The Proper Dose

Mephistopheles and his Devils, now in a battle with the Angels for Faust's soul. The Angels are strewing rose petals on the Devils (German sense of humor) and the whole squadron of Devils is blowing at the roses. Mephistopheles in command:

"Not so wildly now, shut your snouts and noses.
There, you have blown to strongly for the roses.
The proper dose they never seem to learn."

The proper dose? How often do we send the horses to the track? May we surmise, in terms of injury rate in thoroughbred racing. our good trainers as the Devils portrayed in Faust are still searching for the "proper dose".

In my posts around December 28, 2006 I took a look at the training logs of. D.W. Lukas from the late 1980s as portrayed in Ross Staaden's book. And later in a post I'm unable to locate I surmised based on available evidence that Lukas was sending his horses to the track somewhere between 17 and 22 days per month depending on whether the horse was racing or in race prep.

This amount off track time is fairly impressive(there have to be some rest days in there). In contrast Ivers recommends about 22 track days/month; Preston Burch 10-15.

Note however that these trainers (if you read the books) in terms of quantity of track work are gaging performance instead of injury prevention. What's the dose to prevent injuries, next post.

Training: A few photos from this morning. A coat of ice on trees and ground. I'll review our training this week tomorrow.