Benchmarks

Kentucky steals a good one in Dr. Bryce Peckam, our Kansas Racing Commission State Vet who was, unfortunately, available.

And an event of significance on the RR ranch as our Art shows some cannon bone heat post riderless speed work last night--see below what he did--post work--riderless no less-- cannon bone heat in an actual living horse to provide us a nice example for our concerns.

I checked Art's cannon about 4 hours post breeze. Both front cannons were ice cold except a 6 inch area below the left front knee showing mild radiating type heat. I forgot to check this morning, but presume this heat will be gone by tonight. Our concern level rises when we get "radiating" heat compared to the milder non-radiating type..

This shows us first hand that this cannon as it goes through it's paces is other than inert. Something is happening even if exactly what is unknown. And thus, the reasons for our concern.

So, what do we do? How soon can Art go again and avoid creating some sort of bone disaster? How can we answer the question?

I've already posted some old time training for Max Hirsch and Preston Burch. Hirsch's horse made it through the year, Burch's failed. Burch also lays out similar schedules in his book (as for his Preakness Winner Bold) for the two year old stakes winners Greek Ship and More Sun. Both those horses made it through a two year old season on every three days works generally slower and shorter than what Bold did at age three. Significantly Burch nowhere in the book is bragging what those horses did as three year olds, and so I'm thinking possibly their careers were curtailed, though for reasons specifically unknown.

Then there are the stars of my last post, Curlin, Big Brown and Colonel John who join Street Sense and Hard Spun from a year ago who are major horses, whose training schedules are generally known, and who all made it through the year all the way into the Breeders Cup, and Curlin did it twice. Nice work by those trainers who trained/babied those horses. But, before I unload on those fellows, let us observe that the works of these modern horses provide a BENCHMARK for us if only for the reasons that they did survive the year, even while they raced only 17 times between them in 2008.

If we then contrast the training of Asmussen et. al. with Burch, Fitzsimmons, Jones, and Hirsch of old what will we find?

The goal will be to decide, in minimum terms, how often we need to breeze/race for fracture resistance. Take note that each of these modern trainers for the specific horses listed breezes once week OR LESS, which provides noteworthy contrast to the likes of Zito, Baffert, Lukas and a bevy of highly touted NY trainers that year after year crash everything they touch. Continue next post.

Training:
Mon. 9/29: Art 1.25 miles with 1 mile of gallop. Rod: 1 mile trot.
Tues. 9/30: Art--1.6 miles with 1 mile gallop, some surging. Rod: 1 mile trot + 5 min riderless speed work.
Wed. 10/1: Rod is off. It is decided to do riderless speed work with Art as in our transition to slow galloping tack work we are afraid of losing our speed. Thus, pass on tack work race prep tonight in favor of riderless work in our now hard dry paddock track. Art does 4 x 2f at 85-90%. We avoid driving him faster because:
1. State of training. Art has greatly reduced speed work training in this last month of transitioning to full tack work.
2. track is very hard which compounds #1 in an injury sense.
3. We're in the middle of shoeing--new shoes on back, old on front, and so uneven stride.
Give these, the horse as expected looked pretty bad. He ran hard though, and so I was concerned about cannon injury even before I felt the heat.
Our 13 year old ran with Art in that horse's 4th straight night of riderless speed work. He looked after these 4 straight works, very strong and fast.