Politics And Horses

"To this I hold with devout insistence,

wisdom's last verdict goes to say..."
-goethe

Voting for McCain? Think I'd prefer the booger pictured below. T.J. Smith won the Australian training title primarily at Randwick 33 years in a row, 1952 to 1985.

Winston posted the perplexing question of why the heck, if hard training is so great, do all these folks at the racetrack do anything but. Visualizing his question--Colonel John is doing 5f at 1:12 every six days. Big Brown is powderpuffing :13s, If you want to beat modern trainers, and per Preston Burch you breeze every three days in :12s from 6f to 8f, what's up with no one trying that???

Preface by noting that most of this blog to date has dealt with injury avoidance. I have yet to come to the question of:

PERFORMANCE

That's next here after finishing with injuries. I plan to take a look at T.J. Smith and his training as documented in Ross Staaden's book "Winning Trainers". Will take a look again at Sea Biscuit, Wittingham, Bobby Frankel, Dutrow, and, Preston Burch, and Ivers, of course.

The question will be how do we maximize performance, what training do we need for the fastest speed over distance? After this is discussed in detail, maybe there'll be a better answer here for Winston's question.

However, please note the place of "injury avoidance" in performance. I've had a theory almost since I started that the real key to winning races is to keep 'em running. If we then can figure out how to keep them out there, keep 'em racing race after race Sea Biscuit style, maybe then we can ALSO hone in our little $5000.00 claimer to run down Colonel John. Is this even possible? If so, watch your back, Eion Harty.

T.J. Smith holds the umbrella.
Training:
Tues. 9/2 was Off due to the (beginning of) the Gustav rains. It rained continuously, never stopped, from Tues. aft. to Thurs. Morning. It's been more than 24 hours now since the rain stopped and the parking lot downtown KC is still wet. One day here it was summer, next day fall. Low 60s and cloudy, farm is in a quagmire, track closed sign is up again. Wed and Thurs. were off. Tonight I'll trot 'em in the mud under tack, something--the mud-- I truly despise.