The Four Contenders

The more you watch it all starts to fall together. Last year based on the videos I eliminated my prior pick, Stormello. This year again it becomes more and more obvious from the tape. There are but four exceptional horses, and coincidentally 3 of the 4 also have the strongest training jobs.

Based on recorded works last year I puzzled over Hard Spun and how he could look so strong with so little breezing. It's all out now, for this morning we saw L. Jones demonstrate his methods. The filly Eight Belles galloped most of her Wednesday mile at 2 min lick or faster. At one point I timed her in :28 for 2f, and that's carrying 200 lbs. It was most impressive and shows why Jones breezes sporadically. There's more here than what appears in the sheets, which finally explains this intelligent trainer.

Big Brown Wed. morning galloped 3/4 mile on his left lead with the exercise rider seeming to forget about the lead change at the 3/16 pole. Concerning of course in injury prevention terms. Nevertheless watching the horse it's hard to send too much flack Dutrow Jr.'s way for noting he's got possibly the best horse ever in his shedrown, and plaudits to Dutrow for crediting the horse. This also possibly is the second best training job.

Colonel John continues to look good, and while Dutrow may consider BB unbeatable, they might want to look in the rear view mirror around the eight pole.

Only a horse with exceptional talent will be able to keep up with the three above, and there's one other, which would be Dennis of Cork. Dennis's training will prevent a win, but there's enough bottom that combined with the talent, Dennis seems the only other that would have a shot.

Training:
Wed. 4/30 riderless light work for both before tomorrow's speed. Skipped tack work when it was discovered Art had sprung yet another shoe.

Derby Worries

Flapping tongues, and trainer of the Derby favorite whose hobby is bass fishing. I'm neutral but conflicted about hunting/fishing but, does anyone find something incongruous about an animal trainer--Eion Harty--that enjoys killing fish in his spare time? Forget the Nafzger like job with Colonel John, after the Derby I'm inviting Harty to my place in hope of teaching him how to apply a tongue tie.

Then Barclay Tagg and the green European saddle(rump) blankets. Barclay possibly has a subliminal wish that he were at Newmarket, in employ of the Queen perhaps, anywhere but Churchill where his horses look anything but comfortable. Little details seems to escape, as I noticed Tale of Ekati this morning taking off after a deficient warm up. Any wonder the horse was gassed by the wire? Trainer "obliviousness". You may look up the word at Dictionary.com.

Then Dutrow Jr. puffing away with his horse on the track in bell boots, a piece of equipment I'd thought reserved for the idiot wing of the hunter/jumper community. Possibly Richard Jr. was too busy in his lab to notice that his horse might be uncomfortable with those contraptions ricocheting over his fetlocks. But then, perhaps you need bell boots with turn downs. Jr. is also invited to my place post derby where I hope to teach him the art of avoiding hind-front interference prior to hitting Louisville, no bell boots necessary. I'll off him a little weed if I can find some.

And then Zito fretting over his latest $650,000 casualty. Who else could observe his horses are "not robust" and they are the best conditioned horses all in the same sentence? If the race were 4f I might put Cool Coal Man in my exacta.

That's almost enough for one post, but at the top of my worry list would be Eight Belles. I'm supposing the jock will have the good sense to protect this lightly trained very vulnerable filly with her lengthy front cannons trying to compete against a bunch of colts many of whom have twice as much distance on their work tabs. The Hall of Shame to these connections if anything happens to this filly.

And, to finish up, no sighting of the Pletcher horses today or almost anyone else (from the reports so far). We'll be keeping tabs if all those workers over the weekend completely detrain what little they gained from those "maintenance" works. Maintenance works, peaking works, that's what you'd want, I'm supposing provided you had anything to maintain.

Enough barbs for this one Derby. Back to workouts and fit horses tomorrow. I've yet to figure it completely except I'd agree with Dutrow that they've got quite a specimen in Big Brown.

Training:
Mon. 4/28: Rod was off after three work days. That youngster, unlike his 3yr. old counterpart, has yet to miss a beat. Art did a nice riderless fast work followed by 10 min trot-walk under tack in the pasture. We're getting there again with the tack work according to Mr. Nob after the 2 weeks off with the chest injury. The riderless was planned as 6 x 1f sort of fast, but, since the horse kept insisting on going 2f instead of one, we called it after four of them. Looked very decent after the layoff!

The Videos

I'm still putting together the recent work tabs and will post them at the end of the week with the aim to identify the fittest horses and then see how they do in the race.

Meanwhile we've been treated to daily reports and videos--see the KY Derby Website--and it's time to watch 'em and make up our own personal Steve Haskin reports about dappling coats and flowing strides. The most crucial time of prep for any race tends to be in the preceding two weeks. In the history of preparation for big races we seem primarily in this period to be past the late '80s and '90s were "conventional" type trainers would pronounce their horses "fit" a week or so before the race and largely do nothing into the race. The most recent example of this was Giacomo. John Shireffs does a decent job of training and then mucks it all up by doing almost nothing the last 4 or 5 days into the race. Works when you get extremely lucky, I'm supposing.

Here is an RR "seeing" report, and I do generally tend to believe what I see:

1. Adriano: unimpressive. 'bout all I can say.

2. Anak Nakal/Cool Coal Man, precisely what I'd expect. Is N. Zito getting a bit defensive perhaps when he opines "condition-wise, you can't ask for horses more conditioned"?

3. Cowboy Cal/Monba: Both of these horses flash enough talent to be dangerous. They're walking Monday for the second day in a row. I'd be shocked if those exercise rider powerpuff works on Saturday get anything but "up the track", but, they look good.

4. Big Brown: waiting to see him.

5. Big Truck: was struggling with that :59 work today. Scratch him. Something about Barclay Tagg and his training.

6. Tale of Ekati: this seems a real nice horse. Contender.

7. Bob Black Jack: seems overmatched physically.

8. Colonel John: man among boys.

9. Court Vision/Z Humor. Same thing with both. They're nice horses that needed to be moved up in training. Never happened.

10. Dennis Of Cork: Impressive! The 4f today was almost 7f. Will need to look at this one again.

11. Eight Belles: I hope L. Jones does get the "sign from god" and runs her in the Oaks.

12. Gayego: Second best pedigree? Impressive horse that needed to do more?

13: Pyro: Has Grade I type scope. Definite threat!

14. Z Fortune: same as Pyro. Looks pretty good to me.

15. Recapturetheglory: hard to judge. would like to see more. something missing, perhaps.

16. Smooth Air: Northern Dancer type without Norther Dancer conditioning. Next Derby Bernie, keep your thermometer at home and work your horse.

17. Visionaire: a cut below.

Summarizing: I was impressed with: CJ, Smooth Air, Z Fortune, Pyro, Monba and Cowboy Cal, Gayego, Dennis of Cork, Tale of Ekati. There's BB and Recapturetheglory still Qs on appearance, and the rest I'd throw out purely on appearance and seeing their breezes. Will see how all this comes together later.

Training:
My horses conducted light riderless work on Monday as preliminary to Art's speed work tonight + tack work. I'm heading to the farm.

CJ And BB

The cat, I'm supposing, is now completely out of the bag regarding Colonel John. I'd supposed only those of us who clandestinely viewed those You Tube videos understood fully that Eion Harty, pictured, has produced a machine of a horse with the sort of training job that reminds quite a bit of Carl Nafzger and Street Sense. But, Sunday there's CJ and his :57 and change work plastered all over the Bloodhorse and TB Times videos. So now everybody knows, this is a really nice horse.

And, anybody able to think of a more potent genetic combination that Tiznow and Turkomen? Most racing fans saw Tiznow, but some of us oldsters also were witness to that Breeder's Cup Classic where Turkomen was about 25 lengths out of it at the quarter pole and almost ran down Skywalker at the wire in the greatest sustained stretch run I've seen. Turkoman had exactly the sort of ability clearly visible in CJ in that when he finally got going Turkoman was really fast.

Then we have BB. He put in a nice work too the other day. The question in my mind would be if BB is as strong a galloper as CJ. BB was loping along in the Florida Derby faster than the rest, but, as you'd expect, he looked fairly weak in his gallop. Other than the speed, little to totally blow one away there.

However, regards BB, his apparent weakness then, and his "presumably" light work for the year due to the quarter cracks, let us keep a few things in mind.
1. It is probably assumed wrongfully that this colt missed a lot of work due to the quarter cracks. Actually such hoof cracks would be a small problem instead of a big one when you bring in immediate expert farrier help. They patched those cracks immediately and BB could have gone to the track the next day. I suspect he probably did.
2. BB has been in training since his late yearling year. He was a 2 year old sales graduate. This Colt has a lot of bottom and maybe--I'm still studying Dutrow--a pretty decent trainer . BB might himself be nearly machine like by the Derby.

I believe both BB and CJ to be better horses than any that ran a year ago, including Curlin, Street Sense and Hard Spun. By better I mean more talented. Each have had similarly very decent training jobs. It's fairly easy to guess that these two will leave the KY Derby field this year at some point.

Or will they? Is there any other competitior that has this sort of man among boys quality as these two big horses. I was quite impressed today with the talent of 8 Belles, the filly, but, expect her to fade out of sight on Derby day. Weak trainer, weak training. She's filling the owner's ego, and unfortunately Larry Jones, who I feel sure knows better, is forced into a political position vis a vis his owner vying with serious concern for his lightly worked horse.

Of the horses that have the physicality to stay with BB and CJ you'd include the following:
Adriano
Recapturetheglory
Cowboy Cal
Gayego
Bob Black Jack
Pyro

For training reasons I only take BBJ and Pyro seriously from this group. We'll see what they do with them this week.

The other possibility is that some lighter less talented horse would have the training and bottom to run with the super talents. I'm unable to see that in this field. The one that had a chance in this category, Smooth Air, is as much as out.

But, final looks coming. I'm working on what these contenders have done in the last 45 days to see if that tells us anything. For now, do we have a CJ--BB exacta?

Training:
Sun: 4/27 both youngsters were put through riderless play for about 15 min with plans to work the three year old hard tomorrow. Art also did 10 min trot-walk under tack in the pasture. Nob the rider has pronounced Rod the two year old finally large enough to carry a rider, and so we commenced belly work with that horse this evening.

Contenders And Pretenders

How many horses enter the Derby never to be heard from again? In my years its been most of them, though it's changed a bit recently. More horses the last three or four years actually survive the Derby as the training has stiffened. Last post identified which horses based on works and races have perhaps the best bottom for the year, though it's interesting that almost all of them have done at six or seven breezes/races since about mid-March. Some catch up in training going on, perhaps.

But, we throw out the softest one's right off the bat. This includes

work/races for the year//since about 3/15

13/5 Gayego
13/6 Momba
13/6 Z Humor
14/6 Court Vision
14/6 Dennis of Cork

I'm confident the Derby distance will be too much for the above based merely on a crude look at their training. And, though I always fear Pletcher, very little dissuaded me in witnessing those highly questionable works at Keenland Saturday by Momba and Cowboy Cal.(See Keenland Website) Where were the jocks for this top barn in the final Derby works. That rider on Momba reminded me of Nob. Well, that's probably a gross exaggeration. Nob in his finest moment possibly. And, I'd swear Cowboy Cal was trotting a bit gingerly post work. In any event neither of those works imo were sufficiently strenous to retain top fitness for the 7 whole days to May 3, and certainly as Pletcher admitted, best you could say, they were maintenance works, sort of, imo. Both horses looked neither primed for max effort or tight to me.

Mott, bless his heart. Time has simply passed him by. He's still competing with Lukas of the mid-nineties, and I'll be amazed if his horses do anything. Dennis of Cork--too lightly raced and worked to be a factor.

Now, does total furlongs worked/raced for the year add anything to the equation? Here they are:

Number of Furlongs/horse
101 Smooth Air--interesting!
96 Pyro--Assmussen seems to work and gallop a lot, but light. Watching as it goes!
94 Big Truck--but, less and less lately.
90 Z Fortune--the other Asmussen horse.
88 Colonel John
82 Bob Black Jack
81 Tale of Ekati
81 Behind At The Bar--The most conditioned of Pletcher's.
80 Anak Nakal--had only War Pass trained this much.
79 Dennis of Cork
74 Gayego--if you're training a sprinter, do you want to do more than this?
74 Visionaire
71 Recapturetheglory
69 Adriano--a lot lately. He looks good. Is this enough?
64 Cool Coal Man
64 Court Vision
63 Monba
57 Cowboy Cal
56 Big Brown--Again brings up the rear.
52 Eight Belles--does she belong here? Danger!

Analysis: Can we say a true contender needs to have worked/raced more than 80 F for the year?
We'll see.

Smooth Air sticks out. I'll have to look at him closer as to recent spacing. Adriano seems borderline, and in this field I'll throw him out, with trepidation though. I dislike disregarding talent. Cool Coal and Anak Nakal are out, but we already knew that. And, with all regard to Big Truck's early works, that horse failed to look the part in the Keenland video of his last breeze, so, on my board Truck is out.

This leaves standing for further analysis in order of what I see at present:
Colonel John, Pyro (I think they held him back at Keenland), Big Brown, Bob Black Jack (I'm impressed with the trainer to date), Z Fortune,Tale of Ekati (expect a No Biz performance), Smooth Air, Behindatthebar, Recapturetheglory, and Visionaire hangs by the teeth. Nine horses as true contenders. A look at recent spacing next.

Training:
Both of mine did light riderless work after the faster work yesterday, plus 10 min tack work in the pasture with Art. Healing from the 4/25 gelding: unexpectedly quick recovery. The horse acts as if he's hardly in pain.

The Main Contenders

Who are they and how do we pick them? Readers will know on this blog it's other than a handicapping exercise. Instead of picking the winner by our best handicapping effort, I'll try instead to identify the smartest trained horses, and we'll see how they do.

How to identify the "best trained". Let's make this other than subjective. The best trained horse will have to meet certain objective criteria:

1. Most works/races for the year.
2. Most furlongs breezed/raced for the year.
3. Most furlongs breezed/raced last 45 days
4. Most breezes/races last 45 days
5. Most track work in the 10 days before the derby.
6. Closest and fastest breezes to the Derby.
7. Longest breezes of the last two weeks.

This should give us a pretty good idea of the type of training and allow us within reason to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of prepared horses. The results should also reveal the type of training done these days by the majority of the Derby trainers, for, I'll confide right off the bat, from what I've done so far there's a lot of similarity. There are however some surprising results.

To begin the weeding out process I'll take all the Derby PPs and determine in order of most volume to least, how many works/races for the year and then how many works/races 3/15 to 5/3 (I'm including the planned works in the next few days).

Most to least:
18/7 Pyro
18/6 Tale of Ekati--is Tagg working his horses. Why's Big Truck look so weak?
17/7 Colonel John
17/7 Bob Black Jack
17/7 Z Fortune
16/6 Anak Nakal--here's a suprise.
16/5 Big Truck--is he weak because he worked less recently?
15/6 Smooth Air--this horse has worked long, but average frequency.
14/6 Adriano
14/6 Cool Coal Man
14/6 Dennis Of Cork
14/6 Court Vision
14/5 Behind The Bar
13/6 Monba
13/6 Z Humor
13/5 Gayego
13/5 Cowboy Cal--this horse was injured for a while.
12/6 Recapturetheglory
11/7 Big Brown--he's played catch up. Tied from most since 3/15 though!!!

Notice I declined to include the fillies. Besides my usual "what's the point", fillies are lightly trained and endangered by racing against these. Rags survived the Belmont, barely. But, you want to know, so--Eight Belles: 8/4--is this ridiculous, that they're considering this horse to compete against the above? (Edit: this becomes 9/5 by Derby day.

What jumps out? Gayego for openers. If you watch the Arkansas Derby, yes he was in front at the wire, but barely moving. Scratch this horse from the contenders list on the above alone. And when we put it down on paper maybe there's too much hype over Smooth Air.

Nor will I take Pletcher or Mott's horses seriously based on the above. They've made their bed with light training and we'll see the desultory results on Derby day, I feel quite confident. Only Big Brown and Recapturetheglory get a pass here. The first started late but finished strong, and Rousell's horse is doing two mile gallops that I want to look at.

The whinnied down list next post. I'll look at furlongs and get to the crucial aspects of appropriate spacing and offday work to the Derby.

Training:
Groovin' Wind survived his mutilation. He's walking around eating grass and grain as if nothing happened. Reminder that they're just animals and probably very little goes on in those small brains. Kinder and gentler Wind, though. Art is back grazing in the pasture instead of hiding in the barn to avoid another attack. Both youngsters had a spirited riderless workout adopted to the off time. A little speed. They're flyers, and I'm happy about that.

A Gelding And Track Work To The Derby

I'm just back in my office from the farm where this morning my 13 year old retired horse Groovin'Wind was gelded. Major surgery at this age. Gelding is never a pleasant idea for me, and I generally avoided this over the years with about 12 or 13 horses. With Wind for the first time in my 20 years suddenly we had a situation where the behavior of the horse necessitated the gelding. For his first 12 years Wind was the proverbial sweet heart, as most of them are, but Wind of late handled his new position as herd leader very questionably, and hence the operation. A bit traumatic for me with this old and favored horse but also likely for his long term good at this point of his life.

Just a short word about colts, horses, stallions. There are so many myths that attach. Yes, you can keep them together in the same pasture. I've had up to seven at one time. You can also keep mares in the same pasture with the seven stallions. We've done it. Hilarious situation where the head honcho is at one end of the field with his mares, with the other six at the other end, and the two groups spend the day in constant staredown watching each other's every move. There's never a dull moment around a bunch of stallions; maybe a little too much excitement for many horse people. But, I'd say in 20 years of owing numerous full horses I've seen maybe exactly two serious fights. Lot's of constant squabbling of course, but mostly they behave as horses regardless of their sex.

Recently I learned with Wind they can get out of control. Was it age, the situation 3 being a bad number for a herd, or the fact that Wind has never been the brightest bulb out there in the pasture and just handled his duties poorly? Interesting that I've learned something new again after all these years.

The Derby coverage gets better every year, and I'm in process of putting together all the works and gallops, spacing, distance, time, to see if we may glean anything from this in terms of performance and injury in the Derby. That'll be coming in the next posts.

Training: My horses have been off two days due to bad weather. We'll start up tonight though it's threatening to rain yet again.

Yesterday's News

I should draft this stuff earlier. Inevitably you get caught in the whirl such as today's BB :58 and change. I'm still on last week and trying to understand what caused the injury to War Pass. Be nice to know precisely what happened with War Pass--gallop and breeze schedule, times, distance, fractions, number of strides, nutrition, diagnostics, vet reports. We'll never know. But, anybody interested? The Grayson Jockey Club, somebody from a Vet School, the NTRA, perhaps, that came within a rat's whisker of another TV tragedy? For prevention, do we have to get answers to this stuff?

Hopefully there's arthroscopic surgery that can reattach that sesamoid to avoid a lifetime of pain for this colt. I've seen 'em standing with torn sesamoids. It's other than pretty.

As part of my "frequency" of breezing/racing posts I'll try to put together the works of WP, for do we know whatever they did here that something went amiss, presuming it was other than the rare bad step.

Training:
Art has his normal off day yesterday in 2 inches of rain. We'll slog through the mud under tack tonight, and Rod will be back in action after two days off, one due to a late discovered lost shoe.

A Word About War Pass

The pedigree analysts will find the injury to War Pass confirmation that progeny of sprinters are unable to "get the distance". While I understand it in theory, how do they explain Gayego Black Jack and Recapture The Glory (by Cherokee Run).

Some will see WP as an affirmation that we have a more fragile breed, even while we're in process of seeing a big reduction in the number of injured Derby prospects in the last year or so. Personally, could I choose from the last 3o years any one horse to train fo the Derby, it might well have been War Pass.

Can injuries like this be prevented and can we devise a system of training that will make the horse sound enough to survive these rigors, or maybe the point is that we must since this barn just gave us a horse in the Wood Memorial a few strides from another disaster.

There are questions of course. Zito training questions, and questions for the many other Zitos out there that injure permanently everything they get a hold of usually within a few months. You can ask how a major barn such as this can fail to diagnose a detached torn away sesamoid bone until two weeks post race. Did they forget to X-ray(see comment attached to this post)? Might it have occurred to them that a horse raced this hard on this little work would be inevitably injured? Is Cool Coal man their next victim?

These are a few of the reasons I believe whenever there is a catastrophic racing injury there should be an investigation, Steward's inquiry and lengthy suspension with the finding of training negligence.

The light training and infrequent breeze work done by War Pass prior to his injury is my present subject. How often do we need to breeze/race to prevent this from happening?

Training:
Sun 4/20: 10 min riderless play over bumpy ground + ten min under tack for Art.

Pletcher Again

Oh my! The Pletcher training mystery continues. Behindatthebar and David Flores at left. Interesting stride!

It's other than a wild guess on my part that TP's horses will finish up the track on Derby day. Why? Pletcher's horses will be running into several buzz saws instead of the powerpuffs of Coolmore Lexington day.

But, for now, a brief RR attempt at how this victory was got. Let's look at:
1. Number of breezes/races since 2/17/08 (I'm without the full PPs for the year).
2. Furlongs breezed/raced since 2/17/08
3. Timing of last breeze to the race.

Here is the order of finish, first with "number" of breezes since 2/17:

8 works/races Behindatthebar (Pletcher)
8 Samba Rooster (Baffert)
8 Riley Tucker (Mott)
7 Racecar Rhapsody (McPeek)
6 Big Glenn (F. Brothers)
7 Tomcito (Dante Zanelli Jr.)
6 Salute The Sarge (E. Guillot)
7 Atoned (Pletcher)
4 St. Joe (Darren Miller)
8 Red Sandy (Lukas)
6 Felon (M. Maker)

Analysis: Its 9 weeks back to 2/17. All of these horses average breezing/racing less than once a week. Most of the have 7 or 8, but, it is interesting that the first three horses all had the most works.

In terms of total number of furlongs worked/raced since 2/17 in order of finish first to last went as follows: 44, 40, 46, 37,36,44, 35, 47,33, 47,36. Pretty even.

Days between the last breeze and the race:

7 days Behindatthebar (Pletcher)
6 Samba Rooster (Baffert)
5 Riley Tucker (Mott)
8 Racecar Rhapsody (McPeek)
8 Big Glenn (F. Brothers)
5 Tomcito (Dante Zanelli Jr.)
9 Salute The Sarge (E. Guillot)
7 Atoned (Pletcher)
16 St. Joe (Darren Miller)
8 Red Sandy (Lukas)
8 Felon (M. Maker)

Notice that no horse that worked more than 7 days out finished in the top 3.

My overall view of the Lexington. You'd think Pletcher would beat a bunch of soft trainers, he did. But, imagine had Samba Rooster trained by Baffert and leading all the way to get run down by a nice ride right at the wire, who Baffert trained with 4f breezes. What if B. Baffert had given Rooster 6f breezes instead. What if Rooster had breezed more than once since 3/30. The poor horse did that on one breeze in 20 days.

Training:
Just dry enough to attempt it after two weather days off. Frustrating night. I'm going to leave it that I got a lot more exercise than the horses. Nob did get back up the 3 year old. Tack work has restarted.

Books

Txs to Kaunard and KH for recent comments. KH informs that Bill O'Gorman's book now is available on line. For those training horses this is big news! O'Gorman's book, the only recent book written by a trainer, cost $75.00 which in my view might be the best $75 anybody training horses can spend. It's now free at billogorman.com, and serves as additional evidence of O'Gorman's motivation to write a book sharing knowledge from generations of horse people to include some of the most amazing two year olds ever.

It's only a small coincidence, imo, that O'Gorman trained similarly to T.J. Smith in Australia, Preston Burch and the old timers. It's all in the book including how O'Gorman works through the bucked shins of youngsters that he admittedly pressed for financial reasons. This is big news! Now free, on line!

There are several good books written about trainers and their training:

Ross Staaden's Winning Trainers--T.J. Smith and Wayne Lukas
Training Thoroughbred Horses -- Preston Burch
Jay Hoveday on Whittingham
Dirt Road To The Derby on Baffert
Guess I'm Lucky--Woody Stephens
Nafzger's book on Unbridled











Training:
Thurs and Fri: 4/17, 4/18: off due to weather. total mess here in KC but hopefully we can restart today.

Preston Burch And The Derby

Maybe a welcome lull at the moment. Most of the pre-Derby excitement has passed, and all that remains is the crucial three weeks of Derby prep before the actual race.

As a trainer I like to identify what happens (or fails to happen) that produces the win on Derby day. I found it extremely interesting that Steve Haskin in one of his pieces yesterday in a bit of veiled criticism at the softer trainers and their connections, complained about babying horses to the Derby just to get them there and how this process physically weakens those babied contenders. In this vein consider Pletcher's Saturday comments of "minimal training" with the sole aim of producing a horse still in one piece, and then getting "lucky" on race day. That's the mindset.

This happens in all sports. Pajama party preseason NFL practices, coddling to veterans, practicing by playing instead of conditioning etc. Whether horse racing, the NBA, NFL or whatever sport, those of us that follow things closely understand that "babying", soft training or coaching rarely works. Yes, in Pletcher's terms once in a blue moon the soft trainer will get "lucky", for whatever reason. But, most generally what you'll see as the game/contest on the athletic field progresses is that the conditioned athletes, those best prepared physically for the event, will gradually take control.

And so, what might the gentleman pictured, Preston Burch, think about today's Derby training. If you're unfamiliar, Burch would be breezing his horses every three days from now to the Derby generally 6f to a mile, alternating fast and slow times at those distances.

But, zero Preston Burch horses in this Derby, and so we'll see the usual, 20 going around there all of them unprepared for the distance and rigor of the event. They'll all make it around, hopefully, and we're very likely with these talent horses to see an exciting race. Yet, you are unable to help but wonder what if? What if War Pass were trained by Preston Burch?

The three weeks to the Derby allow me to go right on with the subject--spacing of breezes and races. With the ever evolving Derby coverage, our racing reporters increasing their sophistication (see Haskin) maybe we can paste it all together. My best guess of the moment--on Derby Day we will witness group of about 5 well trained horses competing against another 15 whose trainers think they can just show up and compete. Presumably the winner will come from the 5. We'll see!

Training:
Wed 4/16: Riderless for both horses medium-medium fast for 10 min with Art carrying the 35 lbs. Astride.
Thurs 4/17: Off during the storms. Another deluge. We'll commence tack work tonight.

Who'll Win The Derby?

Recapture The Glory above in his first Churchill gallop for 2 miles. Interesting because of the distance, weight on top(Roussell's assistant trainer), and because the horse looks to be more flying than galloping in the photo. Do we hold it against RTG because the track for the Illinois Derby favored inside speed where hilariously the order of finish came in precisely in order of distance from the rail? If you believe your eyes this is looking like a very good and well trained colt.

What a nice You Tube video of Colonel John breezing this morning. And, Prado will ride Adriano instead of Monba. Do you pick up by watching that last race at Turfway that Adriano is a really good horse?

Can we pick a Derby winner? We have these days almost too much information, if that's possible, though I'd like to know each and every move these colts make to the Derby. We can pick the contenders now, but, you separate them by what they do in the next three weeks?

Steve Haskin has his usual well written series in the Blood Horse with less swiss cheese analysis than in days of old. Haskin seems more prescient these days. And, give him credit. He pulled Barbaro out of the hat at the last minute, and believe he chose Street Sense a year ago.
Here are Haskin's latest top 5:
1. Monba
2. Big Brown
3. Colonel John
4. Smooth Air
5. Visionaire

Whoops! Did I write "give Haskin's credit"? How did he pick Monba of all horses, and Smooth Air and Visionaire? With Haskin I'd say pedigree, trainer, sales price, good karma, blind luck, all in combo with an occasional look at training. Training apparently is what put Smooth Air on Haskin's list since Bennie Stutts after 60+ years I'm supposing has finally learned how to train.

For myself, the question would be do we pick a horse of Todd Pletcher ilk that will get "minimal training" up to the Derby (last post), or do we look at Colonel John and Eion Harty who says that horse will continue to breeze every 6 days? I've said it before on the blog, and here it is again--the harder trainers will out, and the horses you'll see in the stretch on May 3 will be those with a consistent and appropriate series of works from now to Derby day.

For the present three colts seem to exceed the rest in talent: Big Brown, Colonel John, and War Pass if he's healthy (big if). Below that group we have a bunch of really good colts hard to separate and some outstanding training jobs apparently in progress with Smooth Air, Bob Black Jack, Gayego, Colonel John, and I'd expect Adriano and Recapture the Glory. Yet, what are the odds that Big Brown's the next great horse.? Will be interesting how Dutrow trains to the Derby.

Training: Hard to get a break from the weather as last night we transitioned to 30 mph wind gusts and a lost front shoe on Art. Tacked the shoe back on and did riderless play work in the paddock for 10 min. with Art carrying the 40 lbs Astride Saddle. In the wind my rider refused to get up. Lol.

Monba Training

Monba(above) is a beaut. Equal measures of proportion and strength that'll thicken as he grows; just the sort of horse you might want for the Derby.

Monba, though, has a problem: He's trained by Todd Pletcher. Read on.

First, Monba's pre-Blue Grass work tab:

2/24 FOY went 6f in about 1:13 then faded out of sight to end of race.
3/16 :50.a
3/24 :49
3/30 :51
4/6 :47.1
4/12 Blue Grass: For Monba about a 1:38 mile and 1 1/8 in 1:49.71 Final furlong: in about :12.

Anybody believe the Blue Grass performance was got on this shallow prep? Do you really believe a horse runs 1 1/8 mile quick with this as the only background?

Zito does similar 4f breezes, more questionably spaced, of course, but similar. And, those on Zito's diet, C.P. West, Cool Coal Man, any of Zito's, go 5 or 6f before the inevitable fade, whereas Pletcher's frequently will keep going and be the strongest running horses in the race.

Where is the explanation?

Possibly, we finally get some insight into Pletcher training by Pletcher's Saturday post race comments:
"...I normally don't work horses 1/2 miles consecutively like I have with them leading up to a 1 1/8 mile race(he normally does 5fs in 1:01). But, they put so much into their training I had 'em fit already. They were sort of methodically coming along so were not trying to get 'em any fitter than they were--we're just trying to keep them at a peak level...So both would need a minimal amount of training between now and Derby Day."

Note the highlighted phrase: "I had e'm fit already". Huh? Interpret--before the last two Blue Grass pre-race breezes (done consecutively), Pletcher had fit horses--and let's note that the word "fit" coming from the mouth of the high IQ Pletcher has different meaning than if uttered, say, by a Texas quarter horse trainer.

What caused this "fitness" that Pletcher has volunteered to us. The only other thing that shows are the 4f breezes 3/16 and 3/24. State categorically that this is insufficient to produce a "fit" animal. In short, Pletcher's comments lead me to believe that indeed Pletcher does something under the radar to produce his performances that he declines for public broadcast. In the above comments we get a pretty good idea that indeed something is going on besides the clocked work tabs.

Assuming I'm correct, what Pletcher's doing in addition to the breeze work, one may only speculate. My own best guess is the "fitness" Pletcher refers to most likely was achieved by a series of 2 minute lick works with the horses coming home in :12s. Combine that sort of thing with the listed 4f works in company, then you turn the Blue Grass performance from something completely inexplicable based on what shows, to a logical performance where the soft-conventional style trainer Pletcher easily out performs his immediate training peers.

Where does Monba fit into the Derby picture with his trainer declaring: "So both would need a minimal amount of training between now and Derby day." Visualize Preston Burch rolling in his grave, or, where he alive and had a horse in the race, giggling with delight.

Training:
Sun 4/13: 10 min. riderless paddock play + Art was chased full speed for about 3f.
Mon: 4/14: both horses limited to ground work with Astride saddle carrying 50 lbs as precursor to putting the heavy Nob back on tonight. Art's front left pastern wound covers a wide area, but, I think it's just skin. No lameness. Even after his hard chase after 2 week layoff Sunday, he was full of energy and galloping around the lunge line carrying the 50 lbs last nigh all on his own. I'd planned only a walk. Good sign!

Pletcher Training Dissected

Mystery man Todd Pletcher at left. Mystery since I've tried to figure out how Pletcher trains, both to analyze the races and see if we might learn something. Pletcher's post race comments after the Blue Grass Saturday add a few more pieces to the puzzle.

What confounds me on a continuous basis about Pletcher is how his horses will run away with some races so impressively you'd have to think there was something that was going on in the training other than what shows. Scat Daddy's Florida Derby from a year ago was such a race, but you could go on and on with examples--Lawyer Ron and the track record in the Whitney, then Rags to Riches at Belmont. Everytime Pletcher sends one out I'm anticipating the horse running strong gate to wire. But, then they fail such as the 5 in last year's Derby. So, what's going on with Pletcher training?

Before Saturday I'd decided (and previously posted) what we know about Pletcher training. It's somewhat in the Lukas mold with variations. The slow galloping occurs on most days at about 1.5 miles. Breezes are generally 1:01 for 5f spaced 7 days apart. Races spaced 2 months apart. Last pre-race breeze about 6 days out. And post race, you see about 3 weeks without breezes and then a sequence of 3 of those 5f breezes pre-race. Every horse seems to train in similar fashion.

This sort of training fails to explain those strong gate to wire performances we see from time to time with Pletcher runners where the Pletcher horse runs strongly and the rest of the field motors along like stuck pigs. Stated simply, a series of 3 tepid 5f breezes spaced 7 days apart with a few 1.5 mile slow gallops will by exercise physiology fail to get what we're seeing on these occasions. And so, trusting my eyes, I've surmised, something else additionally is going on in Pletcher training unknown and hidden from us bottom feeders that might really like T. Pletcher to inform us how he plans to win the Derby. Interestingly, the post race comments Saturday at last provide some insight and add a few more pieces to the Pletcher training puzzle.

What Pletcher said with RR hanging onto every word, and some conclusions, next post.

Training:
Sun: 4/13 we recommence training after some weather related layoff in raw but warming weather. First day back from Art's chest injury and he suffers a pastern injury as the youngster again finds himself on the front end of a hell bent chase from our older stallion Groovin' Wind, who had jumped the fence where he was confined. Think it's just a serious scrape, I'll see tonight. They previously, before the chase, done 10 min. of riderless paddock play in the mud puddles.

Blue Grass Post Mortem

Pletcher at work. More tongue hanging out stuff to irritate me. Would a real trainer send his horse to the track with it's tongue flapping?

Ok. Pletcher finishes 1-2 in the Blue Grass following my post that Big Truck and Pyro would leave the field. After these latter two, shall we say, finished up the track, some RR rehabilitation is in order.

I've looked at the boiling crow, but left it in the pot. You read it here after all, 4/10/08: "Monba: This talented colt is going to get beat by Pletcher's soft training. A shame. Though I'd be other than shocked if Monba runs away with the race. Happens in Pletcher's barn and I've yet to figure it."

I'll post on Pletcher training and how this win was got tomorrow, but first, based on training, how could this result have occurred? Or, should we consider training at all in trying to handicap races?

I'd like to go a few days pre-race when we started reading that this or that horse already had enough earnings to get in the Derby. The implication started to develop that Asmussen and others merely wanted to get to the Derby instead of win the Blue Grass.

Personally I'm unable to imagine a trainer being that stupid. Does "declining to compete" in a $750,000 race mean that they've complete contempt for their peers believing they can baby a horse into a Derby win. Or, perhaps the competitive aspect of the TC trail has degraded to the point where the dynamics of training youngsters at the upper level involves manipulation of value of the horse instead of competitive horse racing?

Unknown what the thinking is, but, the performances of Pyro and Big Truck yesterday indicated that the reporters may have been on to something, and I had noticed this in the pre-race B. Tagg interview were Tagg was moaning about the 7 week gap for BT to the Derby, that he wanted a race, but was fretting over the 3 weeks (only) to the Derby.

If you watch the race, Pyro's jock quite obviously makes zero effort to get his horse into a competitive position vis a vis the field, and gives couple of perfunctory whip taps in the stretch that would qualify as just enough effort to prevent a steward's inquiry. I am about 90% certain that Pyro's jock was under instructions to avoid a hard run.

Big Truck does make a bit of a run into the final turn, and his performance is more in doubt. Is this another B. Tagg Elysium Fields result, or was BT's jock also under instructions to go easy? My take on BT's inexplicable performance: the horse was hurt or the jock was instructed to go easy.

And so, that Pletcher beat the rest of the soft trainers in the field besides Asmussen and Tagg hardly surprises. I noticed the Monba possibility after seeing the video of Monba breezing last week at Keenland. It showed a beautifully conformed KY Derby type horse that was sitting on a big race.

Nevertheless I'm unwilling to eat the crow where more than likely the trainers of my picks refused to compete. But, we also have the interesting and continuing question, how's Pletcher do it. A little more speculation on this, and the Arkansas Derby, next post.

Training: Winter has returned this week to KC. Declined to train yesterday in miserable and wet conditions.

More Toyota Bluegrass

Is this one priceless? This post will be muted as this morning I've received some family news that is anything other than good. But, I'm very glad La Penta is so into his ownership. Where else besides horse racing can comparative little guys own professional sports franchises? And, I'd say La Penta has held up pretty well over a week where he got 1.5 hours of sleep.

Wishing La Penta well differs markedly from the substantive part of my reaction to La Pent's confidence where I'm more into the "when will they ever learn" mode.

A little more training stuff for this field, and then I'll exit for the day. My last post you would have noted the gap (gulf) that separates Big Truck and Pyro from the rest of the field, and that Cool Coal Man sits at the bottom of the field in terms of works that show, never mind that Zito of late has been professing coming down the lane "one more time" before the race.

I noted last breeze that on closer exam of the works you'll also see the difference between the harder and softer trainers in the way they handle everything else about their horses. Note:

Which horses breezed the ideal 4-5 days out from the race:

Last Breeze How Many Days Out:

4 Big Truck
5 Pyro, Medjool, Stone Bird
6 Monba, Kentucky Bear, Cowboy Cal, Stevil
7 Visionaire and Miner's Claim
21 Halo Najib

Yes, for Halo Najib 21 days since any clocked works. What are they thinking? Somebody please tell me.

Another training measurement: How many furlongs for the year have these horses breezed? Again you'll see a definite bell curve placement below between the soft non-trainers and the harder trainers:

Furlongs Breeze/Raced in 2008:
76 Pyro
72 Stone Bird--DW Lukas has been working the heck out of this horse lately. Will it make
a difference?
71 Big Truck
65 Medjool
64 Kentuky Bear
58 Visionaire
58 Halo Najib--but this includes 4 races which might be a factor.
57 Stevil
54 Cool Coal Man
53 Monba--great horse, very questionable prep, it seems.
52 Miner's Claim
49 Cowboy Cal

What sticks out with this field: the separation in terms of volume of speed training between Big Truck and Pyro, and the rest, and just quite a bit sharper handling for Truck and Pyro(based on what shows in the Form). There are some talented horses here and there's a lot more to handicapping a race than the training, but, it will be interesting to see whether, as I'd think, that Big Truck and Pyro will leave this group. Which of these two will win? I weigh Big Truck's greater natural talent (Pyro seems other than a great specimen) with Tagg's proclivity for errors, but, I'm thinking the horse will overcome his trainers little foibles, and so for now predict Big Truck in the Blue Grass with the crow broiling in the pot should he be needed post race.

Training: Under water 4/10, we'll recommence tonight.

Toyota Blue Grass Stakes

Yes, it is the "Toyota" Blue Grass Stakes with the 2009 Camry Hybrid at left. Toyota, Japs, horse racing has a good ring.

On a sluggish busy day I'll limit myself to going through the training mechanics of this weekend's TC race, again in terms of the training and spacing of works/races investigating whether we may pick the competitive horses strictly on works.

Begin by acknowledging both that only part of the training for each horse is considered as we know only a part, and that I'll avoid taking a closer look in that I've avoided more than glancing at breeze times and distances.

Primarily I looked at:
1. Number of works/races for the year.
2. Number of works/races since 2/23/08--roughly the last 45 days pre-race.

What does this get us? It tells us which horses have the better preps long term and might be strong enough to carry speed, and tells us which have the most intensive recent preps and thus might be most dangerous in terms of immediate readiness to race.

So, break it down in the following e.g.:

11(total number of breeze/races for the year)-5(total number of breeze/races last 45 approx. days).

Here's the field ranked by what I perceive the best overall training job using only these variables: best on top, worst on bottom:

Pyro 14-7 big surprise, eh? Asmussen's recent success? His training sits at the top of this field.

Big Truck 13-6 ditto Barclay Tagg

You'll see hereafter the training is varying versions of "conventional".

Stonebird 12-6 Good grief~as Wayne ("we don't work horses") Lukas works his horse once a week since 3/1. Catch up perhaps for the uneven training before that? What's gotten into D.W. suddenly?

Visionaire 11-5 At last we see how Matz probably trained Barbaro under the radar. Once a week breezes since 3/1. Barbaro did work, quite obviously from his performance, though nothing from Fairhill ever showed.

Stevil 11-6 another attempted catch up job by Zito. Who knows? Injury, other factors?

Monba 11-5 This talented colt is going to get beat by Pletcher's soft training. A shame. Though I'd be other than shocked if Monba runs away with the race. Happens in Pletcher's barn and I've yet to figure it.

Kentucky Bear 11-4 Can Reade Baker train? A rhetorical question.

Next, horses with shallow training:

Medjool 10-5 David Hoffman. Let's see? 10 work/races in 3.33 months, that's one every 13 days.

Miner's Claim 10-4 Mark Casse

Halo Najib 10-4 Romans.

last but not least:

Cool Coal Man 10-3

There's more to racing than workouts, and this is a talented field. Additionally, differences amoung these trainers seems subtle instead of large. Were we to look at other factors--distance of breezing, speed, spacing we'd identify more characterstics of the good compared to questionable training.

I'll look at this more closely tomorrow, but, so far--on the above training stats, could we expect Big Truck and Pyro to run away from this field?

Training:
Wed. 4/9: just dry enough to get a nice riderless work with Rod in the mud. He tried hard and got very tired, unlike the older horse he was running with. Ways to go for fitness, obviously. Art is off with his chest.

Heat In The Cannon Bones

Let's say the horse has just completed 6f in 1:12 carrying our pinhead in blue jeans and cowboy boot, cell phone clipped on belt, can of chewing tobacco in pocket, 9 lbs exercise saddle + misc. equipment comes to about 140 lbs in all on the morning track that carries more concussion that the fluffed up surface of the afternoons.

Our athlete stands at left post workout with the foreleg photo showing the primary area of our concern. I will be using the palms of my hands to feel for heat up and down these legs to both gage the amount of heat that is present, and for any unusual heat in a particular area. I'd much prefer, whatever the quantity and quality of the heat I'm feeling, that it be evenly distributed, for in this instance I'm likely at this point mostly feeling exercise heat produced systemically by the workout.

This horse, if he's mine, after a brief cool down period, goes directly to the ice tub, ice to above the knees, for 20 minutes precisely, and then another foreleg check for heat to see what remains after the 20 minute icing. I'll do another foreleg check in about an hour and then at 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours post workout.

What I expect to find in these checks varies with the fitness of the horse. Let's assume that we've previously brought the horse gradually and reasonably to the point that we can perform 6f in 1:12 safely and without any undo concern. Our foreleg checks thus (hopefully) merely monitor bone remodeling as for purposes here we'll assume this horse survived the workout without injury. What may we expect to find in terms of even cannon bone heat distribution in the 12/24/36/48 hour foreleg checks?

The answer will depend on the degree of bone fitness of this racehorse. Here is roughly my experiences with horses from the time of their first on-track 6f in 1:12 breeze on through racing:

1st breeze--there will be significant cannon bone heat remaining at 12 hours, less at 24, very mild heat at 36 and completely gone in 48 hours. Again, this is for an animal that we have brought to this point logically without skipping steps.

2nd breeze--significant heat at 12 hrs. but hopefully of slightly lesser intensity than after the first breeze. We should be able to feel a subtle difference. At 24 hours will still feel some heat but a significant drop. Very very mild heat at 36 and cold in 48.

In terms of cannon bone heat, these two breezes were the nail biters. Our horse survived because 1. with each check we feel reduction in heat, and 2. in 48 hours we have cold legs.

3rd breeze--at 12 hours we have only mild heat. This is the break through indicating that the horse is probably ready to race in terms of bone development. By the next morning, 24 hours, we feel almost cold legs.

An over abundance of caution might call for another 6f breeze, but probably we can safely race this horse with the caveat that we run an easy race.

1st race: The race is far more strenuous than the breezes and we'll get significant heat at 12 hrs, BUT if our horse is bone fit we'll feel very little heat at 24 hours and cold legs at 36.

It will take to the 3rd race (assuming logical breezing in the interim) before we get cold legs 24 hours post race.

The reason for the above exercise is to illustrate what I believe happens in terms of bone remodeling as we progress through the program. The colder the legs and the sooner post exercise, the farther we're along.

Training:
Tues. 4/8: 1/2 inch of rain. Took a second day off with Rod. I'm comfortable with that at Rod's stage of immaturity. He'll be 2 next month. Art yet to be ready with his chest.

Breezing Frequency: Methodology

And so, the hated Kansas Jayhawks are the NCAA basketball champs as RR endures all these celebrants. We take our border rivalries seriously in these parts.

Plus I now have to get down to the nitty gritty of how often we need to breeze this racing prospect to get fracture resistance while I'm still enduring the image of Jayhawk shots swishing through the net right at the last second.

Without getting (yet) into the question of how often we want to breeze the horse to get a good performance, the question for the moment is how often need we breeze the horse to obtain fracture resistance, and the sub-question there as to how we can even tell where the horse is at any point in time in terms of bone remodeling.

I'm supposing there are ways to scientifically monitor bone development. X-rays, Thermography, bone scans, etc. But, for most of us on most days we use the simple "hand" test which involves placing the palm of the hand on the knees, cannons and on down to "feel" the heat that generates there post exercise. The more heat or course the more that is happening on the cellular level.

Trainers monitor canon bone heat for each work and as they go. There are two types of heat and you have to distinguish. These large animals generate a lot of heat in their fast works. A racing horse will be hot to the touch in its musculature immediately post race, and a lot of this heat emanates into the legs. The trainer thus needs to distinguish exercise heat from bone remodeling or injury heat.

My own method: exercise heat generally will have dissipated a hour post exercise, and I begin serious "hand" monitoring of the leg bones at that point. I feel for temperature in terms of degrees, but also intensity, area covered, and type. I've learned there's a subtle difference between heat caused by normal remodeling and heat caused by any injury e.g. bucked shin healing itself. The length of time heat exists in the cannons post exercise, e.g. 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours and on will tell the trainer both whether the work produced any sort of injury and the stage this horse is in in terms of bone remodeling. Quite obviously, the less heat which stays for the least time will indicate the greatest advances in the bone remodeling process. An extremely bone fit horse by my experience will have only negligible cannon bone heat (other than exercise heat) post race and this mild heat will completely dissipate in 12 hours.

Thus, heat production and heat dissipation post exercise at present is our primary indication of the bone remodeling process, and thus the manner and method we use to make the judgment as to how quickly the horse should work next. I'll expand on this next post.

Training:
Mon. 4/7: Rod's normal day off. Art still off with his chest.

Injury And Work Frequency

So, to achieve sufficient fracture resistance for racing, how often need our horse experience fast works? As posted previously most conventional trainers breeze/race their horses with sufficient speed and distance for appropriate bone remodelling for the particular workout. The question now becomes how often are these necessary, and by what methods can we obtain an answer.

In terms of methodology, may we begin with some assumptions. The unraced horse will have an insufficiently developed skeleton to stand up to racing The bony leg structures all the way through the stifle and shoulder will need to undergo a remodeling to a certain point for completely safe running. Thus, we'd like to locate the appropriate point of remodeling. I can even imagine the trainer taking his unraced but hopefully ready trainee to the diagnostic center to measure appropriate development of those cannons, sesamoids and carpals. Does the horse have sufficient bone development to race? "Yes sir, he passed...go on and get your gate card."

And so, in terms of bone development we have "getting there", but then since bone resorbs back to the untrained state without continued work, we also have "maintenance" after racing commences. So, next posts, how often does the horse need to work to get there, and then to maintain what has been achieved.

Training:
Sun. 4/6: Rod has his third day of riderless work after 3 day layoff last week. This time relatively fast in the soft grass of the Astride paddock. There were several spurts sufficient for the fast twitch muscle work I looked for. Thereafter we put 40 lbs astride on the horse and he was ground driven with lunge lines. Art was off with renewed chest swelling.

Handicapping the TC

The human at left is handicapper Doug Arnold, and I just finished reading his "picks" for the weekend on his NTRA blog. Missed 'em all, leaving us the perennial question, how can these experts be so wrong? Jeff Siegel and Lafite Pincay Jr. picked the up the track El Gato Malo, most of them chose War Pass and Dennis of Cork. None, to my knowledge, even considered Recapture the Glory.

We look back, of course, and project the past to the future frequently ignorning what's currently happening right before our eyes. And, even though I may think expert handicappers immune to such illusions, how can I fault them since I've done much the same too many times to count.

The central problem for the handicappers and sports prognosticators in general is that they ignore training, dismiss what's happening with each horse in their shedrow, and generally project instead based on statistics and past performances. Had they only read the blog, lol. One more time, so all understand, soft trainers such as Craig Dollase, Nick Zito, and Bill Mott are unable to compete against the current crop of harder trainers in the mode of Asmussen, Carl Nafzger and of late, Barclay Tagg and the upcoming Mr. Harty. You might throw Dutrow in there, though I'm still evaluating that one.

We can leave it to the law courts and the preachers to instruct us on the morals of the some of these sorts. I'm supposing that a crook can train a horse, provided they know what they're doing. Whereas it's highly arguable that the current versions of Zito, Mott, and Dollase have a clue.

Sure, anybody can take a talented animal such as War Pass, send 'em around and you'll see a breathtaking performance. But, do you start to feel sorry for the horse as he rounds the 4f pole at the head of the final turn understanding that in his entire life he's never been worked beyond that distance? (Slight exaggeration. WP shows 2 works--1 this year-- at 5f, rest at 4f.)

I've laid some of this out so far in the blog. You may look at the posts of ___ and ___and see that both Colonel John and Tale of Ekati show the most, the best, and best timed and conceived workouts prior to these races. In Illinois, most of those horses were trained similarly, but, to the Doug Arnolds, how can you overlook a Cherokee Run colt out of a Dehere mare with the nice works shown running his second of the year, and though he last breezed nine days out, is there any doubt Roussel, unlike Zito, gave RTG appropriate non-work training up the race. The evidence of the latter was in the run where Roussel's colt, unlike the ridiculously trained War Pass, was strong to the wire.

But, we're glad for the Doug Arnolds, and we appreciate that the Zitos are viewed Hall of Famers. Keeps the sport interesting for us little people!

Training:
Nicer 10 min riderless romp for Art and Rod. Little Rod, unlike his sour attitude (for his training) of earlier in the week, after the little rest is showing no pain. Trotting tackwork with Art, and belly with Rod. Nob the rider says that Art was limping a bit from his chest wound under tack, and sure enough this morning the swelling had blown up again. Though I'll have to give it more time, I'm glad for the two days gallop time so we avoid losing too much in the layoff.