Conclusions: How Soon Can The Horse Work Again?

Pictured, 1950 Derby winner Middle Ground by Bold Venture and trained by Max Hirsch.

Assault and Max Hirsch pose in the Derby photo as if it were just another day at the office. Indeed I'm supposing it was for Assault whose :12.6 Derby fractions were near identical to much of his training. And there's Hirsch with that gaunt, glazed look and appropriate thinness that comes with training too many horses. See a fat trainer, best to pull your horse.

After much ado in the prior posts think I'm ready to answer the question best it can answered: how soon post race can we safely breeze again?

There are many factors to consider some of which carry over from work to work and others that I call floating variables that will come back to bite you if ignored. Let's take a look.

1. We assume 1% bone cell damage per breeze with 30 days needed to repair, and take into account cumulative effect breeze to breeze.
2. We consider the state of training and our belief as to the thickness, density and strength of the the bone. Stronger bone can safely carry more damage.
3. We consider the speed and intensity of the work, any unusual strain such as lead change failures or stumbles.
4. We consider the post work state of being of the bone by our injury checks, heat, how quickly heat dissipates. Obviously a fresh horse post race will have put in less effort proportionately than a tired one.
5. Track surface--how hard was it on race day. We might give greater allowance to a soft track.
6. Rider weight, rider skill. Skilled riders will be easier on your horse--they stay over center of gravity and go with the horse's motion instead of against it.
7. Probably 10 more I'm failing to think of at the moment.

The key to the above is the 1% bone cell damage. After considering the other factors we decide whether we might have more or less than 1% damage, and, of course we decide whether the damage is diffuse or concentrated in an area. Concentration would cause us greater concern.

Hypothetically, let's assume for our work 1% damage. If so, we know from Preston Burch and Max Hirsch that we can go again in three days--don't have to, but "can". If we decide to breeze again 3rd day post race and every three days thereafter per Burch training, I'd think we definitely need to calculate what our damage is going to be long term. The question, and let's call this the ESSENTIAL QUESTION, is how to space breezes safely long term, and please note that for performance we'll want to breeze as much as possible. Continue next post.

Training:
Fri: 9/19: Last part of Sept. and txs. to weather we're nowhere again. Art's heel bulb laceration looks like a two day deal, so we took Friday off. Start again tonight. On a brighter note I've figured out how to make a living traveling with the horses. That's big, and will cover it at some point.