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.