More Hennig

Bob Black Jack at left showing attention to detail in his attire. Left click and see a neatly fitting, unobstructive bridle, perfectly measured bit, balanced jock, aero silks, and tied hair for wind resistance above the browband. Contrast this photo with the mess on the horse's head, last post.

One further aside before getting to Hennig. Too bad about Indyanne yesterday. To me, Albarado did what he had to with that lead change in the stretch even if he executed too sharply at speed. As lightly trained as these horses are, we know that few survive injury going a half mile on one lead. And so, it's good to see major jocks finally acknowledging the importance of the lead change even while the results here "seem" disastrous. Query though, watching the race on the backstretch and around the turn, knowing what's coming, does the horse show some body language that something is amiss??? And then thereafter--preceding the "bad step"-- she had refused the lead change.

But, back to Hennig, and unknown whether its my usual stewing over the weather but, I'm in a particularly foul mood looking this one over. Hennig is a major east coast trainer. His website shows 370 horses. He trains primarily on dirt. His operation possibly provides one more model of what accommodating and cow towing to these huge training operations is doing to the sport.

As my focus is injury prevention, and I'm avoiding editorial comment until the end, I will leave analysis of these large "numbers game" operations and what they do to others while noting that what I'm seeing is possibly highly unhealthy for the sport of horse racing. I've trumpted the "trainer problem" as one of our two or three biggest problems. Owners, if we are to have any, need some place to go. Doug O'Neill and Mark Hennig probably are nice guys. But, would you want them training your horse?

The importance of Hennig and his like cause me to take a particularly close look here, and so, to confirm what we saw with Make It Come True and Barcola, I've decided to look closely at one more Hennig horse. This time it is Datts Baby Salina, picked at random as the next of the group of survivors to pop up on my list.

DBS raced every month of the year through September. Without any racing gaps we assume this horse was injury free, and so a superb example of what the Hennig barn does in terms of breezing racing/frequency. Again, I believe Hennig probably does more frequent than average slow day galloping, though I doubt his slow day work is anything exceptional in terms of development or injury prevention. (I'll support this view, next post).

1:03 1/7
1:03.8 1/14 the seven day gap.
.50.8 1/21 why only 4f? 7 days again.
.50.4 1/28 7 days
RACE 2/7 They wait 10 days to race. Why 10? Seemingly questionable logic in the
handling? Again? Finishes 8th in a Msw.
What now?
:47.6 2/19 12 days later in sub :12s?
1:00.2 2/26 7 days later. They speeded up her work tabs.
.50.2 3/10 12 days now.
RACE 3/16 In 18 days before this race this horse has one slow 4f work. Can we possibly expect a performance? Hmmm.... Wins Msw.
:49 3/27 9 days.
:50 4/4 8 days.
RACE 4/11 7 days. They've done a decent job since last race. Result: 5th in turf allowance at Gulfstream
:50.4 4/22 11 days. This horse has less gaps Race to next breeze than the Barcola or Make It Come True.
:50 4/28 6 days now
RACE 5/10 12 days(??). Delaware Allowance. 3rd.
:47.6 5/23 13 days
1:01.8 5/30 7 days
RACE 6/6 7 days. While the spacing and planning seems much better with this horse than the last two, again, things fail to pay off. 6th in Monmouth allowance.
:50 6/18 12 days
1:02.6 6/26 8 days
1:02 7/11 15 days. Did the barn foreman forget about the horse again?
RACE 7/18 6th in Monmouth allowance.
:48.8 7/31 13 days
:52 8/8 8 days
:52 8/17 9 days
RACE 8/21 5 days. finishes 3rd in Monmouth allowance. Shorter spacing, better performance? Again, decent since last race?
:49.8 9/2 12 days
1:02 9/11 9 days
RACE 9/19 8 days 4th in Monmouth allowance.
The horse is having very little racing success. From here on to 12/17 they only breeze the horse. Sometimes in 7 day spacing, other times inexplicable 2-3 week gaps consisting primarily of 4f works in about 12.25/f.

DBS does 3.1 breeze/race/month. She to me shows a fairly conscientious training program. There's more consistency with DBS than with the prior two horses looked at though the inexplicable and unexplainable can be seen throughout the schematic. The horse survives the year on this program. Also noteworthy, with a horse struggling with its races this major trainer plods along with his program. I'm unable to see innovation to improving performance with DBS. A few guesses: I'd doubt Hennig supervises this questionably performing horse directly. However, DBS might have a more conscientious sharper barn foreman than Make It Come True.

Training:
12/25 both horses trot one mile after 6f pasture romp.
12/26 late arriving office client cancels our training.
12/27 good intentions gone afoul. It rained all night. Foot of water in the buckets, and then the ground froze. Impossible today. So, 2nd day off. Again, this two week slow period due to weather I'm ok with--a well planned break, IF we can avoid a January repeat. Weather gets better 12/28 on.