"Here's An Easy Way..." (To Injure)

At left Tom Ivers, the original equine exercise physiologist. Ivers died of lymphoma at age 61 recently, and may well rest in one of those "unvisited tombs" as far as the industry is concerned. But, I'll remember him when I think of race horse injuries. I'd say that I think of Ivers almost every day as I go out to train. Whatever you want to say about his work, the cumulative effect of it on me has to do with injuring horses, or avoiding injuries. For me, from reading all those Ivers books, letters, and tapes, there's left upstairs that residual lattice work that tends to activate when I'm considering something that on deeper thought is really stupid, and I can hear or see Ivers in his brilliant manner reminding "if you want to injure this animal, here's an easy way".

There are so many easy ways. That's the point of course, and for "certain knowledge of that truth" you only need sit and watch the morning workouts, any track, any day. It's been a while since I've considered all this, but, I want to be specific instead of just catcalling various observed stupidities. Some of the stuff that we see done on track over and over is just guaranteed to injure horses. You see it happen, and subconsciously you wish the horse well in it's next life, and curse the mindless stupidity that brought it about. I'll start to try to lay it out, next post.

Training: last post I forgot that I did train Monday morning Dec. 24. We got a very nice and fast pasture romp that day. Then, off 12/25 and 26. This morning in perfect snow conditions the horses were very up and we got the longest, if not the fastest, pasture romp ever as the horses with minimal prompting circled the whole pasture not once but twice without stopping, a distance of almost two miles. And then just a little more. Nice slower work before tomorrow's planned speed work in the Astride paddock. Due to emergency at work, had to pass on tack work today.