Trainer Diligence And Injury Prevention

My trainer acquaintance in the next shedrow was featured last post along with his habit of staying in the shedrow while jockey Beth Butler galloped his horses. But, I use these folks only as an example of what serves as the common method on at most racetracks. Visit any back stretch, count the horses galloping and compare them to the number of trainers watching at the rail and you'll generally see about a 5-1 ratio horses to trainers.

And so you say, well, if everybody does it, why really do trainers need to watch every horse in the shedrow perform routine gallops and breezes every single day? Please allow me to use my usual oblique methods in answering the question by beginning with the observation that while mucking stalls or putting your horses on the walker while the gallop boys and girls do their thing is common practice, there are those few, and let us call them for the sake of argument "conscientious" trainers, who do watch their horse gallop.

I even looked up the word "conscientious" and the synonyms: meticulous, painstaking, particular to the work at hand. D.W. Lukas comes to mind here as someone on top of his operation. Ross Staaden("Winning Trainers") documents Lukas's early arrival times, the pony saddled in the predawn twilight, and Lukas to the track with the first set. Watch the opening scenes of "On The Muscle" and you'll see Lukas and son on ponies accompanying their horses.

Needless to say, when we're talking "painstaking" as the degree of care, if you're an owner you might consider how difficult "paintstaking" becomes when you remain in the shedrow when the horses gallop.

Let us take note that the groomers, the stall muckers, the walker boys (and girls), all those trainers who do everything at the track but give a flying hoot about what the horses do on track approach the sport with quite a different mindset than such as this blogger, Wayne Lukas, Mandella or most of the top trainers. For RR nothing else that you do with a race horse matters unless you're there conducting the actual training, which means you're there watching the galloping. Why? It is because I happen to believe that most injuries are preventable provided that you are indeed painstaking and control every one of the injury causing variables.

Hopefully as the posts go along I'll be able to make the case that it's ridiculous to believe you can prevent racehorse injuries unless you're physically present observing the horse gallop.

Training: Wind is off today. Eating well, stone cold legs. We'll still be watching of course, but it seems the legs have adjusted to the surface. With the workouts we're doing developing fracture is always the concern. Next breeze would be out of gate Saturday if the jock maintains her interest. This will be a question given the performance to date.
Art: Transitioned to "big" horse workouts yesterday. It was a tough one, riderless: 3 x 6f including gallops in and out at about 85% speed. Art was strong all the way, which surprised me a bit.