Conventional Trainers: Frequency of Track Work

So, I'm Mr. or Mrs. Conventional Trainer. How often do I send 'em to the track? I've observed on the blog that training has changed of late, horses these days see the track more days than I used to observe in the '80s and '90s. But, were I an owner for most of these trainers that I'm watching, even in 2007, I'd be very concerned, and maybe would also the old gentleman in the photo.

This year's Woodland's meet as an example, and I'll be supra generous in the estimates: 1000 stalls, this year for the first time there were a lot of empty stalls through the meet, a sign of the times in horse racing. I'd estimate there were probably 900 horses on the backstretch this year. I was out on the track with Groovin' Wind every third day. I'd estimate while I was on track there were 15 other horses on track with me. Let's say the riders work hard and they gallop three an hour. That's 45 horses galloped every hour through four hours of training. Let's round it off to 200 horses galloping per day, and remember I'm being extremely generous in my estimates. Thus slightly more the 1/5 of the horses on track gallop in a given day.

Think of that! If the above is correct the conventional trainers at the Woodlands are galloping their horses one day out of five. Let's say the estimate is a little off and the actual figure is one day out of four, these trainers are galloping their horses 8 days a month. Let's estimate 2 races a month for the average horse, then they're seeing the track 10 times a month, or 5 days less than the minimum track work I estimated as necessary to avoid injury last post.

That's probably about it--one reason almost every horse gets hurt eventually is that they fail to get even the minimum amount of galloping necessary to avoid injury. Now of course, some of these trainers are galloping their horses more than 8 times a month. But, all that means is that others (based on the Woodland's stats) are galloping their horses less.

A good example would be the trainer I shared a shedrow with (I'll decline to name him again, a noted long time Nebraska trainer) just this past Woodland's meet. He had six horses in his shedrow. On any given day he'd send maybe 2 of them to the track. It probably averaged out 1.5 a day. Further note that this fellow and his wife loaded them up one week before the end of the meet and trailered them back to Nebraska, everyone of them injured.

This is conventional training here in the Midwest in terms of galloping frequency. What, whoa, you say, why do these trainers gallop so infrequently, next post.

Training: the forecasters way overestimated the snow. We got a dusting overnight, and just enough to soften the ground and enable a pretty good pasture romp with the two youngsters this morning. Its noon right now and 20 degrees. I just fail to last more than an hour in this stuff. Everything goes numb. But, we got some fast twitch work in this morning, dumped the spleens. Pretty good for the first exercise in a week. It will be more difficult tomorrow as they'll be less "up" for just taking off. But, warmer weather on the way.