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.
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.
posted by rather rapid at
10:05 AM
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