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.