TP Derby And Spacing Of Breezes

Another nice shot of "the man" in full flight. Will someone tell me what's with that shadow roll? Weirdly, riding the horse, I'd prefer it see its own footfall, but, then, that's just me.

I'll have to add, over the course of this blog you'll pick up somewhere that I'm other than a Zito fan in terms of training, and I'd bet most of my fortune that he'll screw this horse up on the way to the Derby, but, we shall see.

Now, to the business at hand, which is gazing over the Tampa Bay Derby PPs to see which of the horses, if any, have rational spacing as to the times between their breezes and races. Again, I'm looking at injury prevention instead of performance.

First thing that jumps out at you--War Pass last breezed 9 days ago, but, it was other than the Zito typical 4f. On 3/6 WP shows 1:01 and change. That was 10 days after the 2/24 walk over race at Gulf Stream.

Thus, since 2/24 we have two works, one of which is the race itself, or 2 fast works in 20 days. But, it goes further than that. Prior to 2/24 the horse last breezed 2/16, and thus since 2/17/08 a period of almost 30 days WP has exactly two fast works. How tight, how fit, and how girded against injury, soft tissue and hard, can this horse possibly be even with the 1:36 and change mile at Gulfstream? Do we have here, really, just another conventional training dimwit keeping his horse on the bare edge of disaster? Seems so to me, but, we shall see.

We'll presume, of course, that WP in addition to his two fast works in the last 28 days also has been galloping, and perhaps coming home in those slow day gallops in some fast fractions. I would, for the sake of the horse, hope so, though I've never seen Zito engage in the "come home" sort of training. I think the performance we'll see tomorrow will tell a lot. If the horse is strong, then there has been a lot of strong galloping in addition to the two works. If the horse appears weak and strugglilng, as I expect, then we'll know based on the training we see, the reasons.

I'ts Friday night, 3/14. I'll look at the rest of the field in the morning. And, please note that WP's spacing of fast work has been inconsistent raging anywhere from once a week for the 3 weeks before the 2/24 race to 2 weeks to lately 9 days.

Training: Just as soon as I declare the farm dry we have 4 days of rain in the forecast. But, we got in nice work tonight. Rod just a riderless, snappy 3 x 3f. Art did the same, but after Rod was removed Art did 3 x 2f with about 1/2f of each 1f being near max speed. Art looks good. When did my little fellow become so fast and powerful?