Spacing Work For Performance/Injury Prevention

Great time of year in horse racing with the Kentucky Derby Preps, and now the potential superstar in Big Brown. For this blog's purposes Kentucky Derby preps provide an excellent lab to examine the training of these maturing youngsters toward the ultimate KY Derby effort to come on May 3. Wish we knew everything about the training, gallops, frequency, distance, manner, e.g. does the pictured War Pass go out every day, does he come home in fast fractions, two minute gallops, was training affected by injury, etc.? A lot of this info is unknown, but, we can still go on what we do know and suppose, and examine these preps both in terms of performance and injury prevention.

To this end I've looked at what I consider the horses with sufficient talent to compete in the Derby. I will omit this weekend's Florida Derby Field as I've written already enough of them, and one can extrapolate the conclusions to that field based on their FD performances.

And so, without adieu, here are the major horses and what they've done since late February, and I'll list them in the Order that I believe they'll compete, best one's on top:

Colonel John:
3/1 1:36 (race)
3/13 :49.2
3/19 :59.6
3/25 1:11
can we say this horse is being trained 6 days apart in :12s with the trainer wanting 6-7f with the gallop outs? This horse's training on paper shows a good deal of logic and common sense.

Pyro:
3/8 1:38 (race)
3/17 :53.2
3/24 102.4
Notice compared to others, only nine days between race and first breeze. We know Asmussen breezes 'em every 7 days and does lots of two mile galloping. The question: can Asmussen continue to get away with powder puff breezes against the likes of Eion Harty with Colonel John? Doubtful, imo. (oops. this morning: 1:14.2 today gallop out 1.27.2 seven days after last. Possibly Asmussen watched Saturday's FD???)

Georgie Boy:
3/15 1:36 (race)
3/29 1:12
Kathy Walsh as with any woman trainer, will have to prove to me she knows what she's doing. Two weeks detraining after the race then exactly one work in 20 days between the races tends to show me she's without a clue, though 6f in 1:12 7 days out probably is a decent work. Expect Georgie based on this to struggle more in the race. He'll be less strong than the last.

El Gato Malo:
3/1 1:36 (race)
3/29 :59
Based on the above you know what I think of this one. Typical idiocy. This is your trainer in the DW Lukas mold. Expect the big fade from Malo.

War Pass:
3/15 1:42 (race)
3/27 :47.40
I'd previously predicted and then attributed WP's poor Tampa Bay to questionable training. This continues. The horse was woefully unprepared to race on 3/15 and has exactly one 4f work into his next race. I feel for horses handled in this manner. Qualify by supposing WP has received appropriate non-breeze work, but, from what I've seen of Zito, that is doubtful. The horse will enter the Wood galloping on talent alone with zero help from his trainer.

Cool Coal Man:
2/24 1:36 (race)
3/14 1:02
3/24 :48.20
Let's see, why (besides injury) would you wait three weeks after the race for the next work. Are you trying to move the horse up, or backward? CCM another victim, I fear.

I'll omit Big Truck and Dennis of Cork, and of course, Big Brown Smooth Air, and Fierce Wind, Tomcito, have to be considered out of Saturday's race, and also Adriano who was impressive. Keep an eye on this remaining bunch as we go. The other horse with talent, Majestic Warrior has Bill Mott in the Nick Zito, Lukas, Craig Dollase mode where these sorts are unable to compete with the newer training.

Will try to pull this together next post.

Training:
The two year old Rod has had 4 days of riderless galloping with a nice faster work in the Astride paddock yesterday on the softer grass. More driving work last night with the surcingle. This horse really has got the driving down, and had I a 125lbs rider available we'd go on. Rod at this stage remains so immature that I'll wait a couple of months before throwing Nob up. We'll start work under light Astride this week. Art remains off, though he was with his chest wound galloping around on his own this morning, a good sign.