More How Lukas Does It

So, in the late '80s, off Lukas's own training logs, and per the interview with Staaden that "I don't work horses", which Lukas repeated three times to the incredulous Aussie Vet for Tommie Smith, we have by best estimate:

3.5 breezes or races a month
18 additional gallops at about :17s.

This is "heavy" volume stuff for a conventional trainer. How do we evaluate?

Per usual the sport has too far to go yet to have any studies. You'd think The Grayson Jockey Club, New Bolton, the folks at Cornell, or UCal-Davis, any of them would at some point have studied the injury causing effects of conventional training as exemplified by the Lukas model, but, nada. Closest we have is the extensive testing done in the Maryland Shin Study concluding the need for fast work every 3 or 4 days for very young horses to prevent bucked shins.

So, for any reader, you're about to get another dose of RR evaluations. But, I'll look at the thing closely and with care.

Begin maybe by asking some questions, in terms of fracture resistance:
1. What's minimum required frequency per month? What about distance and speed?
2. Is there a maximum frequency we need to avoid exceeding, and again, what of distance and speed?
3. What effect, if any, does the volume, distance, and speed of slow galloping have?

I'll start looking at this next post.

Our training:
Wednesday Art had a shoe problem, and yesterday after dentistry I just skipped. Recommenced today, Friday. Art got away from me on the way to the Astride paddock, and did so three more times. He learned that little trick last year right after I bought him. The boogey man was out in full force. I went with the flow as they were all hepped up, and we got some decent pasture work, and then some Astride work with Art as Mr. Nob the rider was awol. It was cold again, but, looks like we're on the uptick with the weather.