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.