strenuous workout to date. First time he'd experiences a professional run. Light bulb on, hopefully! Ten min. walk under tack. Beat the dark tonight!

Warming Up For Injury Prevention

As I get my two twelve year olds, and knocking on wood here, closer to racing, I start training bone cells. All I do as the stress, speed and distance increase involves keeping the horse running, which for equines strictly means avoiding injury. Even in my handicapping days at Ak-Sar-Ben before I ever owed a horse it was starting to dawn on me that those trainers that could keep 'em running would win. Why even Mary The Twit possessed of one of the longest loosing streaks in history eventually won a race and I cashed a nice ticket.

The best conditioning for racing is to run a race, and those horses with decent husbandry tend eventually to improve and win if, and it's a huge if, they can keep on doing it.

I spent a good deal of the summer posting about my little studies on bone warm up, and now I'm into looking at just what specifically in terms of a warm up schematic is going to do the trick.

Start this out by noting, if you care to read the posts, that there's almost zero doubt that warm up affects fracture resistance and by the same token increases the ability soft tissue--ligaments and tendons--to hold together under stress.

What exactly we need to do pre-race or pre-breeze to max out fracture resistance? I'm positive the question has yet to be studied. Somebody in one of the vet schools will wake up one day and give us some data, but, so far, zilch.

So, we have to guess at what we need to do. Open it by noting the impossibility that cantering beside a pony along with a little trot-walk for ten minutes is going to do much in terms of preparing the bone connective tissue both live and mineral for concussion. I've figured with a fair degree of confidence that bone tissue in the warm up react to the stress applied. The horse shuffling along in a canter is better than walking them to the gate but a far cry from what can be done.

In the past few posts I've forwarded a formula for max performance. And so, would this formula also provide ultimate fracture resistance? I'm in full guessing mode here and the best evidence I have still is my own hand clapping experiment that I posted on in June or July.

Clap your hands together hard and feel the effect on your wrist. You can perform this in various combos and see for yourself that there is a girding effect by warming up. What I noted however from the experiment was that a time delay was necessary for full warm up. I noted if I clapped for a minute or two then waited five minutes that is when my wrist felt the least impact from subsequent claps.

I can only surmise that probably even with my max performance warm up there needs to be a little delay in terms of time elapsed before the bones become fully prepared. Unknown exactly why, but, you'd suppose that brittle mineralized bone cells in their "shaking up" and other fracture resisting processes--the sacrificial bonds, etc., take longer than enervated muscle cells to get ready. But, once the process has been set in motion by the hand clapping experiment it seems to last for a while!

Indeed when i'm out on a horse performing my max performance warm up and then go right into the breeze I'm still worrying and considering whether the bones are really ready.

Luckily, the time to post in a race gives us this delay period. But, what about breezing, and how many horses are injured by insufficient delay between onset of work and max speed? Unknown of course.

Now that I'm considering it, next breeze I'll increase the time between the fastest warm heat and beginning of breeze. Makes sense to me! Maybe to get max fracture resistance we have to expend a little more energy than we want in terms of max performance? Hmmm.

I'm considering this as I type. Here's my conclusions. Actually doing my max performance warm up 2.5f + 1 + 1.5f with trot-walk between takes a good long while. Almost too long to perform it pre-race as the outrider will do their round up before completion. It probably lasts a good 5-7 minutes to get it done. I'm thinking that's enough time.

Training:
Groovin' Wind: Breezed a mile Saturday at Eureka in 1:45. Riderless two miles quick Monday then some shin heat due to the training error posted previously.
Tues night off and mild colic. The horse missed a couple of meals and looks like an old wagon horse today. Gave another day off. Hopefully a good feeding will revive the old boy and we'll commence tomorrow and to Eureka Saturday. Aylward, just the opposite had a very nice farm breeze tonight.
Art: almost dark again. Galloped 2.5 miles riderless with some fast spurts.

Warm Up: More, Or Less?

I've suggested a warm up formula of 2.5f +1f+1.5f with gradual acceleration through the heats to finishing at :13sec/f rate. Where does this come from?

In the warm up--to achieve max performance out of the gate--we're trying to get to a certain point physiologically. This means

engage the energy producing mechanisms at the cellular level:
ATP, glycolisis, O2 conversion
engage nitrous oxide mechanisms and blood vessel dilation
increase temperature
increase heart rate
alert nervous system
gird for impending force at the cellular level
mentally--produce a little confidence--how are my legs today?

and probably 20 other things I'm omitting at the moment.

To get to the "correct point" for max performance is thus other than a formula or schematic. View this warm up process instead as an end point to be reached physiologically that might really be attainable in any of number of ways, leave it to one's imagination.

There are some things, however, that we need to observe in warming up to get to "that point".
And in this sense there really are two considerations:
1. We have to get there, and
2. We want to avoid going beyond.

"Getting there" means engaging everything for max performance. "Going beyond" means we've reached the point but are still continuing to use up energy in the warm up. Thus, getting to the point of max performance is a very fine line that we would prefer in the warm up to reach instead of cross. Why?

Obviously any physical effort including the warm up requires expenditure of energy. Hopefully we've fed and conditioned our horse pre-race so that it enters the track with the mitochondria of the muscle cells packed with glycogen, and that additional glycogen stores floating in the blood stream and stored in the liver wait to be used for the anaerobic energy process to come. Needless to say, in the warm up we want to use up as little glycogen as possible.

Thus, when we consider a warm up formula we're trying to come up with something that both warms up the horse and stops before we use up unnecessary energy. In terms of the "more or less" title of this post then we want to avoid both doing too much and too little. Within that basic definition we can come up with whatever warm up formula that works.

TRAINING ERROR
I've learned over the years that you never never make training decisions on the fly. Conditions at times dictate on the spot improvisation. However, to reconsider things while you're out there saddling a horse that you've already resolved inevitably leads to costly error either in terms of injury or delay.

Such were things Monday night on Labor Day when a shoeing took longer than expected and we walked out of the barn at 7:15 p.m. with 4 horses to gallop and 30 minutes of daylight left. Stupid to be in that position--what excuse to fail to start earlier besides sloth and lack of discipline--but, what now. The RR mind is spinning and in retrospect in total brain freeze.

To illustrate--Groovin' Wind's planned scheduled had been:
Sat: 1 mile breeze
Sun: off
Mon: 1 1/4 mile easy gallop
Tues. 1 mile breeze at Eureka or on farm.

And here is what RR came up with given lack of daylight: all horses are exercised riderless fast, we'll rest Tues. and breeze Wed. Brilliant plan, not! For numerous reasons that became clear to me even as the whim of the moment was being carried out. First, after a mile breeze Sat. it's awfully hard without producing injury to get away with speed work 48 hrs. later. Ridiculous. My thoughts were that it was riderless and the Wind would easily do the riderless work. As it turned out we had warm shins after he finished--cooled down this morning--but there was risk!

Moreover this riderless exercise completely threw off the schedule. Now instead of breezing Tuesday we have to rest, and when we commence Wed. the last tack work out will have been four days ago. Can one day of screw up really produce all this commotion and upset? Yes it can. Hopefully the horse in his shins will be ok. How I'll get out of the mess created by last night's training mistake I'm still considering.

All horses last night galloped fast riderless at about :14s for 2 miles with some much faster spurts.

September Review: Can We Close The Deal?

At the advanced age of RR if you blink you might miss a month. Hard to believe that the summer of '07 is behind us, we're into September and the Kansas City Woodlands Racetrack meet looms just a couple of weeks away.

At the beginning of August my mindset with the horses was to avoid thinking ahead and to make decisions one day at a time. At the beginning of September I'm still in an "avoiding plans" mode. However, due to the state of training of a couple of the horses, things now are more together in my thought process. Presently, as opposed to a month ago, one of our horses is actually ready to race and another is coming along.

Over the last few years the RR stable has been at the point before the Woodlands meet a few times, and yet our last race was in 2003. There's such a big difference between being almost ready to race and actually doing it.

So, as we get into the month of September, our big question is whether we can actually pull it off this year and get our horses racing. For the uninitiated, it's such an obstacle course. Can we get on track, will the weather hold, will the horses maintain their health through the final and most strenuous days of training. I've yet to see a bee at the RR farm this summer, and in this part of the country it is about that hard to find riders. Given the scarcity of jocks that actually work horses in the morning, can our little operation find somebody willing to get on a couple of 12 year olds. It's all a bit of a nail biter. It should be interesting. Here is a going-into-September report on each of our horses:

Groovin' Wind, age 12. Wind commenced tack work in early May and so we're a little past day 120. Preston Burch style training commenced in June and Wind has been breezing pretty much every three days for three months with a little break in early August. The horse has maintained his weight, he's eating, seemingly healthy and attacks his work with great enthusiasm. Through a lot of work there have been zero injuries. Expect 5 or 6 more breezes before the first race that hopefully will be on 9/23. Right now Wind is our horse to watch.

Aylward, age 12. Al has been on the same schedule as Wind but is a couple of weeks behind. Al has major mouth problems that may keep him from racing. Decision to be made on retirement after the next couple of Eureka breezes. Al may race or be wearing his last set of racing plates. A question mark at this point.

Acesmash: Our huge 16' 2.5" six year old non-starter. I'm persevering with this horse 1. because I like him, 2. because he has some talent, and 3. because Eureka and St. Louis are without eligibility limits. So, he can race as a 7 year old. In terms of training, Ace has been working but he's no were near a race. I've determined to bridle him up 150 straight times and see where he is. We're on day 5 at the moment.

Art: The two year old Vision and Verse colt. Problem here is size. The horse at barely over 15'2" in bare feet simply is too small for our large rider to do any serious work. The hope is that with fall weather and more opportunity to lay down (they grow in periods when they're down a lot), that he'll put on another inch. Someone posted that gelding at times causes a growth spurt, and that may be in order. In my bone research I discovered that "growth hormone" in the bones instigates ephysial plate growth, and I'll look on IHerb website for some HGH simulators among legal supplements. Art has some talent, but, unless there's a little more growth he may be a January sale candidate at this point. Someone with a small rider would have a pretty good young horse.

September 1 Eureka Warm Ups

Saturday's Eureka trip went without a glitch. I was determined to try the farm warm up schematic that I'd pegged in the prior posts as the ideal for max performance.

2.5f + 1f + 1.5f

There is gradual acceleration in each heat and walk-trot between heats depending on the excitement level of the horse. The speeds at which each heat ends up (the speed being accelerated to) :15, :14, :13.

The track Saturday was cuppy dry sand (as opposed to cuppy wet sand). Had been worked maybe two weeks ago and showed a lot of traffic. However, there's very little sand over a pretty nice base, and since the sand was dry, though far from ideal, this track was such that we could work though at slightly slower pace than we'd have done with a better track.

Groovin' Wind cooperated in his warm up. The horse is getting the knack of the stopping-starting routine and seems even to be enjoying and appreciating it. The final two heats were done on the back stretch, one on each lead. After finishing the horse was walked to the 3f pole on the backstretch of the 5f track to begin his one mile breeze.

Would we get max performance? Please note since this is the first one mile track breeze for Wind for the year we were planning to let the horse determine his own speed with minimal urging and use this breeze as a bench mark for breezes to come. Nob's report was as follows:

Wind got into the breeze immediately with little urging and on his own got into about a :13.5 pace. The horse maintained this strongly without a bobble from beginning till he crossed the wire. He was tired at the end with little desire to gallop out but with almost zero blowing. If there was any negative at all it would be that the horse showed zero inclination to exceed this :13.5sec/f cruising speed.

So, it was a 1:45 about as we expected--though that's only a rough estimate without the stop watch(we forgot the watch). Stone cold legs afterwards. Zero signs of bleeding, and a staid, somewhat tired horse compared to the usual at the farm on Sunday morning.

Aylward performed the same workout as Wind, though he's two weeks behind that horse. Nob reports that he felt the warm up probably does exactly as advertised and certainly is a positive instead of limiting factor for the performance.

Art: rested yesterday after a riderless 2.5 miles slow Friday with some minor tack work.