Vladimir Cerin

College soccer player, kinesiology grad early '70s, grew up on a farm in Bosnia, worked with pro athletes, trained horses since 1978, Pacific Classic winning Student Council, Albertus Maximus, and a bit formidable looking, eh?

2008 Bayakoa Handicap, Briecat/Cerin. Notice the fractions:
http://www.ntra.com/videoarchive.aspx

2008 Breeders Cup Dirt Mile Albertus Maximus/Cerin:
http://www.ntra.com/videoarchive.aspx?year=2008&page=2&type=

Skeptical of Bosnians at the moment--see Blogojevich--but these sort of horse results get your attention. My personal reaction to the BC mile: exactly the sort of strong performance I'd expect out of my own training. When you've been there, you have the fittest, best trained horse, really, this is the picture you come to expect of yourself.

And so, based on what we're seeing I'd like to know how these horses trained. Anybody know anything about what Cerin does? Other than intervals, lol, but, really, this was good stuff!

Additionally, expand a little on my opinion as to Cerin's comments on interval training. I'm a little bit qualified having done some form of intervals with horses for 25 years, even though I lack the racing of Cerin, I've raced some of them. Interestingly thinking back I mostly recall doing intervals for injury prevention. A first draft of this post contained my statement that I never remember doing intervals for performance at all. On reconsideration, I'm sure that is untrue, but only because we're always working for performance on the racetrack, whatever we do. Think probably for us the intervals never emphasized performance. I'm doubting that I've ever believed that multiple heats have anything to do with making the horse faster, and to a limited degree--jury still out--I tend to even agree with Cerin re the fitness aspect of intervals. Unsure really how much fitness Ivers really gained with 3 breezes in one day compared to what I've gotten with a whole lot less.

Thus, it is possible that Cerin's remarks on interval training were simply misunderstood. Readers of the blog know that I am doing other than strict interval training at the moment. My training emphasis is elsewhere. Though I do intervals for purpose of warm up, getting in more work, etc., I have essentially abandoned the concept in terms of performance. Without getting into deep psycho analysis or reviewing my whole history, there is a very good reason that these days I'm thinking other than intervals.

But, the blog hopefully will soon be getting to the subject of performance with the intent to conduct a comparative analysis of various training methods. First, I want to conclude the #1 priority, which is keeping 'em running. Wondering what Cerin's injury rate has been.

Training: Partly prompted by weather, but also because our athletes have had a tough two weeks of training, we decided on 3 straight days off. Bad weather is blowing in, and we'll have plenty of time soon to consider what to do about that, I fear. But, for today good weather. I arrived at the farm with a shoe hanging on a fence. Turned out to be the pawing Art's front right. Nob reshod taking a bit too much time with the contracted heels on this particular foot that we've been dealing with, and so too near dark to ride in mud, but ok since all we could have done was walk. What started out as a riderless play workout after the off time turned into 5 or 6 heats of all out sprints in the mud which they did on their own without being driven--an abundance of enthusiasm after the off time, as expected.