Phew! It's Official

It is 10:45 p.m. on January 31, 2008. RR finally gets around to checking the Jockey Club website. When do we have to submit names? Whoops. Free if before February 1, and,$200.00 after. Have they gone up in price again? What do they do with all that money? 15 min. to midnight in Lexington to name the 2006 Shore Breeze-Runninoutareasons-Arch...hmmm...Shore Boy, Shore Eagle (born and raised at Eagle Valley Farm), Anandtech (sounds hip), Dr. Done, Doctor Done, Western Shore, Eastern Shore, Colonel Arch? Or...perhaps something with RR as the initials...hmm... We have pulled yet another out of the hat!

Meet Rollin' Rodney, the cat:
and, as the clock struck midnight, Rollin' Rodney, the horse:
Pending JC Club approval, of course, I can already hear Tom Durkin: "Rollin' Rodney is beginning to rolll!"We'll invite the cat to the winner's circle as guest of honor. Here's big Rod in December:

How Lukas Does It

In 1988 when Ross Staaden asked to see Lukas's training logs, Lukas replied, "I'm uncomfortable with letting you see those." And well he might for what other trainer has his logs out their for criticism and dissection? I'd congratulate Lukas. He did absolutely the right thing to allow Staaden for all time to memorialize what was going on in the shedrow of the top trainer of the 1980s and most of the '90s.

I'd suspect Lukas's discomfort more had to do with divulging his training to potential copy cats as you sense from the Staaden interviews. I'd doubt Lukas was arrogant about his training, but believe he was protective.

So, we know what the man does, or did, and the question then becomes, how does he injure all those horses? (And, in fairness note that Staaden uncovers that Lukas's injury rate is in line with the other conventional trainers, no worse, but still horrific.)

I look at training in terms of the RR rules published a few posts ago. But, before applying The Rules to the Lukas shedrow, let's take some things about Lukas training that pop right out at you. Again, for a 30 day period it goes something like this:

g g g g w g g g w b w w w g g g g w g r w w w g g g g g w b w (31 days).

Let's start "exposing" this conventional training program by asking THE question: will this training schematic prevent injuries?

How do we evaluate this? Begin by doing a bit of number crunching. What are the horses really doing here? What pops out at me first of all is that in a 31 days period the horse has done exactly 3 fast works. One of them, of course was a race, BUT, in 31 days, three fast works. In the same time frame Preston Burch's horses have done 9 or 10 fast works.

But, the differences between Lukas conventional and Burch hardly end there. Note that two of Lukas's fast works were 4 or 5F at moderate fractions, and, though this is a wild guess, the times probably were achieved by doing sub-12s down the lane making the first two or three furlongs excruciatingly slow. Burch tended to breeze his horses race distance at near race speed.

So, for this post we have:
Lukas
3 fast works a month, total distance maybe 16 furlongs.

Burch
10 fast works a month, total distance maybe 80 furlongs.

There's enough difference here in terms of "fast works" between Burch and Lukas to upset your stomach. Continue next post.

Our training:
My word. Tonight Y, the two year old is still tender on that left front. He's off. I walk Art to the Astride paddock intending to do sprints and notice he'd lost a front shoe, likely galloping in the deep mud two days ago. Should have check yesterday and forgot. So, instead of working it's a Mr. Nob shoeing job. Luckily it was just warm enough that shoeing was something slightly better than total misery. The weather is starting to wear on everybody around here. Big snow storm headed this way tomorrow.

How Conventional Training Injures Horses

Somewhere on the blog, I was unable to find it, I had looked at the D.W. Lukas training charts of his whole S.Cal. shedrow, about 40 horses, and took from the charts what each horse does on the average. It was something like this over a 30 day period.

g g g w g g w g b w w w g g g w g g r w w w g g g g g g b w w

Lukas horses, almost without fail, gallop, race, or breeze from 17 to 22 times a month, and generally breeze or race every 9 or 10 days. This pattern in Lukas's charts repeats itself with almost every horse for months in late 1988 (believe it was).

The breezes generally are 4-5f in :50 or 1:02 or thereabouts. The gallops are 1 1/4 miles to 1 1/2 miles generally at :19 to :17 and sometimes :16 speed.

This sort of training schematic I call conventional training, and it probably takes conventional training as far as it can go. Most conventional trainers, believe you'll find them doing a lot less with their horses, certainly in terms of frequency of track work and breezing.

I further extrapolated that Lukas permanently injures about 1/3 of his shedrow every nine months. Please note these are rough approximations with some guessing from Lukas's own charts. I surmised the estimates fairly accurate.

And, please note, this is other than Todd Pletcher or Steve Asmussen training. Those trainers breeze more frequently, and my thinking is they've started to go beyond conventional training with most of their horses. In other words, Pletcher and Asmussen do more than Lukas in terms of frequency and volume. I'm just guessing there because I am without any charts for those two, but, again, probably near accurate.

So, how does Lukas's training kill off 1/3 of his shedrow every nine months. The specifics starting next post.

Training: My comment on this blog January 29, 2007 "Off. Frigid conditions." This year, yesterday 60 degrees and today at 3 p.m. in this peep out my office window, its 12 degrees, wind chill of -11, and new snow. That's the old abandoned U.S. Court House in downtown KCMo in the background.

We trained today, though. I chased 'em around the big field and even got a couple of sprints out of somebody, unable to tell who. Light training day. Skipped the tack work due to conditions. As usual in the big field I got more exercise than they did, but, that would be a plus. Tomorrow, fast riderless stuff in the Astride Paddock. The snow does give a nice cushion to the hard ground.

The RR Rules (continued)

And heaven help you if you break one. Before I was distracted by "Seabiscuit", and then trying to get back into mode with the horrible weather, on January 11 I listed the RR rules as formulated over a decade ago, then lost on a crashed hard drive, and now reformulated as to what we try to do to avoid injury prevention. This is really a roundabout way of describing what most of them fail to do, and I'll try to put that together starting next post.

Training:
1/27/08 Art does 10 minutes riderless slow stuff in Astride Paddock then 10 minutes walk under tack. It's 50 degrees and we have still frozen ground. The soon to be named Y is confined to the lower barn with his foot bruise.
1/28/08 60 degrees today before the new cold front tomorrow, but 40 mph winds eliminated the tack work. Art and Wind were exercised in our regular paddock on deep mud, riderless 3f at a time for about 6 go arounds, moderate pace. Y was reshod and released from the barn. Do horses get happy? Rolling, bucking, pestering his buddies for at least 30 minutes, this was one happy little horse to be "released" after three days. I ponder this sort of thing when I consider a horse locked up in a 12x12 23 hours a day.

Sunday Morning In January

Big Art at left stuck on his lead rope in 15 degree weather post workout in the Astride paddock a couple of days ago. 60 degrees today and then buckets of rain coming in from California tomorrow.

Resumed tack work with Art last nigh, Marking it: January 25, after about 10 minutes riderless slow gallop work. We continue to be excited by this Seabiscuit lookalike.

With the other horse, the two year old Y, who I'll have to name in the next two days or else pay the Jockey Club for the privilege, the news was less well. I'd thought last night that Murphy's Law had struck again. Couple of days ago this horse was limping badly with apparent abscess on left front. But, I noted last post that I'd never had an abscess develop on frozen ground. A mystery.

Sure enough, after the requisite 48 hours passed to permit the abscess to migrate to where it could be located, when Nob removed the shoe last night the hoof testers showed soreness in every part of the sole and in particular on the frog. WTF was my thought process as my brain was putting two and two together. Soreness over the whole hoof is something other than an abscess. Given severeness of the limping I was fearing "coffin bone fracture".

The horse on Monday had had a brilliant little 3f sprint over the snow and grass. He must have hit a hard spot and pounded that hoof. Coffin bone fracture by the vet manual is 6 to 12 months off. Or, maybe just severe bruise. I was quite concerned. So, 2 grams bute, rubber boot with Epsom Salt paste, and barn confinement on soft ground.

Then, as I go out to feed this morning, after Y spent the night in the lower barn, whoops, I see Y through the window dash from one end of the barn to the other. What happened to the limp? And, looking at him, he's putting full weight on the leg. Wow. Conclude, either the Epsom paste had drained an abscess, or the bute resolved the swelling. Hopefully, false alarm on the fracture and we should know the outcome in a day or so.

Training

Yes, we're still here. RR involved in one of those "projects" which require the few brain cells available. Since my last post on Tuesday: Wednesday we ran them again in the Astride Paddock, nice work for the yearling who at this in-between stage is a flyer, even with his open knees. Thursday morning at 11:00 a.m. it was 4 degrees and we passed. Today the forecast for 39 degrees got us all the way up to about 28 degrees at 4 pm.

Unbelievably the Y has an abscess on his left front. Limping severely this morning just as I was thinking we've been through this mess without abscesses, compared to last year when we had one after another. This is the first abscess I've had on frozen ground, so, a mystery, and just as the youngster was doing so well.

On the brighter side, today the 3 year old Amart flashed some stuff running with Groovin' Wind in the Astride. Good to see the youngster showing more energy, power and speed than the 13 yr. old. Hopefully these old eyes are seeing correctly as this looks like a very decent horse.

Miscellaneous

This is a superb photo. You're unable to see the horses, you say, Maggs. Forget the horses. Look at the nice view of the snow!
You can see better if you left click these from this morning's workout, and as just a bit of self pity,thought I'd post what the old man has been running through chasing these horses.

"Hard retrieving, nauseous doing"

And, yes, that is steam coming off that horse on the right after the workout, which is Exhibit A of the RR effort to get 'em running this morning. And, as further complaint I'll note that's it's a bit difficult in the best of conditions to be running full tilt yourself snapping photos, much less through this much snow and deep grass. The old face was frozen solid by the time we were done. It must have been around 13 degrees.

That huge cold airmass covering every inch of Siberia that I noticed in late December seems to have blown this way. And, OMG 67 degrees below zero in Siberia couple of days ago. That's cold even for them. Guess we should be thankful for our -2 except I'm wondering where that -67 is heading.

On other fronts in the misc. category, RR has finally reached late 1998 in My Life by Bill Clinton. Monika Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, and a sorry bunch of totally worthless jackals named Ken Starr, Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay. Gingrich had resigned before the Articles of Impeachment came out of the lame duck house, but, he admitted "we did it, because we could." Oh, and if you want to find out why you'd never vote for a Clinton, read the book.
Luckily, our good Republicans have put on a heck of a slate of presidential candidates, and I'd be amazed and unhappy if they lose.

Back to injuries and training shortly, with what we're sincerely hoping will be something to report training wise here at the farm.

Monday

"Where I so tall to reach the pole,
and grasp the ocean at a span.
I must be measured by my soul,
for the mind is the standard of the man."

Mlk, Detroit, 1967.

Weather

"O! Let me not be mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!"

Written by the gentleman at left as RR tries to keep his composure over the latest weather developments.

It's been a while, November 23rd to be exact since dry ground has shown its face at my farm. And, yes, that would be correct, 57 days of either deep mud, frozen mud, caked ice, snow or some various combo without a single day of dry ground. And, to rub a little more salt in the wounds, we have every three or four day precipitation events right on through the end of the month.

Just to sum it up neatly, yes, we've been unable to accomplish any serious race training around here since November 22, though we continue to do riderless work in the large Astride paddock where we have snow over thick grass and frozen ground.

What are the state of things here. Number one if the weather pattern continues as it has for 4 years now (last year only 7 of the 12 months were trainable), you simply are unable to train race horses around here off the farm. And to that end, as soon as I get these two youngsters galloping under control, we're off to a track, unknown where or when but, then it will begin.

On the bright side of things, both youngsters are showing some stuff, and in particular the Vision and Verse Colt named Art has grown into a formidable looking package. To have trainable horses is every trainer's dream, and we've got a couple and hope to be able to report real training, knocking on wood, very soon.

Rembering Seabiscuit

Lot's to remember about the book. Pollard, of course.
Unknown what to think about Pollard. The above photo about says it all. If you've yet to read the book Pollard continued riding after two accidents that left him hospitalized for month. In one his chest was crushed when a horse fell on him, and a second accident left a leg bone so fragile he rode in fear it would snap.

Then there's George Woolf and the manner of his death. I've been totally pee'd off the last two days because I'm unable to make the photo of that riderless horse from the book copy onto this post. I'm going to keep trying. It shows a black horse in a race without a rider at Santa Anita. George Woolf , out of the photo, is laying on the track with a fatal concussion having fallen from a diabetic coma while the race was in progress. What a way to make your exit. Too bad it happened to Woolf at age 35.

I've played a lot of sports. Was pretty good at one and successful as a coach. I'm able to say that thoroughbred racing has an allure compared to other sports that's captured by these two jockeys from the book, and also by Tom Smith, the trainer, and of course Seabiscuit, the horse. Ms. Hillenbrand did such a good job with this for she put in writing what I believe riders are feeling when they get on a horse.

In Defense Of Tom Smith

Just finished watching for the first time (on You tube) the Seabiscuit races. Wow! I'd be concerned racing against that horse, and thus I'd made some of my judgments primarily on the book and its photos which change a bit when I watch the horse. I've also seen now some photos omitted from the book




that show a little better racing animal than I'd gleaned from the book. This was a powerfully striding, conditioned, beautifully conformed animal but for the knee.

Since I convicted Tom Smith last post, some facts that might point the other way:
1. Lot's of horses get inhalants for breathing problems, guttural pouch drainage, heavers, and so on. Trainers use Vicks Vaporub in the nostrils, and I'd have trouble calling this illegal. Smith might well have instructed the inhalant for a troubled horse without having any idea of ephedra. I have trouble, really, putting 1945 and ephedrine in the same sentence.
2. If per chance Smith's horses raced by intentional act on ephedra, what would be the odds, in those days that every other horse in the field was also running on its trainer's favorite banned substance. I've read in Whittingham, Woody Stephens the manner in which various pharmacologys were science on backstretches in those days. None other than T. J. Smith of Australia had the worst two years of his training career, in '53 and '54 I'm recalling, after they started testing for caffeine down under. I'd be less offended possibly in the culture of the time.
3. Though I was puzzled from the book about certain aspects of Seabiscuit's performance, after seeing the horse run on the old reels, it is (somewhat) possible that the horse raced clean and was just that good.
4. I noted prior post Seabiscuit's foundation of 50 early races althewhile noting I'm unable to think of any other major horse with implausible performances. I'm also unable to think of any other great horse with this sort of racing foundation. Maybe in Seabiscuit we get exactly what we might expect from such an intensive early prep.
5. I identify with Tom Smith. Reminds me a lot of myself. The Tom Smiths, I'm thinking, get enjoyment by watching their horses develop through training, and with this mind set the thought of screwing up the training with the latest from the kitchen sink just never occurs to you because you'd be unable to see the real results of what you enjoy doing.

After looking at it fairly closely and considering it all, what do I believe with regard to Seabiscuit and ephedra? I believe Smith probably used it on the horse. In the final analysis too much points that way. I admire Tom Smith as a trainer, but, he's also the sort of personality I recognize. You run into the type here and there. Unsociable, reclusive, and just a little bit of a schemer as is indicated time and again by Smith playing tricks that personally I would never enjoy. Smith's privacy might be considered a personality quirk, but could just as easily be viewed as this man keeping his activities out of every one's sight.

If he used ephedra on Seabiscuit, does this tarnish the story? It does for me somewhat. I'll go on wanting to believe him that he's "absolutely innocent", but I'll always factor in what I know ephedra does when thinking of the races. Great story. Memorable in so many ways. A conclusion, next post.

Tom Smith And Ephedra

And so, I was reading along in "Seabiscuit" enjoying the story, a page turner, but, leaving behind several hard to explain puzzlers scattered about like information bits on an unfragged hard drive. I declined to dwell on these, till page 318, and wham, Smith gets banned for ephedra. I'm trying to recall the last time several mysteries cleared up in my mind so fast.

Last post I described ephedrine as a performance enhancer. I am without any doubt that this supplement would do more for horses than it does for humans. Please note I'm only surmising, but presume more power through faster heart beats, but, the primary effect will be the horse is far less likely to notice lactic acid buildup and hence fatigue. I am without any doubt of that. I can just imagine a horse of mine running on ephedra. It would be a different animal.

Thus, perhaps, any reader that has followed this sequence will note my astonishment that in the ephedra use suddenly all the inexplicable stuff falls into place. I've watched a lot of big races in my time, and I've never seen anything close to what SB did carrying 130 lbs in the 1938 SA Handicap and losing by a nose to one of the best horses in the country carrying 101 lbs. And the 1940 SA Handicap win gnaws. Sure SB was galloping 5 miles in October, but this conditioning would have been lost in the alledged bad weather down time in December and January. We are to believe a horse that has not breezed in a year can get in a few breezes and couple of races in about 40 days, carry 130 lbs and with every other horse carrying 20 less and win against the best horses on the west coast. Again, its a head shaker for those of us that train horses. (see the interview about this with 90 year old Noble Threwitt.)

I guess, since Smith denied it, the first question is whether he used ephedra. Let's say this is cobra venom, and someone explain the difference here between Smith and Patrick Biancone. They both had the stuff in their shedrow, regardless of the old "unknown my employee was using it" excuse. The suspension seems to me further evidence. Why? Stewards do not just ban a first offense for a whole year without some very serious proof. I've found stewards in general to be responsible, intelligent people highly interested in promoting racing. I'm unable to imagine a group of them maliciously banning an innocentTom Smith, and if that were the case why this competitive old Harry Truman look alike would have avoided trying to stick it to them by every legal means. Smith's style might have been otherwise, but, there are questions here.

Then the final query. Did Smith use ephedra on SB? Never mind Hillenbrand's profession that the "nasal decongestant" contained only 2.6%. That's quite a heavy dose really. I simply do not know. But, there are extenuating circumstances, next post.

Before Continuing

"On November 1, 1945, one of Smith's horses, a claimer named Magnific Duel, was being prepared for a New York race when a Jockey Club official saw a groom spraying something up the horse's nostril. The atomizer he took from the stall contained 2.6 percent ephedrine, a decongestant. Smith was in deep trouble. New York did not allow any medications in racing horses. Though Smith was not present when the incident occurred and there was no evidence that he knew what his groom was doing, by racing law he was responsible for anything his employee did. The Jockey Club suspended him immediately, pending a hearing. Smith was aghast. "I am absolutely innocent", he said................In an extremely controversial decision, Smith was banned from racing for one year."

Tom Smith was the trainer of Seabiscuit. Before continuing I need to discuss what I know about ephedrine, which is quite a lot. Begin, with due regard to author Hillenbrand who wrote the above words on page 318 of "Seabcuit", ephedrine, or ephedra as its commonly known, is anything but a "decongestant" as Hillenbrand claims.

In the year 2003 I was as usual fighting weight trying to get down to 150 lbs so I could breeze my horses racing at Eureka. In the course of things and through our building security guard, a body builder named Garrett, I came across the drink pictured below left called Speed Stack.

You'll notice the ABB on the label. That stands for "American Body Building", the manufacturer. If you're thinking maybe speed, meth, some concoction of amphetamines you'd be dead wrong. "Stack" is the body building term for stacking ingredients to obtain an effect, and speed is an artistic name of getting reved up for a workout.

In fact Speed Stack these days consists of "a stack" of three mild caffeines. gurana extract, yerba mate and metabromine cocoa extract combined with weight loss supplement "bitter orange" or "citrus arantium". Speed Stack is a terrific drink. It will make your day.

But, back in 2003 Speed Stack instead of bitter orange contained ephedra before it was banned. I started drinking the ephedra Speed Stack and just loved it. Per Mike Piazza, former Allstar catcher then with the NY Mets when he was asked his feelings about banning ephedra, "I think it's kind of neat". And that was precisely my experience. Unknown whether the ephedra drink raises your IQ, but, it surely seems so. Imbibe on bottle of ABB Speed Stack and you're focused, sharp and in a superb mood. Additionally, the Speed Stack ephedra was a decent appetite suppressant which did help distract you from food.

But, that's only part of the story on ephedra. By chance I drank a bottle of Speed Stack once before a nightly run, and I still remember it. It was dark, partly cloudy, and I started my usual slow warm up jog. But this night I felt an immediate sense of unusual power and physical sharpness, and I just took off, full speed all of the normal aches and pains of the 57 year old body forgotten.

I have lots of thoughts about ephedra, but the relevant ones here seem to be that ephedra causes physical changes. It speeds up heart rate, increases blood pressure, and attaches itself temporarily to receptors in the heart muscle and nervous system. In addition to producing feelings of well being and alertness it increases power and stamina particularly over short distances. I'll conclude this one by noting that after taking ephedra supplements through Speed Stack for a whole year before it was banned I am without any doubt that ephedra is a significant performance enhancer. I'll tie this in with Tom Smith and Seabiscuit, next post.

Seabiscuit And Ephedra?

During the course of my blog occasionally something's posted that's controversial. The photo of George Washington in his final moment drew a comment. This post may be along that line, and so I'd invite anyone wanting totally to preserve positive image of the Seabiscuit story to maybe skip this one, stop reading right now, for I'm dealing with a subject that nagged at me over the course of the story.

Training horses, and I've done so for 20 years, I internalize information immediately, little bits here and there, as I'm trying to relate the horse's training to its race performance. In the case of Seabiscuit, in addition to getting caught up in the story, I found myself time after time, as the book unfolded, attempting to explain the inexplicable.

Never mind the wins, the sudden rise from the barn of one of the best trainers ever Sunny Jim F. to the very heights of horse racing. That sort of thing is at least plausible, particularly as I mentioned last post with this horse's racing experience.

What I had trouble with was often the manner in which it happened. I decline to propose going back to reading and documenting every detail. This and the next post only relate my foggy suspicions as I went through the book:
1. Seabiscuit could spend two weeks on a train, or even a week, doesn't matter, and come off and with a gallop or two be in top form for a race.
2. The best horses in training were unable to catch him in a lot of races carrying 20 lbs less several times over heavy muddy surfaces.
3. There was a puzzler near the end before the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap where allegedly Tom Smith was unable to do anything with training in December and January due to weather, and suddenly with two races under his belt in early February the horse starts winning again against the best horses in the country again under unbelievable weight after a year layoff.

Super horse? Once in a lifetime athlete? I might believe that except that everything about the photos of SB indicates otherwise. Besides being a rather strong wide body, he appears neither particularly fast or athletic compared to some others in the photo. Of course, that's part of the appeal of the story for we readers. The superhorse performance from the seemingly modest circumstance.

For this post I'll leave it that as I went along there was some minor skepticism building. I never saw any explanations for my doubts or anything to pin them on, nor did I dwell on them. The doubts were in the back ground as I was enjoying the book. I'll go on with this next post.

Seabiscuit And The Scientific American

A couple of years or so back there was an article in The Scientific American, and wish I'd kept it, on research identifying the traits of talented people, and, importantly, where those traits originate, genes or environment. The article looks at talent in general, the concert violinist, the opera singer, the artist, Ted Williams or Babe Ruth on the baseball field, and World Masters as chess players. Maybe they should have included Seabiscuit!

The researchers conduct extensive interviews with many of the top people in their field, and always the question, how did you get to be so good. What is the process?

Careful thought would indicate that each of these talented folks were at some point less able and less talented, and that they somehow improved their skill as they proceeded, and somewhere and somehow exceed those in their field that are merely "good".

The study focus on chess players because it is easiest to quantify and explain, but, the conclusions of the study have ramifications in every field.

First, they concluded that genetic disposition hardly hurts re talent: the high IQ of the chess master, or perhaps Babe Ruth had slightly greater bone length and density in those big arms, etc.

But, they claim to have discovered one constant in almost everyone they looked at. The study concludes that each of talented persons at some point in their lives was so totally immersed in their discipline that it became second nature to them in a unique way that differs from those that are merely good. There is a process, the study indicates, of repetition accompanied by intense mental concentration that internalizes the process that finally results in extraordinary ability.

As an example of this they noted after interviewing a chess master and some lesser players, and studying their games that the Master, due to his mental repertoire honed by prior effort has immediate recollection of patterns of play, and the the solutions to problems are second nature due to the intense period of practice. The Master is thus in general able to deal more efficiently and imaginatively in the same time frame than lesser players.

Similarly, the kienesiology (motion) of talented baseball players is automatic to a greater degree than lesser players.

This occurred to me with Seabiscuits numerous early races. The Scientific American study may have been right on and explains a lot about the subsequent performance of this mediocre looking horse.

Seabiscuit

I have two takes on this book, one here, one next post. I'd only been vaguely aware of Seabiscuit the horse before the movie(which I've yet to see), and after finally getting the book as an Xmas present--what took you so long, family--I've been quite amazed, and truthfully a little on-guard because the horse's performance seems surreal.

For anyone yet to read, the book is superb. Doubt you'll get any argument on that, though I'm about to read the Amazon reviews. Laura Hillenbrand is an above average writer who, though she has a tendency to exaggerate, occasionally lapses into art, such as the last sentence in her nice acknowledgement at the end:

"My final thanks go to Tom Smith, Charles and Marcela Howard, Red Pollard, and George Woolf for living lives of singular vigor and grace, and for giving us the incomparable, unforgettable Seabiscuit."

And, as to the exaggeration you may think those fish stories from the 90 year olds she interviewed may have expanded as the years wore on. Through her writing, but also with the careful construction of events, Ms. Hillenbrand creates a building drama that ends with SB winning the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap, and I thoroughly appreciated her effort and the result.

Of course, I'm also interested in the horse and the training. This takes us way back, much like the Preston Burch book, and though Ms. Hillenbrand never specifies the training and probably would have been unable had she tried given trainer Tom Smith's tricks and secrecy, Hillenbrand is so meticulous in her detail that you may pretty much surmise what went on.

The photos make everything seem a little rougher back then, including the horses. It's actually good to see that some progress has been made in producing a faster, more athletic horse. You may surmise this by comparing Seabiscuit and War Admiral to the likes of our top horses today, Invasor, Curlin, Street Sense, Ghostzapper, Tiznow, I just doubt those 1930s horses could hang. You can see this a little in SB's PPs where he very rarely breaks :12/f. Somebody pointed out it could be difference in tracks, shoeing, weight of course, but still, 80 races and 1:36 miles were considered records whereas now at the top levels you'd be surprised many of them went slower than that.

Still, SB's record is stupendous. Was he just a super horse? Was he tampered with--more on that next post--was it the training, or something else. As to the horse himself, obviously he had a little bit of talent. Most of the photos of SB seem unimpressive, but, some of them taken from just the right angle show a very wide bodied, fairly proportionate animal with large lung capacity, and presumably the cardiovascular system to make it go. The horse is more strong looking than racy, tough to see speed, though SB constantly set course records.

I also was impressed by the large number and close spacing of the early races. SB must have had 45 races under his belt as an middle 3 yr. old, and so much racing early might provide a significant edge in experience where the horse would learn it won't kill him to go even a litle harder at a point where a less experienced horse would quit. Suspect a horse racing his much learns all the tricks, and I consider the frequent racing as one possibility to explain this performance.

The other is the training. From what I can put together from Ms. Hillenbrand's account, Smith trained similar to Burch, frequent breezing, fretting when he's unable to get to the track due to weather, breezing at race speed and race distance, all very Preston Burch like, it seems. And this was at least tough enough that SB could carry 130 lbs over heavy, muddy tracks for a mile and a quarter and survive. That's some training job!

The other interesting thing is how Smith preps for particular events. This was a trainer who believed he could improve and hone his horse, unlike many of our present day Hall of Fame Types who attribute everything to genetics.

For me this book reinforced what I'm trying to do, which made it more enjoyable still!

The RR Rules

Here they are, with comments.

1. Never do anything with a horse unless you're 100% sure you can do it without injuring the animal.

Rule 1 of race training. How do you plan today's workout? This is it, governs everything else. How many times have I reduced what I'd planned, even at the last moment, in observance of this rule! This is how you have to think about racing and training to avoid injury. When in doubt, back off!

2. Always better too slow than too fast.

There will be rare exceptions at such times that performance requires maximum speed. But, for the most part, this rule is vital. Again, see Rule #1. You've already planned the most you can get away with for today. The rider must never exceed this, and always back off when necessary! Unable to stress this enough if the horse is to remain healthy.

3. When horse takes the wrong lead, always abort.

How many times have you seen a horse win a race on the wrong lead down the stretch, never be heard from again? Happens 80% of the time, I'd guess. Standard rider instructions: horse takes wrong lead, abort,and restart. In a race, forget the win and bring it home as gently as possible, I'll deal with the Stewards. Most good race riders will continue to attempt a lead change. That is correct procedure. Many will disagree including Jack Van Berg on his tape. For me, his might be the most important rule besides Rule #1.

4. Always abort if horse exceeds planned speed.

But, small adjustments are allowed. If :14s are planned, and the horse does a :12, there needs to be compensation. You work this out with the rider in advance.

5. Avoid stupid stuff on track, rough riding of any sort, trotting sideways, clumsy stops, etc.

How many times have I gritted my teeth watching some horse trotted almost perpendicular to the rail, or watched the horse being pulled to the halt landing its fronts in clumsy position by some careless rider? Never happens with mine. Rider selection and education.

6. Always work for stride length and stride efficiency.

Every day. I keep my rider thinking about this. Drum it in their heads. Minimally this sort of instruction will get your riders attention, and with a good rider, you'll improve the horse over time.

7. Never proceed when there's the slightest suspicion of injury.

Once the horse is on track, this is rider stuff. The rider is instructed to monitor the animal in the warm up trot and abort with any thinking of injury. My instructions, if in doubt, stop and bring it back. Of course, same instructions for the gallop.

8. Always conduct an appropriate warm up.

How important is this? See five months of posts on this blog, beginning April 2007.

9. Always avoid surprises, including

the same work, heavier weight.

surprise increases in speed or distance

changes in track conditions

frequency of workouts, etc.


19. Plan training in advance. Never plan on the fly or spur of the moment.

Improvised workouts on the fly, the bain of the careful trainer. I rarely cause an injury, but, generally when I do, this is the reason.

11. Rider control. This one requires several upcoming posts.

A hard drive crashed and I lost my original rules. These above are from memory. Hope I got them all. With these rules I'm now easily able to lay the wood to conventional training, and injuries. But first, I just finished "Seabiscuit", and that's next.

The Jordan Rules

There is a connection between "The Jordan Rules" written by Sam Smith and thoroughbred horse racing, though you might dismiss this due to the menacing cover which looks like anything but Michael Jordan, the basketball player. If I could enlarge this cover you'd see the red sticker in the lower right that reads: "three straight months on the NYT best seller list", giving a clue that it's a good book.

But, it's basketball, right, so what do we care? This book came out in 1992 when I was developing my "controlling the variables thing", and, I realized immediately that the author Sam Smith, and myself might be thinking along the same lines.

The Chicago Bulls professional basketball team had won an astounding four straight NBA titles in the late '80s, early '90s.. "The Jordan Rules" follows the team from training camp through the NBA finals for, I believe it was, 1990, and so, if you're wondering how this sort of thing happens, for that season it's all right there in the book.

You may be familiar with the great basketball player Michael Jordan, who was on that team, but the book deals with the whole team, Scottie Pippen, Will Purdue etc., the rotund, non-athletic GM Jerry Krause, and Hall of Fame Coach Phil Jackson. I bought the book thinking I might learn something about how Phil Jackson coaches basketball, and what it takes to win on the basketball court.

In reading the book Sam Smith the author quickly focuses on Jordan, and we come to see the iron will of this player at the time who simply refused to lose games. Never mind that he had some talent. Lot's of players have talent. It was practice, hours and hours in the weight room, total mental concentration and either inspiring or dragging along his teammates. There was in short a method and a madness to all this success, and it is called "The Jordan Rules".

Perhaps you can see the connection as I was considering "controlling the variables". How about some RR Rules? I used my real name of course as RR was to come along a lot later, but within a week of that day at the side of the Woodlands were I was pondering this stuff, there was a complete set of RR Rules which really were methods or techniques that I thought necessary on the race track to prevent racehorse injuries.

I'll get into the RR Rules next post.

Training: my word. Forgot the description I gave the weather yesterday, though I did get out there an put a saddle on a horse. It's rained another 1/2 inch since yesterday. Unbelievable mess at the farm.

Controlling The Variables, Part II

Last post I gave my thoughts of that day in '92 where the idea of never making a mistake hit me. Which brings up the next question. How do you never make a mistake? And, in particular, on a racetrack with it's conglomeration of uneducated, frequently unskilled humans.

Considering this I broke down the idea of the mistake. Errors come in many ways, but, they all happen over a generally short space of time. What if with extraordinary diligence you watch everything and stop the error right when it first starts?

There's lots of subtle examples of such a process of mistake intervention on the race track, but there are also obvious ones. Think of the troubling situation where the horse fails to change leads into the stretch. What if the rider on this occurrence stops the workout or race right there? Not just sometimes, but every time it happens.

Or, another e.g. where the instructions are 6f in :14s, and lo and behold your horse takes off in :12s. What if you radioed your jock through the receiver in their helmet(see Bob Baffert) to slow down or abort, or maybe you've already instructed what to do if the horse goes too fast? This particular example led to one of the RR Rules that I'll get into later, "better too slow than too fast".

In considering this it all came together for me very quickly that day, really before JB had crossed the finish line I understood that if I wanted to stay in racing with my meager resources it was necessary to control everything that happened on the race track.

I soon gave this concept of "control" a name, and called it "Controlling the Variables". I'll discuss this a little more next post.

Training: summary coming for the weekend. Ground conditions continue to be horrendous.

The Concept "Controlling The Variables"

At left, Jeckimba Bay, my first horse.

I can remember sitting one sunny, most pleasant morning in August 1992 watching JB galloping around the race track with a new female rider in the first days of the 1992 Woodlands meet. I was leaning back in tall grass on side of a steep hill but I was uneasy and discouraged on a morning when all should have been right with the world.

I'd owned three horses. Two had career ending injuries, and JB, a 1985 model, was coming back from a pelvic fracture after falling in the wash rack.

Three horses, three major injuries, and, I was thinking, three isolated events that caused them, amid countless untold miles of galloping by all three animals. Did it just seem like bad luck after all that effort, time, and money that three separate isolated stupid mistake had done us in?

This is exactly what I was thinking that day as JB was approaching the back stretch. By the time he'd left the back stretch the light bulb suddenly came on, and it hit me like a jack hammer. Seems so simple, as it the thoughts unfolded. I was thinking errors, mistakes...I was recounting them in my head. There were so few, but everyone had come to bite me where it hurts. My mind was putting it together...unable to make mistakes in this business, ever.

The zero mistakes, though was only Part I of the epiphany. The really big part I'll get to next post.

Training: another day off. I have another of those photos of our wet farm which I decline to post yet again. I'll have a training summary in a few days.

Injury Causing VARIABLES In Training

Every athletic coach can point to specific factors affecting performance, and with horses, injuries. Factors cause injuries. I like the sound of that. It's therefore other than "it just happens" or "that's racing".

I call the injury causing factors "variables", and do so for a reason. Variables are changeables or things we may change, meaning also that variables are things we can control. And so, drumroll please! How do we prevent injuries? Please say it with me "we prevent injuries by CONTROLLING THE VARIABLES".

So, we're sending a horse to the track. Let's presume it's a D.W. Lukas horse. Goes to the track 22 times a month. We can quibble over DW's spacing of the gallops, but, it's enough.

What are we thinking as the horse heads out, and what variables do we consider in terms of injuries?

I've already covered a few:
shoeing
track surface
riders
warm ups

And of course animal husbandry (think Mary The Twit, last post), nutrition, rest (did some idiot keep 'em up all night), and so on.

But, rider's up, horse heading out, what variables do we consider?

1. The state and condition of the animal--what has it done yesterday, last week and month, what will it do tomorrow, etc.
2. Today's ideal distance, speed, and how far are we going fast?
3. What do we need in the warm up.
4. Alternative plans: if things go awry, leads, horse health during workout, what happens if the horse goes too fast in one part of w/o, or too slow in another, monitoring in general.
5. How do we leave the track? It matters.

and, last but hardly least, how to communicate all this to my Hall of Fame jock (it's a Lukas horse, mind you). Possibly biggest variable of all: rider control. Absolutely got to have it. I'll expound, next posts.

Training: Well, it failed to happen yesterday. Skipped the ground conditions. I'll do a complete training post soon and catch up with what's happening at the farm.

What Training For Injury Prevention?

My old song in racing has always been "if you can keep 'em running, they will win." I saw this first at Ak-Sar-Ben the day I saw Mary The Twit, loser of about 90 straight, almost win a race severely butchering my exacta. The nearly black,dulled coated Mary The Twit generally raced at the back of the pack around 1:16, but this date against an excruciatingly weak field and having been placed in races four straight weeks I was a bit on guard with this popular looser in my handicapping. And, sure enough, she came to the paddock actually looking as if she'd been fed during the week, and then, to every one's amazement proceeded to grab the lead into the first turn and was barely headed for second in the stretch.. If Mary The Twit can run 1:12s I was thinking...hmmmn.

My own first horse Jeckimba Bay was another slow one. A little 15'3" chestnut gelding, Exclusive Call-Petite Mary-Idaho Red, 12 second furlongs were a challenge for JB, but, by training he was able to run them all day because he could breathe. Over I'm unable to remember how many Tom Ivers type breezes, countless, the fastest 3f this horse ever ran was :35 and change. I still remember the day since I almost fell off the clockers stand when he broke the :36.

The point here is that most of those horses that are in training have the physical ability to be winners, but only a small percentage of them win because they almost all suffer injuries which both compromise their training and racing success. If we could avoid the injuries most of our horses would win eventually.

How do we go about this in training? I'm fairly far into the book Sea Biscuit, and though I have to extrapolate the training, it's quite amazing what trainer Tom Smith did with the horse. The works in those days tended to be race distance. Race 1 3/16 miles, you breeze that far at race speed once or twice a week. Additionally there was a constant stream of races. In the book so far over two years neither War Admiral or Sea Biscuit have suffered anything but very minor injuries through training and racing that make today's stuff child's play.

I surmise that these two horses were fit enough to stand the rigors, and that most horses that go through training are insufficiently tough and fit to stand for very long what is required. There's a hint of course in the training of Sea Biscuit and so many of the old time horses as to how to avoid injuries by the training.

Next posts, I plan to get specific on this subject.

Our training: with record temperatures all the ice and snow has melted and for the past three days the farm has been a quagmire. I have been involved in transporting my horse Aylward to his new home (he's there now, happily challenging his new mates--the lady to my puzzlement put him next to what she bragged was an "alpha" mare, while I was thinking but declined to note, that her alpha mare was about to encounter an alpha stallion, lol), things at the farm are such a mess ground wise I've just thrown up my hands. But, as they say, "to able man the world is not inert", and so despite more rain today on top of this mess, I've suddenly figured how I can get them ridden in wet weather. More on this later.

Aylward

Tomorrow I'll transport this big fellow to his new job as a stallion at a breeding farm near Cassville, Missouri down near the Arkansas border. Al continues to be a lucky horse as I think he'll be in superb hands, and I myself will look forward possibly to one of his foals.

Yet, taking a horse away from home that's been with you this long is a little like taking your kid to college. They're moving on to better things, but it sure seems otherwise.

Al was one of those class horses that due to circumstances never show what they can do, at least to the rest of the world. I saw Al's talent every day, and for his modest record on the track the blame was none of his.

We finally got things together for Al as a five year old at Eureka. I still visualize the horse tearing around that track in 2000 getting such lift from his powerful rear end after I'd finally recognized after three years that this horse needs toe grabs.

Al that year won a training race, finished second, then two more wins and 2000 was looking like the year of our coming out party. After the last one I took him back home to the farm as a reward, and then that terrific thud from lower barn, and Al stood there with a busted nose. He'd been kicked just at his very height. .

We took Al to the University where he received a $3000.00 nose job. And the next year he was ready again, but this time it was me that was kicked on the first day of the meet. Al never made it back to the races till 2003, and after his first win the bad luck thing came again which I'll avoid describing because I'm still smoking about it.

Al as a two year old was broken in the field pictured below by the son of Russia's Olympic equestrian team who was visiting KC. This fellow announced to me that Al would be a champion. To me, regardless of his race record, he was. Al went out there through some of the toughest training a horse would get almost every available day for eleven years. He gave it everything every day.

There's lots of horses like that, I'm sure. When they're your own, they're special.

Al is in his normal position at the head of the herd,

Friday

Ooops. I've been so engrossed in a research project, most interesting, i'm forgetting to blog. Next post coming soon!

2008!

A penguin for the weather in KC today. Mixed feelings as usual on New Years with all the horse birthdays. Its good they age, I guess!

Interesting year ahead. I'm predicting Guiliani as the next president, even though I'm more and more thinking but for a few character flaws, being a trial lawyer and all, that John Edwards is a couple of heads above this good bunch of candidates. Patrick Buchanan in his column that I just read predicts an anus horribilus year with all the problems. While I wish they'd do something about that threatening brown cloud over Asia and the immigration mess, I'm feeling pretty good about things overall.

Best of luck in 2008 to all!
RR.