Conventional Training: Tampa Bay Derby PPs

This fellow is supposed to run away with this weekend's Tampa Bay Derby. However, caveat, the horse last breezed 3/6 and the race is 9 days later, 3/15.

Does this time between fast works for War Pass concern anyone? Should it concern Nick Zito? Can a horse do zero speed work for nine straight days and then be expected to perform all out for 1 1/16th mile?

Such are the questions now to be dealt with as I begin to look at "frequency" of racing and breezing in conventional training. Tampa Bay Derby serves as nice beginning as every horse in there is conventionally trained (by my definitions), and so from the PPs we can look at what the trainers do (or fail to do), and then see how it all works out on race day. I'll give the broad hint that it's difficult for me to hide my contempt for these sorts, but, I'll try.

Here are the number of times each horse breezed and raced since 1/1, and some other comparisons :

War Pass: 7 (Zito)
Cigar Man: 7 (Kathleen O'Connell--a little short on works, but, he'll be well groomed.)
Gentleman James: 5 (Myra Mora--this chick needs to surrender her license)
Make Me Zach: 5 (Barry Rose--same deal)
Big Truck: 10 (Barclay Tagg--Based on numbers, and thus conditioning, a threat)
Attoned: 8 (Plecher)
Dynamic Wayne: 6 (Dale Bennett)
Assault: in 1948 between 1/1 and 3/15: 22 (but, lol, first one was 1/21) (Max Hirsch)
Preakness Winner Bold: in 1951: 17 (no works between 2/19 and 3/19 due to bruised feet) (Preston Burch)
Tom Ivers Trained Horse: 19

Just from the above:
1. Do Gentleman James and Make Me Zach have a ghost's chance in hell? What might be the odds these two youngsters will break down?
2. They all train similar except B. Tagg. Does Barclay know something?

Note further:

5 works (or races) in 11 weeks is 5 works in 77 days or 1 work every 15 days.
10 works in 11 weeks is 1 work every 7.7 days.
7 works in 11 weeks is 1 work every 11 days

By my definition, each horse has undergone typical conventional training in terms of frequency. The most rabid breezer, Barclay Tagg, "sends" his horse about once a week, the least rabid once every two weeks. These trainers do approximately 1/3 the speed work done by Burch, Hirsch or Ivers. What are they thinking?

But, frequency in terms of days is just the beginning of the analysis. I'll look at furlongs traveled, speed, and time between race and last breeze, next post.

Training:
3/13/08: Thursday: horses went riderless in the running paddock, now almost dry after 108 straight days of wet--has to be a record--5 x 3f. I let 'em set their own pace over the choppy, formerly muddy, ground. Let's call the gallop snappy, high energy. Art then did 1 mile trot under tack.