Lack of Track Work: The Reasons

The snow highlights our track.
This morning we could only trot over frozen bumpy ground.
After training:
Even before owning my first horse, I gradually understood in my handicapping that trainers were soft with their horses. Later, being on the back stretch confirmed the prior suspicion every day. The late '80s, early '90s (when I began) nadired, bottomed out, in terms of training horses, and believe a study of training history would bear that out. In those days, frankly I was just amazed at what I was seeing which was frauds masquerading as trainers injuring horse after horse. Whole shedrows were wiped out in matters of months.

Things have gotten better. Many of the nee'r do wells attracted to the game in our area in those days are gone, and the specter of real competition has forced change.

But, question remains, why do they gallop so infrequently, and it's more complex than meets the eye:

1. Riders:
a. Rider scarcity: you understand the problem if you've been on the backstretch. I can count on one hand the number of exercise riders other than jocks galloping at the Woodlands this year. Exercise riding is a dying profession, and if you've a 10 or 20 horse shedrow finding a rider is a giant and continuing problem.
b. Rider fatigue: I learned this the hard way. Riding horses requires such concentration and effort that after you've been on three you've about had enough. Jocks having 6 or 7 to ride in the afternoon rarely get on more than 3 or 4 in the morning, though some do more.
c. Rider undependability: I learned riding after tiring of waiting for riders to show up. Even at 6"1+" and 190lbs, this every day waiting 30 minutes to an hour for the rider, if they showed at all, caused me to decide to lose a fourth of my body weight and learn the craft. Consider riders failing to show in a 20 horse shedrow.
4. Lack of money: Most trainers get paid enough to do some galloping. But, consider the large shedrow where half your owners pay half their day rates and most owners owe you money. It's very expensive every day to gallop a large shedrow, and near impossible financially for many trainers.
5. Pocketing riding money: bigger factor than most owners understand.
6. Laziness: galloping one horse, big effort--plan the feeding time, tack up, pace back and forth till rider shows, observe the gallop, untack, cool out, back to the stall, times 10 or 20. You get worn out.
7. Stupidity: most trainers that survive are sharp cookies. Most...
8. Lack of intuitiveness about athletics: these guys and gals all know how to throw feed. Very few have been athletes or give a darn about exercise physiology, and of those that are into it maybe 25% have any real natural ability.

So, there you have it in terms of galloping frequency. How they're hurting horses once the get to the track is next.