How Often

The calendar reminds me: How many times have I galloped a horse since August 2005? I get weary as I consider. Let's just say "lots", and that even despite the constant monsoons from 8/05 to June of '07.

Many factors go into putting together a training protocol for any particular horse. But, is anything more important than the decision--how often does the horse go to the track? Once we get there, of course, we can decide what the horse will do in its gallop, but, first we have to decide which of those calendar days will be "on track", and which "off".

Again, in making the decision two factors hold sway: 1. performance 2. injury causation. I'll get to performance eventually, but, right for the moment I'm posting on training and injuries, and so we'll look at injuries or more accurately "injury prevention" in terms of how frequently horses hit the track.

Trainer Leotis Asmussen, and, yes, he's a member of the large Asmussen training-riding clan, just got into his shedrow a new two year old fresh from the Asmussen training center. Fully broke and with eight weeks of galloping at the training center under the horse, Leotis now forms a training protocol for the horse with question 1, how frequently do we gallop the horse on track.
How do we make such a decision in terms of injury prevention:

1. Experience: Leotis is old, Steve Asmussen's great great grand uncle. He's been around, galloped lots of horses. Why do this one any different? Ooops? Forgot. Leotis has permanently crippled every horse he's trained going back to, let's see, 1957. O.K., maybe there were a couple there that made it through, yet... Heck of a nice fellow, but, how much faith can we put into Leotis's injury avoidance experience?

2. Intuition: Athlete's (as opposed to couch potatoes) know intuitively that they need to train fairly frequently to achieve any level of performance, and this is backed up by experience as the athlete goes. Take any budding 14 year old basketball player that you see out on the court every waking moment to appreciate how often you have to "practice" to succeed. Performance athletes understand this "cognitively. Problem with Leotis, he's thrown a lot of horse feed, but, the closest he's gotten to athletics for himself is watching the NFL games on Sunday. Other than his horse sense, Leotis has little intutively to help him make this decision.

3. Copy Cat: Now there's one that make a bit more sense. If grand nephew Stevie Asmussen, suspensions and all, can win the BC Classic with Curlin, how about training our new two year old in exactly the same manner. Do what successful people do. Unnecessary to know the whys and wherefores. But, again, a problem in copying the nephew, just in case you've check out the injury record of Steve Asmussen. Why, it seems, it's almost identical to that of Leotis.

4. Do What Everybody Else Does: Seems safe enough. Avoids a lot of criticism, that's for sure.

5. Exercise Physiology: For Leotis this would be a last restort. But, how about approaching the question from a stand point of exercise science? Hmmm!

Next Post: Detraining and how it affects our decision.

Our Training: Unlike a year ago when the rains came and we had four or five inches of water in the buckets, the rain Saturday left a very tolerable one inch, which we needed. The weather pattern since June has basically gotten back to normal around here, and thus we're making progress: Art: Monday aided by very cold temps and a wind the horses were already playing in the paddock when I got there. I continue the riderless play and we got in some very decent fast gallop for the conditions. Nob passed on the tack work in the wind and mud. Tues again, mud and cold, Art walked in the pasture under tack. Nob said he was difficult due to the brisk wind, but Nob feels Art will be "in control" in the pasture starting tomorrow. Y: Monday was removed from the muddy exercise fairly quickly as I learned my lesson last year re what happens to those young very thin soled hoofs galloping in mud. Off today. No point in doing ground work in deep mud.