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.