Hennig Concluded

Unfrozen in KC today and we're back to (considering) serious horse training. Yup, I'd agree, to that commenter last post that horses tend to run to their recent training, but as soon we say it, some nag yet to see the track in a month wins going away.

And, have to take note of the fellow at left with the red helmet since jocks going down gets my attention. Sam Thompson Jr. who had a horse fall on him at Los Alamitos on December 20th apparently was educated and smart. He also had verbalized immortal words every rider understands, that if they die on a horse they'll die happy. I feel sure Sam died happy.

This post concludes Hennig, and after New Years, brief looks at McGlaughlin, Reade Baker and Bruce Jackson, and thereafter some conclusions on what these website show about injury prevention.

I looked closely at several more Hennig horses. Here are their breeze/race/month averages for the entire year or to the point of injury:
Morning Gallop 2.52
Pay What you Owe 2.42
Sway 2.6
Drama Lady 3.2
Wesley 3.2
Shining Sea 2.9
Peach Flambe 2.95
Marquis Diamond 3
Better Again 2.75
Hepcat 2.9
Savor it 3.86
Atwell 3.4

All Hennig horses looked at average 2.98 breeze/race/month. Can we round it off to 3, and note that in any 30 day period therefore, we'd expect a Hennig horse to have one race and two breezes. They seem to want to give a 12-14 day break from speed work post race, and therafter commence a once a week (7 day) breezing schedule but they're highly inconsistent with spacing which can range anywhere from 5 days to 14 days. But note that the spacing never seems to exceed 14 days nor ever more frequently than 5. Also note we're declining at this point to look at breeze/race spacing in terms of performance since we're dealing with injury avoidance at the moment.

Hennig's breezing tends to be 4f in :12.25 with occasional 5f work and sometimes they go in :12s. 6f and 3f breezes are once in a blue moon. The most puzzling, irrational, inexplicable part of Hennig's work involves their "last breeze to race" frequency which ranges 5 days to 12 days but more frequently 9 to 12 days. To any exercise physiologist this long a gap is obviously stupid in terms of performance, and would tend to undermine the rest of Hennig's program. But, you say, perhaps Hennig sends them maybe coming home in :24s or :36s on slow day galloping during this gap, or as Bill the commenter noted last post there are "unrecorded" works or near works that frequently take place. Does Hennig do such quality slow day galloping?

I think not. As indicated by this photo showing Barcola in Dubai. Photos can lie but this seems other than a picture of a horse that does a lots of hard slow day galloping. The horse seems more fat and exceptionally unmuscled, ie. exactly as you'd expect a horse to look that gets but 3 speed works per month.
So, what do we conclude re Hennig: His training injures by our sample 57% of his horses per year, or turn it around and you have a 43% survival rate for the year. How many of the 57% that get hurt are career enders? Probably a significant percentage, but we'd be without any way of knowing unless we continue to follow the whole sample.

I will decline for the moment to put the 43% survival rate in perspective. Let's call it neither good nor bad for the moment, note that these horses did mostly get in a lot of races, and wait until I do a post comparing all these trainers looked at and their methods.

But, let's note one more thing about the sort of minimalist training that Hennig's website "seems" to indicate. I quibbled with Hennig's spacing and inexplicable gaps over the short run with several horses. However, looking at Hennig's horses you are particularly struck by the long run consistency of the whole program. Hennig's horses that run, run a lot, they run throughout the year, and they almost never vary their approach. It's cookie cutter, one size fits all training, and so you'd know exactly what you're getting and your odds with Hennig as your trainer.

Training:
12/29 Horses were walked under tack. Ground so wet we were unable to trot either in deep grass or on the wood chips--the horses with their hoofs sinking 2-3 inches refused--, which bespeaks how horrible ground conditions were over the weekend, when we had to pass on training.