On To Plecher

Man... I hate to read stuff such as Haskin's article on Wanderin Boy. I have a low enough opinion of Zito as it is, and then they throw Arthur Hancock in the mix. But, I'll leave the problems of racing to others. I'd prefer to just go straight ahead with injury prevention. And so for this blog, Todd Pletcher training is up.

What Pletcher does in terms of frequency of breezing/racing is fairly clear. Through a couple of Derbies and BCs where I've watched Pletcher horses, they get 5f breezes at 1-1:02 spaced 7 days apart with the last breeze 7 days pre-race, and post race the horse gets a 2-3 week respite from recorded fast work the exact length of the off period depending on where the next targeted race comes up. Plecher seems very consistent with this.

There are a couple of patterns here in terms of the average time of Plecher's horses between breeze/race:

1. The 7 weeks between races: This involves 5 breeze/race and the average is one every 9.8 days. I might add that this is the sort of thing that did in Momba and Cowboy Cal (for a while.)
2. The 4 weeks from the commencement of the first breeze to the race, as follows:

B x x x x x x B x x x x x x B x x x x x x R x x x x x x

For this period the Plecher horse averages, obviously, a breeze/race every 7 days. I'm taking a wild guess that Plecher's consistency which includes the 4 week pattern of every 7 days achieves greater bone remodelling than O'Neil's inconsistency. I just disbelieve that, like O'Neill, you can do three or four weeks of once every 7 days then do a 4-6 weeks of a breeze/race every 14 days. I think Plecher's consistency is superior in terms of injury prevention, but, what do Plecher's stats show?

I looked at Plecher's 3 and up horses that raced on 8/1. Plecher's work tab is unavailable except for the period from 11/23 to 11/30.

Ruff N Ready: Raced 7 times. Last raced 8/3.
Calzone: Raced 7 times. Last raced 8/1.
Daguerrotype: Raced 5 times. Last raced 10/7.
English Willow: Raced 3 times. Last raced 10/15
Magnificent Melody: Raced 6 times. Last raced 8/1
Jessie's Justice: Raced 5 times. Last raced 8/27.
Brushed With Gold: Raced 5 times. Last raced 11/5.
Fujita: Raced 8 times. Last raced 11/16.
Lucky Money: Raced 3 tunes. Last raced 10/23.
Cliffy's Future: raced 5 times. Last raced 11/1/08.
Royal Card: Raced 3 times. Last raced 8/2.
Sumptious: Raced 6 times. Last raced 8/2.
Hall of Famer: Raced 7 times. Last raced 10/24.
Red Giant: Raced 2 times. Last raced 9/27.
Distorted Reality: Raced 7 times. Last raced 10/29.
Live Life Outloud: Raced 2 times. Last raced 8/21.
Atoned: Raced 8 times. Last raced 10/24.
Perfect Forest: Raced 3 times. Last raced 8/3.
Jamaludin: Raced 7 times. Last raced 8/30.

9 out of 20 make it 3 months. None of these horses show up on the Plecher work tab from 11/23 to 11/30.

Couple of weeks ago I took another Plecher sample but have forgotten the time period when they all raced. I'll avoid typing up the stats, but here are the horses:

Perfect Forest
Sage Chappell
Loh Collado
Tribolet
Rap Tale
Smokin Stephanie
Restrain
Triple E
Southern Terminus
Texas Wild Catter
Gold Coast Cat
Ready's Echo
Kromium Cop

Of the above there were for the year 64 races or 5 races per horse, but only 1 of 13 appears to be still going at the moment. None of these show upon the 11/23-11/30 work tab.

This is all the time I plan to spend with Plecher while noting that Plecher horses get in more races on average per year than O'Neill's. I'd guess Plecher's are averaging about 6 races/year to O'Neill's 5. With Plecher the absence of a work tab make it difficult to come up with exact stats. I'd think that Plecher's spacing is superior to O'Neill's but that his injury results probably will equal the 50% every 3 months of O'Neill. Plecher's stats would further support the conclusion that spacing breezes more than 7 days apart is insufficient for injury prevention. Can we find a trainer that averages breeze/race every 7 days?

Training:
11/29 Sat. With weather coming in and after tough Friday training the horses were off.
11/30 Sun. morning: 36 hours after the last fast workout, we're at it again as we've had 1/2 inch precip overnight and the ground is in process of freezing. I want to get to 'em while the ground is still soft. The pasture is covered with snow. Less than predicted, but we pass on tack work in favor of riderless fast work over a mud slick paddock. Both horses are driven as fast as they can go 2 x 1 mile with 5 min. rest between. The speed probably is :15s max, but through the mud they had to huff and puff, and this was the nice conditioning workout we needed with cold coming in. I was very happy with it even though we lost yet another day of galloping. I was fretting over failing to work the horses hard enough. Today qualified as a tough workout for them, and they charged through it all the way.

Doug O'Neill Conclusions

Spend A Buck watchers have had a long wait to Einstein as a stallion to carry on Spend A Buck and Buckpasser. Sometimes it takes a while. Meanwhile, performing about as expected, Zito without steroids.

Zito and O'Neill train similarly--breezing every 8-10 days, galloping every other day, though Zito has been known to gallop daily. Heirs of Lukas, probably, while lacking Lukas's intelligence and attention to detail. Lukas had a feel for athletics that you'll have a tough time finding on O'Neill's website, if you have this understanding. Similarly, I'd invite anyone to take a walk through Zito's barn (as I did in 1998), and try to find any evidence the guy focuses on conditioning or training athletes.

We might say simply that the breeze/race every 8-10 days thing fails to work in terms of injury prevention. That would be one finding of our inquiry. Horses that work this infrequently get hurt to the tune of 50% every three months.

However, before concluding this hypothesis as scientific fact it is necessary to take a look at the usual list of exculpations of my O'Neill interview. Even though I took all of the three 20 horse O'Neill samples as actuallyracing horses in prime race season (as opposed to breaking or preparing), some of the O'Neill excuses listed in the interview are nevertheless valid, and we'd have to say that an unknown part of the 50% injury rate is attributable to other factors besides the training.

This point is clarified if we consider exactly what percentage might be injured every three months in perfect training conditions. If our training program meticulously takes note of everything we know about equine exercise physiology, what might we expect every three months in terms of injury?

We're without any samples of this, even in my own barn as I'm still flailing around. So we guess again, taking into account inherent fragility in our trainees. On this the blog has metaphored before: walking on egg shells, egg membranes...horse puts on that smuggness causing extraordinary workout just before the inevitable injury. Keeping them healthy, whatever we do, is very very tough.

But, we make a guess at a percentage figure, and, let's presume like O'Neill that we're training 300 horses this year, I'd think regardless of care about 25% of them will receive some injury every three months.

This puts O'Neill's, and by extrapolation Zito, and all those that wait 8-10 days between works, in a different light with their 50% injury rate, i.e. they injure only 25% more than ideal training. Given the difficulties of ideal training as pointed out in the O'Neill interview, things in O'Neill's and (close pin over nose) Zito's barn look a bit less nefarious.

But, I'll avoid belaboring this at this point as we're talking about injury prevention instead of performance. Let us conclude for the moment that waiting 8 days to breeze a horse is too long in terms of injury prevention. Many do better (I think), but, we'll have to take a look in the coming posts.

Training:
Thurs. 11/27: After yesterday's riderless speedwork: Art gallops 1.7 miles. Rod: trot-gallops 1.7 miles, probably half of it gallop. Rod does much better with his tack work today.
Fri. 11/28: With bad weather blowing in we want to do 1.7 miles of tack followed by riderless short full speed bursts. The best laid plans go awry when the horses with the 13 yr. old as ringleader commence a 10 minute run as we try to get them in the paddock, much of it fairly fast. Basically, there went the tack work. With the weather--3 days of rain predicted--I'm determined to do the speed work. We never do get the 13 yr. old in the paddock, which proves a mistake, as the two youngsters simply refuse to run fast without him. They are more into playing and pimping each other than running. Here's how it goes: I'd decided by this time on a riderless mile work as fast as I could make them go. I was myself having to sprint the diagonals of the paddock to keep 'em into it and 4f into it I realized I'd never make it to 8f, and so, stop to rest and complete recover. At this time the trainer himself needs to be in better condition. Decided to revert to short spurts, and we probably did something like 3 x3f thereafter. Both horses looked like pigs doing this work, completely contradicting my last post we I'd noted what great shape they were in. We really needed the 13 yr. old in there to lead the way. Thereafter Art escaped the farm and chased mares at the neighbors for 1/2 hour before we were able to coral him. Art had plenty of energy at the neighbor's. It's that time of year. The 13 yr. old was worked in the dark for 3 miles in hopes he'd quit chasing Art over the fence. After today I questioned myself: am I training them hard enough?

Training and Plans

For grins I just looked back a year ago on 11/26. Art had just grown into his size. Rod was the new yearling. We'd finished a nice November and I was hopeful, according to my posts. Little did I know. Thereafter through December my posts show graduated disillusionment through terrible December weather that never let up from the day after Thanksgiving onward. It got even worse in the succeeding months. At one point I believe we had about 120 straight days of deep mud in the paddock, and this was followed by all time rainfall records for 2008 for the KCMO area.

Going into Thanksgiving this year, my mental state is as a year ago. I'm hopeful. We have definite plans. Despite 6 of the last 12 weeks being under water, if I ever get my camera back you should see quite a difference in the horses from a year ago. They're athletes now, tough, and we've done as much as we can through all the water. Art could be raced within 45 days with Rod following shortly.

What we've planned, knocking on wood on this, is to be at Eureka Downs by 12/16, and racing 4f at Will Rogers Downs in Tulsa on 2/10/09. Lot's will go into that. I'll be posting. And it's all weather dependent. We can train through a little bad, but, to get to the track we have to be able to gallop. I'm hoping for us that December 07 will fail to repeat. Bring on the cold, but keep it dry!

Training: Glad we took the day off yesterday. Results in a monster (in view of were we are) workout for today, meaning we got a whole lot done:
Tues: 11/25: Off
Wed. 11/26: Art: gallops most of 1 1/4 mile including almost dumping Nob when about 7 deer suddenly appeared right by the track and took off parallel to the horse. First speed work under tack for Art, lol. Rod's tack work has regressed. Relearning. Unlike the other day instead of being all over the place he was pretty steady, but, according to Nob a little short of being trustworthy. This horse is difficult under tack because he's a sky watcher. Rod trot-galloped 1 1/4 miles. Both horses after a warm up then did a riderless mile at about 90% speed, probably :13.5s to :14s. Nice hard work after Monday's short speed work.

The Doug O'Neill Interview

The Doug O'Neill Interview, or, more accurately the interview as it might go if we actually talked to the trainer.

RR: Doug, RR, KCMO.

DO: Howdy!

RR: Just fine. What happened to Doggie Bear 11/16?

DO: Doggie who?

RR: Ha, ha ha, ... ha ha ha...Doggie Bear, finished 8th at Hollywood 11/16?

DO: We had high hopes.

RR: As did I. Doggie showed a decent pre-race tab.

DO: The chart comment was "no speed".

RR: Morning glory?.

DO: Headed for Pleasanton.

RR: The best to Doggie.

DO: In behalf of Doggie, thanks very much. You're calling and you want us to train a horse?

RR: Ummm......

DO: We've cut our day rate...

RR: I'm calling about your nice website.

DO: Ohhhh. Did you notice our win% is up to 14.4%.

RR: Yes, you should be very proud of that, and...

DO: And did you see Azul Leon Sunday close on those pigs?

RR: Yavol. Derby horse for sure. But...

DO: I've had a hundred calls wanting me to train since that race. I thought this might be one.

RR: Well...actually DO this call is about your 50% every three month injury rate.

DO: RR you must be from the FBI.

RR. Ha, ha, ha...seriously DO, what's up with the 50% injuries.

DO: Deceptive stat. Guarantee we never injure anything close to that.

RR: Explain please.

DO: Number 1 remember we take all stock that they want us to train. Nobody gets turned away.

RR: You're saying that some of your trainees have pre-existing conditions.

DO: A lot of them do. We'll get a two year old from the farm and we're nursing it already, and then the owner wants to race in two months. You can train, but you know the percentages on that kind?

RR: Indeed.

DO: Plus we try to keep our owners happy. Within our parameters if the owner insists we'll keep on with an injury we think we can deal with even if we advise the owner the horse needs a rest. Than, bammm, because the fellow demands we keep running, it's all over. And, we test a lot of horses for owners. Train 'em, enter 'em to see if they'll hold up. We control some of what goes on, but ultimately within certain constraints a lot of this is the owner's call.

RR: Hmmm....this might also explain why Bill O'Gorman's website shows that he only gets about 2/3 to the races?
http://www.racinghorsesbook.com/does_it_work.htm

DO: Yup. But there's more.

RR: All ears, DO.

DO: This year we've had trouble adjusting to the astro turf. Our soft tissue injuries are way up. We're playing around with trying to figure what to do.

RR: Sounds very reasonable. And no 'roids.

DO: They took our steroids and Sarah Palin got beat. Damm!

DO: + there's the rider problem. You'd never believe it.

RR: I might.

DO: Honestly, we'd like to do a lot more training, but finding somebody in the morning to get on 110 horses, well, you can imagine. Half of them get here at 8:30 am and you just hope that one or two of them is sober when you throw 'em up. We might schedule 20 to work and be lucky if we get 7 or 8 done.

RR: So, you're blaming part of your injury rate on your rider problem.

DO: Definitely. And then there's money.

RR: What do you mean by that.

DO: We have to pay these riders but we can't get half these owners to pay their bills. A lot of time we have zero cash in the kitty to pay.

RR: So, again you're blaming the owners.

DO: No, not all. And then there's the vets. Jeez. Avoid getting me started on that one.

RR: DO, think I'm getting the picture. Anything else.

DO: One more thing that's really important.

RR: Shoot.

DO: Remember that we take horses out of training to rest, recuperate and heal minor injuries. We're very careful with that, and this affects the percentages. And, there's non-performance retirements and plain retirements.

RR: DO I'm impressed. Thanks for the interview.

DO. Nothing of it. If you have a horse you want trained, let us know.

RR: Definitely. DO. Txs very much.

Training:
Tues. 11/25 The planned work was scotched for non-horse reasons. But they worked fast yesterday, so we're ok. Off.

Azul Leon

Azul Leon at left in July 08 and sire LionHeart (below) out of a (KY Derby favorite) Cure The Blues Mare. Owned by Joseph Lacombe. Trained by Doug O'Neill.

Why would you breed(or breed to sell) to the ordinary looking Lion Heart and his $20,000 stud fee? Well, there's some Storm Cat in there somewhere, and in this case you get a decently conformed Cure the Blues type horse that just yesterday almost caught a bunch of 6f sprinters stretching out 7f. And, BTW nice story with Jack o'Lantern and that 66 year old trainer, even though it's probably predictibable that we've seen the last of that horse.

As to Azul, can we see the nice performance of 11/23/08 coming from the training, as follows:
8/31 :48.8
9/14 :49.9
9/21 :1:02.6
9/28 1 1/16th race
10/18: :1:14.4
10/25 1 1/16 race
11/9: 48.6

Well....

would be the answer. Though Azul looked decent in the stretch there you'd have to guess, based on training (and what Azul does on slow days is unknown though it's thought he would gallop every other day an unremarkable 1.5 miles), that this horse is on the bare edge in terms of actual conditioning. 7 works in 2.5 months is 11 days between works. Why? And, looks like about 1 work between races spaced 30 days apart. They decided on a 6f breeze 7 days out from the Breeder's Cup. For the Preview there's a 4f breeze 14 days out. Smacks of inconsistency to me, but, what do I know? Guess you could argue that since Azul finished 8th in BC and 2nd yesterday that he thrives on little work(???).

Will Azul fall victim to the O'Neill 50% every 3 months injury rate? I think they're playing Russian Roulette with the horse, but, we'll see. Test of our common sense possibly coming with Azul.

Training: Wow. What a mental effort to train two horses Moving stuff. Heavy lifting.
Tack work again was done through the pheasants and deer bounding all over the place. The two year old propped once. Is Nob getting pea hearted in his old age, or does being careful through all this make sense? I'd expect when we lengthen the tack work this week the horses will adjust.
Art: 1 mile trot-gallop.
Rod: 1 mile mostly trot. Horse acted as if he'd never been out there.
Both horses than did our nicest riderless sprint work to date. It was planned as 4 x 1f, but but the time you get them into it and out of it they've done 3f and so it was more like 4x 3f though only the middle furlong was all out. The two year old flashing some Johnny Eves type talent. He looks like Johnny, which called my attention to the race. He's got a long way to go, but it's nice to see that major league rear end chugging around there.

Sunday

RR still dragging. Now with a case of flu. But our bottom feeder hearts get a boost as we watch several stakes over the weekend where the ridiculously expensive are just unable to catch the cheap stud fees running at the front. One of the better weekends for that. There's still room to maneuver before the money gets smart.

I especially enjoyed wins by Jack O' Lantern and Johnny Eves. What a race and horse in the case of Johnny, a gelding--why?--, and out of Skimming that stands for $7500.00.

Jack O'Lantern was purchased for $10,500.00 out of the same sale as my Rolling Rodney. I got outbid, undoubtedly, since I had but $9,000.00. And, as icing on the cake, Wishful Tom Cat takes the Discovery. He's out of Tactical Cat standing somewhere in Edmond Oklahoma for a price to be announced, lol.

Azul Leon trained by Doug O'Neill looked very decent. I plan to take a closer look when I get time.

For the person asking about riderless training--the paddock I generally use--though I do have the 2f that Bill mentioned, is 1f around with very short straightaways. I also use the Astride weighted saddle before tack work begins, but only in the bigger paddock.

Training:
Sat: 11/22: Art gets the day off after yesterday's riderless mile at speed.
Rod is Ooops suddenly 16 hands. On the theory that growth spurts happen when they lay down a lot, it's dry suddenly sans flies, and my horses of late spend a good part of every morning in the prone position.

Riderless speed and tack for Rod called off. Due to the growth we settle for a riderless two miles with one 1f fast spurt.
Sun: 11/23: Rod is off due to his growing.
Art's 1 1/4 mile trot-gallop aborted at .8 mile when Nob reports, due to an open wound on his shin rubbing against the leathers he's unable to control the horse in the zoo out there--15 mph winds with deer, pheasant, ducks scurrying all over the place near dusk. Art does 1.5 mile riderless easy. Speed work tomorrow.

Artic Dome

Somewhere mentally I diverted off the subject of my blogging and keep procrastinating on getting back to the fascinating subject of Doug O'Neill. But, with the help of good buddy Garfield and a little high dose caffeine, hopefully things will be back in gear here by tomorrow.

Meanwhile we have been persevering through January like weather and considering forbodingly what January 20, 09 might look like. The new winter wardrobe arrived just in time from Roadrunner sports, and indeed the new light, close fitting runner's gear jacket http://www.roadrunnersports.com/rrs/products/ASW2027/Mens_ASICS_Ryker_Softshell_Outerwear_Jacket proved very warm tonight to the point the cold was unnoticeable.

Our horses are looking pretty good to us. Tough bunch being molded here, though I'm avoiding being carried away. Much faster and imo better horses are being bred these days then when I started, and anybody who thinks they've got a good horse needs to know that they better have a good horse if I'm looking at those racetrack videos correctly. Through horribly cold weather for November 21:

Training:
Tues: Art is given another night off with the bruise above his right rear coronet band. Rod does riderless 1/2 mile WU then 2 mile continuous in :17s-:15s. Then 1 mile walk-trot under tack.
Wed. Rod: 1 mile trot breaking out on his own into canter occasionally. Both horses were then given light riderless speed work, probably 4 x 1.5 in 12s-13s. Light work for both but with some speed.
Thurs. 11/22: in 35 degrees into a 20 mph North wind we take the night off after yesterday's speed work.
Fri. 11/21: Rod lost another shoe and so missed out on the riderless stuff: 1.5 miles trot and broke into canter here and there on his own. Nob keeps saying he really likes the feel of this horse under tack. Art: trotted .8 mile with a bit of gallop thrown in and then did riderless steady 1 1/8 mile in :13 and :14s after warm up.

No Fear

Back of Mike Smith's helmet (as seen in "On The Muscle") at left. I never knew old apparent roughneck fifty eight year old exercise rider Ignacio Ramirez at Golden Gate killed the other day when his horse flipped. As part of the brotherhood, when they go down it catches my attention. RIP. My two year old panicked just last night while I was on him. Lasted but a second, luckily, but I felt the electricity go through him. It's an extreme sport.

Working on a Doug O'Neill interview. Hypothical, of course. Hope to pull this off this week sometime. Meanwhile:

Training:
Fri. 11/14 off.
Sat. 11/15 Run 'em riderless in rain and deep mud. They're into it for about 10 min. quick.
Sun: 11/16 Riderless again. Still way too muddy for productive tack work. Another 10 min quick as they could go, off and on.
Mon. 11/17: Art gets injured jumping a fence. Minor but he's off tonight. Rod: Riderless 1/2 mile WU + 2 miles varying between :17s to :15s in the mud + 1 mile walk trot under tack.

More Nails

The inquiry is how many last 3 months and how many last through 2008. RR pre-conceived notions put to the test.


Doug O'Neill Horses:
next 12 horses that raced on 4/17/08

last raced - # of races for the year - finished

Tap It Light 6/1 six 1,1,2
Demon Inside 5/25 five, 2,3
Angus 9/1, eight, 2,2,3
Mr. Chairman still going, eight, 1,1,1,1,1,2,2,3
Souvenir Moment 4/17, one,
Themis Valentine 5/24, two, 2
Soul City Slew still going, seven, 1,2,3
Held Up 4/19, four, 2
Stormy Taters still going, nine, 1,1,1,2
Little Brenda 9/19, seven, 2,3
Shandron 5/10, two
Modification still going, 1,1,3,3,
Dumani's Gold 5/16, three, 2,3,

Summary: 13 horses for the year 2008 raced 71 times averaging 5.5 races per horse. Of the 13, as of today 3 are still racing or 23%. 5 of the 13 lasted to 7/17 which is 38%. With this group O'Neill managed more races per horse but has a greater than 50% injury rate over 3 months. None of the disappearing horses (by 7/17) has reappeared in the afternoon.

Next 12 O'Neill horses that raced 5/3/08, Derby Day (note-we omit any horse previously included)

Caspinao 5/3, 1 race, finished 3
Run Savio Run 5/22, 4,
Overt N Out still going, 7 races, 1-2
Sibuyan 5/8, 1 race
Dr. Skimming 8/11, 5 races, 1-2
Woodward Park 6/20, 3 races
Presidential Cause 9/5, 6 races, 2-3-3
Macdanio 5/9, 4 races, 2-2-3
Buzzin Mom 9/21, 9 races, 2-2-3
Wild Fleece still going, 6 races, 2-2-2-3
Grits 6/21, 4 races, 3
Harmony Creator still going, 9 races, 1-1-2-2-3

12 horses raced 59 times or 5 races per horse. 3 of the horses are still racing for 25%. On 8/3, three months after 5/3 six of the 12 were still racing or 50%.

Total Summary:
The one figure that has held up through every analysis is that Doug O'Neill injures 50% of his horses within 3 months of the initial date the horse was picked up by the analysis. This 50% figure has been right there with each of the 4 groups looked at. Here are the stats for all 4 groups:

First, how'd they do over 3 months in terms of survival. I have a larger sample here than over a whole year:
65 horses start and at the end of 3 months 32 are still going, which is 49%.

Second: how many lasted all of 2008?
37 horses looked at and 8 make it through the year: 21%

Pathetic as it looks? Should we evaluate relatively with the results of other trainers or religiously based on what we know "should" or "could" be done with different training?

Training:
Fri: 11/14 trainer implodes. A training day to forget. Off.

Ask Sam

Does O'Neill crash everything he trains or train successful athletes as Australian Marathoner Samantha (Sam) Hughes at right? Thought we'd Ask Sam. As it turns out, "Ask Sam" is (was) one of O'Neill's horses having for us some pertinent info.

Loosing half your horses over a 3 month period hardly seems a ringing endorsement of your training methods. But, that's exactly what happened to the Doug O'Neill horses that raced immediately after 8/1/08.

As the sample covers less than 10% of O'Neill's stable for 2008 the question arises whether taking horses racing on this one date would create a possibly aberrant result.

To answer this question I decided to take another albeit shorter look by extracting from the website a second sample of horses for the purpose of seeing how the fared in 2008.

I thought it would be interesting to take the O'Neill horses that were racing on 1/1/08 and thereafter and follow them through the year with the aim to see how many survived to be still racing. To put this into perspective, if O'Neill does indeed lose 50% of his horses every three months, do any of them survive for a whole year?

The glimpse of this follows. Please note that with this sample I declined to take a further look to see what O'Neill does as I've pretty well established that already. O'Neill breeze/races every 6-8 days (normally--Not with Mr. C you say, which is true, but Mr. C is an exception in this stable. Unknown why they choose to breeze that particular horse that sporadically.) and gives about 2 weeks off from fast work after races. His breeze spacing, times, distance tends to be spastic instead of consistent varying both from horse to horse and for the same horse.

So, unnecessary to look at works and get further evidence of what these horses do or did. We already know. Thus I took, as the sample, each horse that raced on 1/1/08 and 1/3/08 and looked only at race results. These are listed below.

Beside the name of the horse I have listed the last day the horse was raced, the number of races for the year and any first, second or third place finish. I have listed these horses in order from those that had the most 2008 races to the least. The aptly named "Ask Sam" you will see is at the bottom of the list. Ask Sam about these results. They are truly amazing.

Harlene raced 10 times with the last race being 11/9/08. Has a 1, a 2 and a 3rd place finish.
Still going, which, in view of what follows, says a lot for the horse.
Harmony Creator last raced 10/17 and has 9 races for the year.
Bazzom last raced 8/25, has 7 races with 1 win and 3 2nds. Pretty Good, comparitively speaking!
Macadamia last raced 5/9, has 4 races for the year and finished 2nd twice.
Stalemate last raced 2/29 and has 1 win in 3 races.
Moogie last raced 3/23 and raced twice.
Mahalo Lani last raced 3/31 and raced twice finishing 3rd.
Good Man Dan never made it past 1/3/08. 1 race finishing 4th.
Stella Mark, last raced 1/3, 1 race and finished 4th
ASK SAM our posterboy last raced on 1/1/08 and finished 6th.

Ask Sam what the heck happened here???

Let's summarize:
12 horses raced 40 times which is 3.33 races per horse.

But, only 3 horses had as many as 7 races and only 4 had as many as 4 races. 8 of the 12 had 2 races or less for the year.

This sample proves to be quite consistent with the prior sample in terms of racing results and how long the horses last. 4 months into racing for this group O'Neill had already lost half of them. On 11/13 it seems that only 2 out of 12 are still racing which is 17%, and per the prior sample most of them simply disappear to be never heard from again. I'd expect the same of the prior more recent sample but will revisit them in about 5 months.

Believe I'm finally ready to conclude on O'Neill. The post will be titled: Unable To Do This Kind Of Training (and survive).

Training: I've scheduled my training to what hopefully will be a start on 2/10/09 at Will Rogers Downs. We'll see how it goes. First Eureka trip scheduled for 12/16.
11/13: both horses do light tack work on water.
11/14: Most we could do with tack was what we did yesterday. With rain due Friday and Saturday (it started this evening), I wanted another conditioner, and so instead of tacking we ran the horses fast as they could go in mud riderless. Part of track after two days of drying was solid enough to get some spurts. Good but short w/o. Unknown how many shoes we lost.

Mr. Chairman

On October 5 Mr. Chairman(Unusual Heat--Corporate Report), a Doug O'Neil trainee won a $250,000 Cal Cup Classic at a mile and 1/8.

Mr. Chairman next raced November 13, today in a 1 1/6 mile optional claiming/allowance. How did Mr. Chairman race today? Does his work tab provide any clues? Take a look and then guess on how Mr. Chairman faired in today's race:

Oct. 5. Race 1 1/8 mile

Oct. 26: .48.6--notice the 21 days between fast works.

Nov. 2: .50 7 days later he does a powerdpuff 4f.

Nov. 13: Race. 11 days between powerpuff last work and the next race.

Based on the above did Mr. Chairman maintain his 10/5 condition and blow them away:

http://www.equibase.com/static/chart/pdf/HOL111308USA5.pdf

(the equibase page will eventually disappear. Mr. C finished 4th out 5.)

Great Hunter was scratched and our horse Rush with Thunder was also scratched, but O'Neill won a maiden race. What are they thinking regards Mr. C? Would be interesting to know.

O'Neill Stats Move The Inquiry Forward

What do O'Neill's stats tell us about frequency of breezing/racing and injury prevention? O'Neill is a major Southern California Trainer. He has won several Breeder's Cup races with the likes of Thor's Echo, Stevie Wonderboy and Maryfield. There's Lava Man, of course.
Just today O'Neill has Mr. Chairman, a recent big winner and Great Hunter as the top two horses in a Santa Anita Allowance. (We'll see how they fare!)

Moreover, O'Neill's work seems highly similar to the conventional style training that predominated in the 1990s through the early 2000s and still seems widely practiced by the likes of Mott, Mandella, Zito, etc. When we look at O'Neill training we're looking at a style of training that has been widely practiced. But, even in saying that, I think things are changing. These trainers are scrambling around trying to figure out how to be competitive with some of the new stuff coming down the pike. O'Neill e.g. quite obviously is other than competitive.

Let's take a look at some stats, and then I'll conclude as to what we know in terms of injury prevention from this type of training.

O'Neill's 2008 Record:
793 starts 110 wins 123 place 117 show
2008 win percentage: 14%
2008 win,place, show percentage: 44%
2008 national ranking in terms of number of wins: 29th just ahead of William I. Mott

Pretty good you're thinking. Here's Thor's Echo winning the 2006 B.C. Sprint.Yes, I'll take a 44% in the money percentage any day of the week/month/year/decade. Yet, let us recognize there's more to a racing stable than the racing stats. For O'Neill E.g. we have this NTRA headline dated 10/1/08:
"Thor's Echo Injured. Thor's Echo, the champion sprinter of 2006 will not start in this months BC sprint because of a splint bone injury, trainer Doug O'Neill said..."

a splint injury on a 5+ year old horse. What does that tell us about the training of that animal? For the uninformed, a splint on an older horse is likely to happen only with fairly gross negligence in handling. Could have been extreme bad luck also, but that it was negligence is quite consistent with what else you see in this training.

And, we do a little more snooping just to peg this barn:
89 of the top 100 2008 trainers have a better win/place/show % than Doug O'Neill, i.e. there are only 11 rated worse than O'Neill's 44%. The little red flags start to wave.

Contrary to the NTRA website which reports that O'Neill has 110 horses in training split up between Hollywood and Santa Anita, we know that 332 horses have passed through his barn this year. Noting this, the racing stats have an entirely different look.

332 O'Neill trainees have had 793 starts. 2.38 starts per horse. .331 wins per horse(yes, that's point 3) or roughly 1 in the money finish per horse, first, second, or third.

And so, looking at all the O'Neill horses instead of just the few they choose to race or that can actually race, the 44% in the money figure becomes almost meaningless. You may further dissect this by understanding that if you have 332 horses at your disposal from which you can pick and choose the easiest competition for your best going horses, 44% seems quite achievable.
Indeed, most of the major trainers that play the numbers game have these sorts of stats, and they really mean very little for any particular animal just starting out.

So, we have O'Neill training whittled down a bit. This is getting long and I'll continue tomorrow.

Training:
Wed. 11/12: 20 hours after 2 inches of rain the ground is, shall we say, damp. Rod lost both front shoes. We're missing those Australian nails they've quit importing. This night we do what we can: Rod walks 1/2 mile, and Art trot-walks a mile.

O'Neill Stat Compilation

Without perfect absolutely accurate info you can always argue conclusions. But note, looking at science studies on such sites as http://www.futurepundit.com/
they're always making assumptions to fill in the blanks of the various studies. Supposing and guessing seems necessary in science, and so it is here trying to decipher the work of Doug O'Neill based on incomplete info from his website. I've even inadvertently dropped a horse here and there and discovered a few errors, which are corrected by this post.

I started off with the relatively small sample size of 28 horses out of 332 that were racing 8/1/08?

The question is how many are still around?

How to answer? I'd like to know of those racing in prime racing season on 8/1, how many show works or races in the last 30 days. If we want to give more benefit of the doubt we could look at the last 40 days. I'll do both.

Surely any racing animal that shows nothing for the last 40 days has either been moved, sold or injured. I'm supposing at least 85% (see below) of those have been injured and many of those 85% will be back eventually. Also note we're talking polytrack training here which makes O'Neill's results even more a head scratcher.

Of the original horses these show nothing for the last 30 or days, see parentheses:
Coco M(34)
Swiss Current (40)
Good Shot Molly(40)
Presidential Cause(40)
Justice is Brief(40)
Invisible Edge (scratched from a recent race, otherwise nothing).
Royal Humor(40)
Raja Daja(40)
Magnific(40)
Princess Arjumand(40)
Chief Teddy Bear(40)
Sandita (40)
Roadside Rest(40)
Tismet(40)
Super Freakie(40)
Laddies Poker(30)
Mystical Plan(40--probably retired)

The following show a breeze/race in the last 30 days:
Socerers Spell (originally omitted from last post)
Rush with Thunder (ditto)
Doggie Bear
Lightening Diablo
Richer Gear
Azul Leon
Atticus Jack
A Lil Dumani
Mr. Chairman
If Not for You
Yankee Visionary

Summary:

Zero breeze/race last 40 days: 17
Zero breeze/race last 30 days: 16
Show breeze/race last 30 days: 11

Time since 8/1: 104 days
% still at it: 11/28 = 39%

Of the 17 horses that fail to show breeze/race in last 40 days, how many do we estimate were sold, retired, changed trainers or fail to show for other reasons then injury. The best info here is the unlikelihood that a racing horse would be removed in the prime racing time of August to October. There is thus probably a reason that all 17 are absent and this is injury. The severity of the injury, of course, is unknown.

A good guess would be that 85% of the 17 were removed due to injury. Thus the best guess as to those injured in the 3 months by Doug O'Neill training would be .85 x 17 = 14.45 divided by 28 = 52%. Maybe I'll revisit this in a few months to test the accuracy. Final conclusions, next post.

Training:
Mon. and Tues. 11/11 and 11/12: 48 hours of rain. We're under water again. Two days off.

The O'Neill 23 Since 10/22

In bad times a lot of stuff get's exposed. Money dries up and people get chewsey. It hardly helps to have gadflies poking around on your website.

And so, we get back to the Doug O'Neil trainees followed by this blog. There were 23 of them I believe, maybe 7-8% of the total stable for the year. A random sample of horses actually racing that I picked up off the website in the order they appeared as entered in a race from August 1 on. I excluded most of the two year olds and ignored unraced horses.

I last looked at the stats for these as of 10/22 here:

http://ratherrapid.blogspot.com/2008/10/more-doug-oneil-stats.html

As of 10/22 it looked as if 12 of 23 horses were still actively racing, i.e. more than half of those racing 8/1 had disappeared, i.e. in a period of 2.66 months O'Neil lost 1/2 of his racing animals.
Many reasons for this perhaps including injury, and certainly that a horse drops out for a time, even in prime racing season as this, may mean a minor injury instead of a career ender.

But, it is now 22 days (if you want to count entries to 11/13) after 10/22. Almost another full month has passed for us to look again at those 23 horses and see if any of them have reappeared in either works or races.

The short answer is that more have disappeared instead of reappeared.

The big success story is "A Lil Dumani", a hard knocker type who breezed 1:00.2 on 10/22 and 1:01.2 on 10/29 on 11/5 won a $39,000 allowance purse. You'll see below some frantic and sudden working of horses in tighter time patterns than before. Did they learn something since 8/1? Horse works consistently, wins. Hmmm....

The only other appearance of the 23 original 8/1 horses between 10/22 and 11/13 are:
11/3 Doggie Bear breezes 5f in 1.03.2
11/10 Doggie Bear goes 1:01.6
10/27 Doggie Bear goes 49.6
11/9 Lightening Diablo 49.4
11/9 Richer Gear goes.49
11/9 Azul Leon goes .48.6
11/1 Atticus Jack gets an unusual (for O'Neil) 46.4
10/29 A Lil Dumani shows a 5f in 101.2
10/26 Mr. Chairman, the most talented of my group of 23 goes 48.6
11/2 Mr. Chairman breezes 4f in .50
11/13 Mr. Chairman will race.
11/1 If Not For You goes 49.2
11/8 If Not for You goes 47.4
11/13 If Not For You will race
10/23 Socerers Spell raced


Summarize this( gruesome) exercise--of the 23 horses racing right after 8/1 only 9 had a breeze/race in the 22 days between 10/22 and 11/13 (might we have another worker or two the next two days?). For the 23 in this same 22 day period there were a total of 16 breeze/races. To magnify this a bit more, in a 3 week period the original 23 (were they still around) would have averaged about .75 of 1 work. "Mr. O'Neil, a rhetorical question. Are you still collecting training fees?" Unnecessary to answer. Just wondering.

Am I interpreting this right? The stats seem so godawful it's almost beyond belief. You can check it yourself right here:

http://www.dougoneillracing.com/trainers/oneill/index.cfm?enter=true

(I've mispelled his O'Neill's name omg.)

Tomorrow I'll summarize how many of the original 8/1 sample are still around on 11/13 and what this presumably indicates about this sort of training.

Training:
Mon. 11/10 Off
Tues. 11/11 Off. Reluctantly. Too wet to do anything productive. Puts our working fast instead of doing slow tack work on Sunday to good use.

O'Neill And The Breeder's Cup: How'd He Do?

The real Lava Man at left, instead of the impostor of the last post that was uncovered by the sharp eye of Winston. Txs. W. We can use the help!
And next, Doug O'Neil new trainee Square Eddie tailing Midshipman in the Breeder's Cup Juvenile. Hopefully O'Neil has had better days than October 24 -25, '08. O'Neil horses those two days finished: 10,11,9,2,9,6, 13,8,13, 11. Good grief!

This calls for a "Joke of The Day" segment straight off O'Neil's website:

"Why do mummies make excellent spies."
(They're good at keeping things under wraps.)

After completing and typing up an exhaustive analysis of training of the O'Neil BC horses, I lost to cyberspace two consecutive posts. With eyeballs glazing I'm refusing a third retype. Please accept this summary that from 9/15 to 10/25 O'Neil's BC horses by and large did 4-5 breeze/races averaging one breeze/race every 8 days generally, but close to the Cup the breezing was spaced 6-7 days apart. The BC works were more consistent than the works of O'Neil's horses generally, and, in fairness it's hard to see where O'Neil did much different in terms of breezes/races than this year's successful BC trainers. You could quibble here and there, particularly with slightly slower works (here and there). But, for the last 45 days pre-cup it's difficult to separate the O'Neil horses from the others in terms of breezing and races.

AND significantly, they all made it to the race. Equally of note is that nothing in O'Neil's training shows any attempt to improve a horse's performance pre-cup. I think, e.g. you can see some attempts at improvement or honing in Baffert's training pre-cup this year. O'Neil ratchets up somewhat but barely and probably primarily muddles along, mostly as usual.

To conclude, in terms of injury prevention I saw little in O'Neil's BC training which differs from his training generally except that 1. the works seem more consistent and deliberately planned in terms of timing. 2. You see quite a bit more logical thought in terms of distance and time of the works pre Cup than you do with O'Neil's horses generally.

Next post I'll look at what my 20 O'Neil horses have done since we last visted them on 10/22. How many are still working and racing, and then conclude on what we might possibly learn from this large stable.

Training:
Sun: 10/9: Best weather this day for galloping of the last 2 weeks. Beautiful sunny 45 degrees at RR ranch. Quandary: 1. we're looking at 48 hours of rain coming, and 2. 2 yr. old last two days for first time showing a bit of sourness and rebellion. The horse version of "oh, this again." Having just passed through rain and several days of light tack work it's time for some speed, which we decide to combine with some "play" to get the 2 year old back with the program.

Horses are put on the paddock track for fast riderless play type work--let 'em go and get a few fast spurts in and go right on with tack work on wet ground tomorrow. BUT, plans again go awry as both horses are really into running today. It all becomes 7 x 2f all out, which translates into about :13.5s on the still muddy ground followed by a straight mile of cool down slow gallop. They had to chug to get through the mud, and it's a nice work to restore the fast twitches.
Mon: 10/10: Rain arrives on schedule. Off.

Back To "Doug O'Neil Training"

Pictures worth a thousand words. Doug O'Neil and Lava Man and a waist line hanging over the belt. In judging trainers the blog relishes every tidbit of circumstantial evidence .

O'Neil got much ink in prior posts since he has a lot of info on his website that allows us in part to analyze his operation. I'd like to say it's a pretty sight, but since I'm avoiding editorial comment and simply laying it all out there, the reader may judge for themselves.

To review now that prior distractions of the BC and the US Election have passed, the blog was trying to figure how often we have to breeze/race for injury prevention having previously established that (on dirt tracks) we need to go 4f at 12.5/f to achieve race appropriate bone remodelling.

But, how often do we need to go? The blog has already looked closely at Mandella and Lukas, and now O'Neil. Based on a sizeable portion of the 300+ horse stable I concluded that O'Neil as an average breezez/races his horses about 3 times a month over time. Since O'Neil tends to give two weeks off from fast work after a race the "averages" of these works is other than once every ten days. Instead, O'Neil's horses seem to be all over the place in terms of works spacing with spacing patterns, when you discern a pattern, tending to range from 6 to 8 days between works.

The distance and speed O'Neil's horses travel in their breeze/races meets the blog's minimum standards for injury prevention--4f in at least :50 as a minimum. Hence we can isolate O'Neil's stable in terms of frequency and judge whether doing 3 breeze/races per month is sufficient. The evidence is quite overwhelming that it's otherwise, and I'll continue with this next post.

Training:
Thurs. 11/7: Rod: Off. Art 1 mile walk-trot on spongy grass.
Fri. 11/8: Rod: 1.5 mile trot--walk with a few strides of canter on still very wet ground.
Art: 1.25 miles trot with gallop where we could.
Sat. 11/8 The best laid plans again go awry one for the good, the other bad. Good for Art who takes off on his own in :17s with some spurts to :15s. The planned 2 miles is reduced to .8 + .8. Nob comes off smiling. Nice work we can build on. It's dusk when Rod the 2 yr. old goes out. First time in near dark for him, and he proves too green to handle things. Nob aborts after a near stumble and fall at the trot after 1/2 mile. We then attempt riderless work in the dark and that also goes all to heck when the older horse immediately loses a shoe and starts limping. Unable to locate the 2 year old in the dark to make him go. Abort that also and go again tonight.

Dust Settling...

"Thanne is it wisdom, as it thinketh me,
To maken vertu of necessitee." Chaucer from the Knight's Tale

Election distractions over and I'm pondering Joe Klein at the N.Y. Times and his new "cross racial synergy". I've been dropped suddenly onto another planet. My personal thoughts are to wish our new, reasonably intelligent, highly congenial pres the best as I wonder what this portends for we Caucasians over the long haul.

And, I have been interrupting my new Chaucer studies with horse training to be sure. Get through the tedious prologue and Chaucer has some pretty good stuff. An Artiste. I fear the blog will be sprinkled with Chaucer quotes for a while. Pertaining to horse racing, of course.

Meanwhile we're training in a refrigerator. Winter has blown in prematurely though it's just today that I'm appreciating we'll soon be in the freezer and the mere refrigerator will be looking pretty good around January 1. I watch Tiski, Russia for the weather, and another ominous winter building, I'm fearing.

The target date for our 3 year old is Will Rogers Downs, February 1. We're weather dependent on that one, but keeping fingers and toes crossed. Right now we're trying to solve transportation issues. Just as I think I've got the trailer floor on the 1975 Homemade reconstructed I notice there's 1.5 inches of air between the wood floor slats and the metal supports that I just spent $500 to reweld. Unbelievable. Do you have to do everything yourself these days?

Tomorrow I'll get back somewhat reluctantly to injury prevention. Watching the Breeder's Cup, it sunk in that on the artificial surfaces all the old analysis will be close to irrelevant with about 50% less concussion. Good and bad for small outfits. More decent horses will survive in the big outfits to face us in the starting stalls. With less threat of injury we may also see the biggies actually start training again, ye gads.

Training:
Thurs. 11/7: Rod: Off. Art 1 mile walk-trot on spongy grass.
Frid. 11/8: Rod: 1.5 mile trot--walk with a few strides of canter on still very wet ground.
Art: 1.25 miles trot with gallop where we could. Planned 2 miles aborted when Mr. Nob the rider suddenly develops a "stitch" in his kidney area. Age/cold weather combo I'm supposing. Nob is walking around bent. We'll have to throw him back up there tonight.

Training

Thurs. 11/7: Rod: Rest. Art: starts his next cycle with 1 mile walk-trot-gallop up and down our 1.5f hill in miserable conditions. Winter with 1.5 inches rain blowing in. Dealing with issues this week. Back to D. O'Neil soon.

Training

Mon. 11/3: The normal off day after yesterday's riderless speed work, but, we go on with tack work. Both trot-walk 2 miles with occasional burst of canter.
Tues. 11/4: Election day get's me late to the farm, and Nob declines an at dusk gallop on Art after the near collision with a deer herd yesterday.
Rod: 2 miles mostly slow gallop under tack. Have to trot to change leads.
Art: Riderless speed work: 8f with the middle 6f at about 95% speed. Nice work.
Wed. 11/5: Dripping rain as I arrive, and again Nob declines tack work with the all over the place 2 yr. old on wet grass.
Art: Off
Rod: Riderless speed work: 9f as fast as conditions allowed. About 90% speed. Nice work also.

The Election

I'm voting for McCain and the pit bull in lipstick. Holding my nose
in process. Even George Will (conservative columnist) seems to share my disgust. I'd hope to avoid offending anyone, but, if I wanted to live in an African country with black leaders I'd move to Nairobi. To me the question of which racial group leads the country and composes the country has nothing to do with racism. Unfortunately, with minorities out breeding whites 2-1 while they compose 35% of the population, we're on the cusp of racial politics. This election is about racial control, and everything out of Obama's mouth indicates that. The blacks have figured this out. The whites soon will.

Training:
Thurs. 10/30 Off
Fri. 10/31 1.6 miles slow under tack for each.
Sat. 11/1 1.6 miles slow under tack for each + Rod does 1.5 miles riderless slow.
Sun: My dilemma over whether to breeze riderless or continue the tack work is solved when I misjudge the time change. To dark to ride, and so we opt for fast work. Both horses with appropriate warm ups and warm downs: 4 x 2.5 +4f at 95% speed. The rough still drying ground prevents going all out. Horses look good. The recently matured two year old flashing talent.

Training

Make your Sunday! Take a listen.
v
We try to instill talent in our horses. Could Satchmo tell us what to do and how we get there?

Training:
Thurs. 10/30 Off
Fri: 10/31 Art: gallops 1.6 miles under tack. first sustained gallop in about 3 weeks. a little weak.
Rod: 1.6 miles trot-gallop. Horse was galloped about 200 yards at a time. Rod then did 1.5 miles riderless work--.5 miles trot then 1 mile slow gallop.
Sat. 11/1 Phew. November is here!
Art: 1.6 miles gallop interrupted by lead change failures, but, much stronger then yesterday.
Rod: 1.6 miles planned to be mostly gallop but suddenly a visit by a flock of wild turkeys out for a stroll. Rod spots Turkey #1 while being saddled which he mistakes for a small lion. Then #2, #3 and so on, must have been 20 in all, running right across his site path. When Nob got him out in the field birds were all over, scurrying and darting and beating their wings. I'm unsure who was more worried about whom horse/birds or birds/horse. All the bird action eliminated some of the planned gallop though the two year old pretty much kept his cool. Nevertheless Rod did get his first sustained faster gallop in. He's figured it out. Nob came back complaining. Tired of dodging critters every night, and we need to start earlier. Oh well! Hopefully the weather will hold. I'