Barcola

Reddam owned, Hennig trained Barcola above in the Stephen Foster at Churchill. How to judge trainers? Little stuff. Note the bridle set up on the horse with the strap that will be flapping near the nostril.

Hope you had a nice Xmas. Here its right back to trainer number crunching with the current subject, former Lukas Assistant Mark Hennig. As an aside, yes, we do take note of another Reddam trainer, Doug O'Neill and the current self described "hot streak" where win percentages have gone from 14% when the blog noted O'Neill to 15.7% presently. Maybe worth a revisit to see what's going on. And congratulations to Stormy Jack, standing at Harris Farms, Inc. for $2,500.00 and the sire of Bob Black Jack.

Barcola(Old Trieste-King Mambo 26-7-3-2, $500,000 career earnings.) raced March through September 2008 steadily regressing and has been off the races since 9/27 but returned to breezing. Nice looking horse!

Last post I speculated that Hennig claimer trainee Make It Come True is handled by a barn foreman to explain some of the inconsistency. We'll presume stakes performer Barcola is handled directly by Hennig and thus a good indicator of his program. With Hennig, as with any former Lukas assistant, it's necessary to factor into the injury preventing equation likely high frequency off day galloping. I'd noted on the Blog that Lukas slow gallops 17-22 days a month. That's a lot of slow galloping comparatively and probably serves to provide some basic fitness as well as possibly creating the misperception in the trainer's mind that the horse is doing a lot of race appropriate injury prevention work. Looking at Hennig's website and the results, and putting it all together I'd doubt Hennig equates to the frequency of Lukas slow day galloping while believing that Hennig probably gallops his horses more frequently than average.

2/3 52.4
2/11 :50 8 days
2/17 1:03 6 days--same inconsistent spacing as with Make It Come True
2/25 1:00.6 8 days
3/3 :59.8 6 days
3/10 1:00.2 7 days
3/17 1:15.6 7 days decent regular work so far. what now?
3/29 RACE they wait 12 days. Sounds like a plan. Finishes 12th of 14 in the Godolphin Mile. Yes. Dubai. Winner: Diamond Stripes (Dutrow) in 1:37.
4/21: :47.6 4f in sub :12s after 23 days off from speed work.
4/30 1:00 9 days
5/10 10 days wins Brandywine Stakes at Delaware as heavy favorite for only win of 2008.
5/24 :48.6 14 days
5/31 1:02 7 days
6/14 RACE 3rd in Stephen Foster. 14 days breeze to race. Same thing they did in Dubai.
6/28 :48.8 14 days more.
7/7 :48.2 9 days
7/14 :50.8 7 days. should set him up nicely (sarcasm).
7/19 RACE 5 days. Did they figure out to avoid 12 days last breeze to race? 3rd in Stakes at Philadelphia.
8/2 :48 the usual 14 days post race.
8/10 :1:02 8 days
8/17 :49 7 days
8/24 RACE 7 days finishes 10th in stakes at Delmar. fails to respond to a restoration of a regular training schedule.
9/8 :47.8 15 days this time.
9/15 :49 7 days
9/22 :50.4 7 days
9/27 RACE 5 days. 6th in Stake at Hawthorne. The horse has been on a regular schedule, fails to respond and now gets a break.
11/18 :37
11/27 :51.2 9 days
12/3 :48.6 6 days
12/15 1.00.6 12 days.

Barcola has averaged for the year 3.25 breeze/race per month. Works a bit more than claimer Make It Come True. Possibly a strong slow day schedule makes up for some of the irrational stuff we see in the above schematic. Primarily we note that Barcola is still at it, and this provides a little more fodder yet for the idea that 3.25 breeze/race per month might be close to enough work to keep a horse going.

Training:
RR Xmas trip postponed due to weather.
12/24 Rod walks a 1/2 mile in the snow with Nob trying to find some pleasure in trail riding.
Art: Trots 1 mile.
12/25: Both horses trot a mile in the snow after a 6f pasture romp that went as fast as expected on bumpy, frozen ground, i.e. relatively slow but we were glad to see them running.
12/26 Training scotched by a late arriving (paying) client. Start again Sat. morning in deep mud.