Georgie Boy And Spacing Works

Watching the Derby training always provides enjoyment and maybe we can learn something from these top trainers, eh?

It is always interesting to me to look back after spectacular performances to see what may have produced them. An example would be Lawyer Ron last year in the Woodward. How to explain this one time aberration of a race were the horse ran away from the field in track record time, and then, same trainer/same horse, lays such a big egg in the Breeder's Cup. How and why's it happen?

In this year's Derby field we have some interesting training going on. The lightly raced and seemingly immensely talented Dennis of Cork heads into the Illinois Derby off of what appears to be a well planned, logical series of works in the conventional training sense that ought to produce a decent performance. The Pletcher trained Atoned, on the other hand, enters the Derby much as Georgie Boy in his recent 6f breeze, without any works that show since his race at Tampa Bay on 3/15. For Atoned that will make 21 days without any fast works, and I'll let the reader guess that we might expect from Atoned a very flat performance with (in my view) a 50-50 possibility that effort will injure the horse.

To comment on the Derby training I'll have to state my conclusions on spacing of works before the actual analysis. And so, my own humble opinion: can horses get away with the sort of training where they're off from breezing for two to three weeks and then survive the race, never mind the performance? In the negative, most likely. What are the percentages against the horse when we see the type of "work" spacing that we see here with Atoned and Georgie boy. I'd say with each breeze or race spaced in this manner at least 50-50 that there'll be some sort of serious injury.

Georgie Boy raced 3/15 and then two weeks later did a breeze in 1:12 and change. Unknown what else GB did between the race and the breeze, but, we might guess. I'd suspect Kathy Walsh would have been as concerned about the failure to change leads in the San Felipe as anyone and that she'd give the horse at least 5 days of doing very little just to heal any minor injury that occurred. After the five days I'd guess Kathy Walsh being (in all likelihood) a conventional trainer probably galloped the horse two or three times in the next week before the breeze making the typical observation off those gallops that the horse looks really good. Then she sent him on the 6f and he supposedly injured his back, if that's believeable. (My guess rather would be a hind end problem somewhere, stifle, hock, developing fracture somewhere still unhealed due to the extended left lead work in the San Felipe--with all due regard to Steve Haskin's opinion ferreting out a few great horses over the years that failed to change leads, my observation is that 8 times out of ten when they fail lead changes in a big effort in the stretch you never hear from them again.)

Sending that horse 6f in :12s after a week of doing little and 2 or three gallops probably had a 90% chance of causing an injury. With all due regard to K. Walsh, you simply are unable in most instances to get by with this sort of training. What was called for was a short very slow breeze followed by a longer faster one. A smart and careful trainer would have given the horse more time to his next race given the failure to change leads in the San Felipe. That's the RR opinion.

Similar deal with Atoned. We'll see how that works out this weekend.

Training:
Tues. 4/1:
Rod: riderless on a raw day went 4 x 3f medium gallop. The youngster was disliking running yesterday. Suspect the hard surface stinging his feet. Off today to recover mentally. We want him to enjoy the training.
Art: was hoping to get back with it, but the chest wound needs a bit more time. Off.