True Jean
True Jean pictured, a Day-Phillips trainee that lasted the year and had 10 races all at 6f mostly in allowance and high claiming. Looks at this moment in time a decently put together and conformed chunk of a filly, a bit fat possibly, a characteristic shared by my own horses and all the Day-Phillips horses in her photo gallery: http://www.catherinedayphillipsracing.com/trainers/cdp/public/gallery/index.cfmThe photos show a well cared for bunch very comfortable in their work.
The first TJ workout is 3/1, the latest race 12/4, a period of 8 months approx. The horse shows 17 breezes and 10 races for 3.375 works every 30 days. The 3.375 average would be higher but they declined breezing the horse between 10/17 and 12/4 though TJ raced twice in this period.
TJ had a nice year, seems well handled with a few RR quibbles noted below. TJ probably is typical of what Day-Phillips likes to do when things go well. Here's TJ breezing/racing step by step:
The first race 4/18. Again, good job of first race preparation:
:36.6 3/1
:38 3/6--this is the first five day interval I've seen on all websites to date.
:48.4 3/13 7 days later
:48.4 3/20 7 days again
:49.6 3/29 9 days here, but 5 works in March. First time I've seen 5 in one month.
1:00.4 4/5 7 days later
1:00.1 4/12 7 days
RACE 4/18 6 days post breeze finishes 3rd in $69,000 allowance. Decent showing for any Race #1.
What do they do post race?
1:03.2 5/3 They waited two weeks per all the websites looked at to date.
RACE 5/11 8 days after last breeze. The horse has one slow breeze in 3 weeks and is asked to race. Hmmm.... Finishes 3rd in Allowance nwx
What next?
RACE 5/25. Two weeks no breezes. Do we predict a poor finish due to even further detraining. Result: 2nd in $62,500 claiming. Possibly more missed opportunity here. Horse responded ok. We start to see a reason for fat horses in the photos.
Now what?
:51 6/7 They wait 13 days--the two week wait.
:49 6/21 Another two weeks. Inexplicable to me, but you'd expect that.
RACE 6/25 6 days later. They change up the spacing. I'm again questioning the thought process. We're down to 3 breeze/race/month since 4/19. Result: Wins $62,500 claimer.
Ok. They're happy. Do they have their thinking caps on? What do they come up with?
Zero breezes in July, One race.
RACE 7/17 finishes 4th in $80,000 claiming. Moved her up in class after 22 days of zero works.
The 4th(or worse) is predictable based on the schedule.
:50.4 on 8/2 17 days later. They're starting to give even more time between race and work.
4f 8/9 time fails to show. They're back to 7 days. Did the 4th change their thinking?
RACE 8/16 7 days later produces a win in a $80,000 allowance.
Again, I'm intrigued. What next?
:49.4 8/30 two weeks later. Consistency. Imo they need another quick breeze, then race.
RACE 9/7 one week later produces a 7th in a nwx allowance. The 7th place finish seems to catch their attention.
:48.6 on 9/27 20 days later. Minor injury possibly? They thought the horse needed a break? With the 7th place finish, notice what comes next.
1:01.4 10/4 7 days later.
:49 10/11 7 days. Should be ready.
:48.6 10/17 6 days!
RACE 10/31. Another head scratcher as they wait two weeks. Result: 3rd in $80,000 claiming.
And, no more breezing for this horse hereafter.
RACE 11/22 finishes 4th in $62,500 claiming.
RACE 12/4 wins $32,000 claiming, as the favorite without a doubt.
How do we evaluate? Certainly on a comparative basis with the other websites looked at, the TJ training job was all in all very decent. The filly actually did some consistent work in spurts even as we puzzle over certain periods and their thought process. Day-Phillips would have to tell us what TJ did on non-breeze days, but we may surmise that if this horse did a lot on slow gallop days, i.e. they tried to gallop to extreme fitness--e.g. lot's of 2m work or 2 mile gallops--the stuff of Neil Drysdale types, we'd speculate a better race performance. My own best guess: they did just enough with this horse to avoid injury, barely.
Training: we're watching the weather. Will posted later.
posted by rather rapid at
7:45 AM
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7 Comments:
Hello again RR, KH, and others-
I just started working with a trainer who is also breezing on an every 5 day schedule, very exciting! Mostly 2 year olds...
Hopefully this won't disappear when the racing starts. I'm using my HR/GPS to show him what exercise is appropriate for each horse on any given day.
For instance, if a filly is working a half in :50 but her HR recovery is still over 130bpm 5 minutes post exercise, that is too much for her to take and she needs to be eased up on a bit in terms of distance or speed.
My experience shows that when HR after a breeze is under 100bpm at the 5 minute mark - the horse is ready for additional exercise demands.
Again, the 'clock' starts with an onboard HR/GPS monitor when the finish line is reached.
This year I've charted 100's of workouts and compared them with dozens of race results and came up with some very practical info.
Hi Bill, Very interesting...
RR, I will post a synopsis of CD-P's Van Lear Rose if you haven't looked at her yet. 7 Day works, 2 weeks off after a race, most of the year. A 2F work 2 days out. I'd say if you were a trainer, you'd be pretty happy with this progression of a 2 YO. The interesting part is her 2 wins came after 9 days post work and 2 days post work with the middling results being 7-8 days out.
Challenge for you:
Find any trainer who (these days)works a horse longer than it races at that distance. (I mean ever, or just once, not necessarily the last work before a race). Extra credit, find a trainer of a 2YO who sees a work at race distance before it enters a race at that distance.
Haven't looked hard, but I haven't found one who does it consistently.
That principle is the one that boggles my mind the most. Racing at a distance they haven't ever run, at a pace they've never run seems on the face of things to be the definition of inadequate preparation, yet it's done everywhere, all the time. What am I missing, as I'm clearly in the minority...
KH
Bill--again--we appreciate being kept informed on your data and also any trainers that are doing some real work. I was in Lexington for a year and saw a lot! I'll take up the KH challenge though I'm about done with looking at specific trainers. Of course, we want to avoid overlooking anybody important, so let us know. I'm suspecting there may be a young person or two out there taking up public training that might change things up. Bill, I'm wondering when you are going to train your first horse!
Hi KH-
Oh you aren't missing anything, I've never seen anything more than a 5F work leading up to a 6F race for a 2YO. But once racing starts, back to a 4F maximum work.
So what a trainer ends up with is a horse that struggles with a 4f work in a rolling 50sec, who then is thrust from the gate in 46 - and everyone wonders why they come home running backwards!-
RR-
No training for me, I'll settle for consulting like Ivers. This way I can impact 50-100 horses in the next few months, without having to learn 20 years of horsemanship.
Luckily I have a few guys actually taking my advice. It helps when my charts show them that a horse is poor at the 4f/50sec level, but they continue on and injury results.
I've made some bold predictions based on my data, both to the good and the bad, and have been correct the vast majority of the time.
So I'm slowly building credibility, I have a big article coming out in Trainer Magazine in the spring, and hoping to get discovered by Coolmore or the Sheikh!
Just what we need. An exercise physiologist advising the Sheiks. OMG!
Surely they have one?
I've seen press about Aidan O'Brien at Coolmore where he has mentioned training heart rates-
One claiming trainer I work with had a winning percentage of 12% before I came along, and now he's at 26%.
Can you imagine the impact of scientific training principles on a big money outfit! Literally hundreds of millions over just a 5 year span.
ya-- i thinking Ravens Pass did some nice work. congrats on your work with that trainer!
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