Burch Training

Some thoughts on Burch training this post: That's "Preston Burch" for anyone new to the blog, based on this old time trainer's book that you can find at Amazon.com, and based on exercise schematics set out in the book used on such horses as Preakness Winner "Bold" and Triple Crown Winner "Assault".

The Burch method, and Max Hirsch with Assault involved breezes or races every three days, first working the horse up to :12s, and thereafter most of the work was done at 12 seconds a furlong unless the horse would run away faster. In the other two days the trainer is to do what they think best, which would be rest, walk or gallop.

Groovin' Wind has been at Burch style training, albeit at the farm instead of racetrack, since June 1, probably 35-40 breezes in these 4.5 months. Quite a bit of work compared to what you see these days.

First, what bothered me about this training: Only one thing really, which is that in conducting Preston Burch training there's very little of just galloping the horse. With Burch, you're either breezing or resting, or maybe doing an easy mile the day before breeze day. There's a bit of disadvantage in this in terms of schooling the horse, and we've had this problem with Wind at the Woodlands in taking his correct leads and in developing a warm up and also in stopping the horse post gallop. I also miss quite a bit long gallops with accelerations (such as we did this morning), that I consider such a valuable training tool for distance racing.

The above disadvantage will have me thinking a bit whether there may be a compromise that's improves Burch by combining longer gallops with frequent breezing. But, I'll consider later with another horse.

What I like about Burch:
1. Wind has had zero serious injuries through a lot of work. We've had maybe two episodes of minor heat in bones which quickly subsided, but, other than that nadda. Sure Wind is an older, and so sounder horse. But, old horses just like young one's buck shins, pull sesamoids, and in particular pull suspensories. The injury record through Burch training has been impressive, though note I've been dealing with slight bleeding in a horse that's always had the problem.
2. I'd have thought breezing so often would quickly move the horse up, and, I think really that it would have, had we had access to a track and jock as we now do. We could develop Wind into a legit racehorse with a couple more months at the Woodlands. However, we've been at it 5.5 months since May 1, which is a lot of time even for a horse that maybe had a little farther to come than I'd originally thought. The jury is out a bit for me how this program enhances horses, since we have yet to actually see it on the track. We'll leave "establishing the fact" to a later time.
3. Burch training really takes the pressure off compared to some other programs. You miss a day and its "eeeh, it's ok" because you're able to put a rest day almost anywhere except the actual breeze days. There's less fretting about missing training in Burch.

Training:

Two mile gallop with Wind this morning around the dogs. Mostly two minute lick stuff and :14s down the stretch both times. Interestingly, zero coughing on the way back, and perhaps as suspected, as Wind get's shape the bleeding stops.

Nob reported he had a lot of horse today, and much stronger than Nob's last gallop at the track. It was impressive, really, right after the 3 miles yesterday, and reminds a bit of the Wind of old. The plan--trot tomorrow and maybe we'll get that gate work Wednesday. I'm abandoning for the moment the plan I announced yesterday of continuous long gallops for the rest of the meet based on what happened today.

Art: another 1/2 inch of rain. The farm's a mess: off.