Crown Of Thorns

This one I have to look at. Mandella Derby prospect Crown of Thorns (photo) announced today as having a shin problem or saucer fracture and so a good guinea pig for the present subject of the blog. Did COF do enough to develop "fracture resistance". Obviously, in the negative, but, how did it happen?

A saucer fracture, presumably on a front cannon bone, is a small crack on the shin surface that is parallel to the ground, appearing sort of like a thin dime imposed on the Xray. Unless you stop training, it can go all the way through the cannon bone. Just exactly the sort of thing we'd hope to prevent.

Tiz on Pedigree Forum posted the works:

quote="Tiz"]Crown of Thorns 02/15/2008 SA 6F 1:17.80 All Weather Track Fast H
2/2/2008: right into a 1 1/8th stakes that he wins after a 1:34 and change mile and
pressed to the max down the stretch
01/26/2008 HOL 7F 1:31.80 All Weather Track Fast H
01/19/2008 SA 7F 1:24.80 All Weather Track Fast H
01/12/2008 SA 5F 1:00.00 All Weather Track Fast H
1/3/2008 wins maiden
12/28/2007 SA 3F :37.20 All Weather Track Fast H
12/23/2007 SA 6F 1:14.40 All Weather Track Fast H
12/17/2007 SA 3F :37.60 Dirt training Fast H
12/8/2007 finishes 5th in Maiden race
12/05/2007 HOL 3F :38.20 All Weather Track Fast B G[/quote]

What jumps out at you? First look at Mandella's days between works or races starting 12/5:

2 days
9 days
6 days
5 days
6 days
9 days
7 days
7 days
7 days

I'd say the splits of days are relatively consistent and quite reasonable. We may also assume that the horse had a couple of gallops between works. Unknown how far Mandella gallops on the off days.

Distance: There are 5 works exceeding 3f in 62 days. Think you'd question this and probably consider it a bare minimum.

Speed: All I can see here is that there's plenty of :12s type work, BUT, is there anything in this whole schematic that would prepare a youngster for the 1:34 mile and pressure down the lane in the R.B. Lewis. Nothing at all imo. And, without any doubt, the race would be where the problem would have developed unless it was already there. This is yet another instance, where we may surmise preparation appearing adequate but insufficient on close scrutiny. There are zero fractions above that come close to the race speed/distance combo, a double whammy surprise to the cannons, and leave it at that for now. Watch the race and you'll probably see where the injury developed. I posted Mandella's injury rate (hint: it's horrific) in my posts of 1/24/07 and 2/1/07. Better prep here than a lot of those horses, but far short of what we might consider necessary for injury prevention. More on this as I go on.

Training: 6 degrees today in KC at 11:00 a.m. Fearful weather.