Tues. Misc.

Training: Mr. Nob weighs in at 160 lbs instead of 157 lbs from last work. This compromises planned speed work with Art somewhat. Too heavy for the smaller horse.

Mon. 6/29:
Rod: off
Art: 2.7 miles, 3 heats .8 mile each with 2 min rest between.
(1) warm up with short acceleration at end. Nob says this warm up is insufficient for heat #2.
(2) .8 miles in :15s with a couple of :14s thrown in.
(3) Horse allowed to go .8 mile at his own speed. Started off in :16s, but slowed himself to :18s by half way. Enough at that point! Nice work by Art.

Tues. 6/29:
Art: Off.
Rod: gets day off #2 as a precaution. Was kicked hard twice during play in front cannons Sunday + we'd worked this horse hard over last 2 weeks.

Mon. Mis.

The next fracture resistance post still a little short of readiness for prime time. Coming though!

Training:
Sun. 6/28:
Art: 2.7 miles in 3 heats about :20 pace.
Rod: First speed under tack. Rod is a difficult horse to ride, and Mr. Nob on board was thrown about like a sack of potatoes. It did get done, and as work #1 we'll take it. 2.7 miles in heats. The last two heats had various furlongs of speed. Hard to know how fast as the horse was all over the place. Probably just sub :15s. We'll remember this hair raising first one if the horse ever wins a race. Nob report: strong galloper, but test whether he'll willingly run, yet to come.

Sun. Misc.

Training:

Sat 6/27:Art: Off
Rod: trot- gallop 2.7 miles. three heats. 3/4 gallop in :18s. Lazy. Red flag. Why?

Fri 6/26 Rod: back to tack work: 2.7 miles trot-slow gallop 50/50.
Art: 2.7 miles in 3 heats, second heat hits :15s.

Thurs. 6/25 Art: 2.5 miles trot-slow gallop, inner track, soft turf.
Rod: too dark to trust all over the place Rod on chopped up inner course. Decide on fast riderless work: 6 x 1.5f full speed. Nice work. Horse into it.

Thurs. Misc.

"Ho! quoth the Knight (to the Monk who has just completed his desultory tale), "good sir, no more of this;
That ye have said is right enough, y-wis;

...Then had your tale been all told in vain,
for certainly, as these clerkes sayn,
Where as a man may have no audience,
Nought helpeth it to telle his sentence."

Yours truly has observed the Knight's admonition with good reason this week. But, we're back.

I did view the KY Slots bill with interest since we'd recently achieved slots in Kansas after two decades of wrangling with a Republican legislature. KY might take some Kansas advice. 1. Quit vilifying Republican/Evangelical Christians arguing religious moral issues that have been around since the founding of the country, and way before, and 2. In Kansas, after horse racing people finally softened their approach to gentle lobbying, woe and behold suddenly slots became a Republican idea with many of our good party bemoaning loss of gambling revenue to Missouri, and waking up to the fact that the State could use the money.

Unfortunately true to form, as the bill was going through the Kansas legislature the horse racing interests went to sleep, and the bill that came out with this typically hilarious incompetence had little revenue for the tracks.

Here its soon onward with fracture resistance. Our training in a rainy week:

Training:
Sat. Rain, but we managed a tough riderless fast workout in the mud.
Sun. 6/21: Off. Rain.
Mon. 6/22: 2 miles for both horses about 1.5 of it slow gallop.
Tues. 6/23: 2.5 miles for both horses in heats. Nice work. Mr. Nob said he felt some wind in his face for both. Planned short breezes tomorrow will be rained out.
Wed. 6/24: Off. Rain.

Osteoblast/Clast Remodeling III: Density

Consider possible remodeling effects that might strengthen bone:

increase in outward circumference
increase in solid bone volume inward (note photo of calf cannons above.)
increase in volume of materials in a given area--density
increase in volume and amount of bonding materials
increase in strength of bonds at micro level
possible change in % of various materials at micro level

Those are possibilities. And note, for the mineralized matrix that comprises 95% of the bone, size or volume increases involve new bone construction, and thus must come from long term osteoclast/blast remodeling instead of the short term, temporary remodeling effects note on the blog in April! Note also the (estimated by me) time frame for construction of a new, mineralized cell is about 2 months!

Thus, what we looking at here: what will the osteoblast/clast remodeling give us, and how do we bring this about !

Understanding here requires a short review. For any newbie to the blog, here is a very nice encapsulation of this whole osteoblast/clast process:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteoblast

For our horses, we must take the human remodeling thing quite a bit further along the road. We know, regardless of the organism, Osteoblast cells construct bone by laying down unmineralized collagen cells first by giving birth to a new cell, and then laying down a certain specific number of cells in a given area. This is a crucial concept!!! Regardless of the reasons or stimulation sources of the new cells to be born, the newly constructed cells are put together by their various chemical and mechanical process in the same size, patterns and numbers! There is therefore not an increase in size or increase in numbers of new cells in a specific area because the originating cause of the new cell construction happened to be exercise!

What does this mean for our horse? Simply that increases in bone strength may be caused by increases in size OR increases in density, and that there are different processes involved in getting these desired effects. This post has identified the osteoblast/clast remodeling to be the source of the quality of increasing bone in size and volume. For increases in density however, we need look elsewhere for our originating process!

Training:
Since Wed we're dry at the farm. The much predicted rain around us skips, this time.
Thurs. 6/18: 1.8 miles for both horses slow with 1.3 miles of it gallop.
Fri. 6/19 2 miles for each horse with 1.5 miles of it gallop up to :18s.

Osteoblast/Clast Remodeling II

We are in the post race wash rack again, eyeing our horse's cannons, and considering what occurred, what next, are there any developing fracture lines, or will the cannons remodel/strengthen as a result of the race so that possibly we'll be without these worries in the future?

What precisely is, then, bone strengthening or remodeling?

Remodeling over time (the long term) involves of course the osteoblast/clast reconstruction/deconstruction referred to last post. BUT this blog (see April '09) has also identified short term temporary remodeling processes probably restricted to equines (due to concussion) which may be reinforced over time to increase bone strength. These are:

bone glue increases in volume
contractions of the mineral matrix
compaction of newly forming bone

So, we have the processes, both long term and short term. But, it's still unknown precisely what is the end point in terms of bone structure for these processes. To have a full understanding, perhaps we need to know the manner in which the bone is strengthened.

What does this mean? Take two horses, one untrained and sedentary, the other into advanced racing. Inspect their front cannons and note the differences, if any!

Do the trained/untrained cannons e.g. differ in size, thickness, density, have stronger bonding at the molecular level, have the same or different bone glue volumes, is matrix construction the same in both sorts of cannons?

As an experiment in this regard, I look at my own three horses. The14 year old has as much track work as any. 50 of his breezes were documented on the blog, summer 20078. My 3 and 4 year olds have significant exercise but zero track work. What difference in the feel, quality and size of these cannons do I note? The result of this is very interesting.

The cannons of the 14 year old certainly have a very stout, seemingly denser, stronger feel than the youngsters. BUT, and this surprised me, there is very little difference in size among these differently trained cannon bones! The ramifications, next post!

Training:
Wed. 6/17/09. Weather OMG. Yet more rain on the way. Art trot-galloped a mile before Mr. Nob aborted due to groundd conditions. Too dangerous. Enough of that. Both horses then exercised riderless, intermittent heats at ranging to :14s for about 3 miles. Tough workout.

Osteoblast/Clast Remodeling

"Now consider conjecture of a time...". A group of Osteoblasts sits in deep discussion:

Seargent: Full report.

Osteoclast #1: Sgt., space to lay down 10 non-mineralized collagen fibrils has been cleared.

Sgt. Excellent #1. Let's get to work my friends.

Three weeks later:

Sgt. Report.

Osteoblast #1: Sgt., new baby fibrils have been laid.

Sgt.: How many?

Osteoblast #1: ten new babies.

Sgt. Ten it is. Let's mineralize 'em.

Suddenly the proceedings are interrupted. The owner of this group of cells has jumped out of the starting gate.

Osteo #2. Whoa.

Osteo #3: Whoa, we're rocking.

Osteo #4: Whoa big fellow.

200 thuds later:

Sgt. Dammmm...whatever, look at our babies.

Osteo #1: They're squeezed.

Osteo #2: They're compressed.

Osteo#3: They're crushed.

Sgt. Never mind, men. It looks like we have room for one more.

Osteo #1: We have room for 11 now instead of 10.

Sgt. That appears to be the case.

8 days later.

Sgt. Report:

Osteo #1: Unknown what happened. That space for the 11th baby disappeared.

Sgt. Any explanation?

Osteo #2: Plecher.

Sgt.: Ahh, Plecher.


Plecher of course has kept the horse out of speed work for 3 weeks post race giving the newly laid non-mineralized collagen fibrils time to rebound back to their original shape, thus filling in any microspacing created around them by the event, and therefore eliminating the ability to increase the density of the new fibrils by adding to their original number. Our Plecher horse, theoretically will have less dense new bone due to the manner of his training!!!

How soon Plecher needed to do additional speed work that would have reinforced the spacing created is the question, of course. Look at this with respect to new fibrils, next post.

Training:
Tues. 6/16: Off. Another 1.24 inches of rain.

Bone Remodeling/Fracture Resistance: What Is It?

The world keeps turning. Edward Evans moves Quality Road from Jimmy Jerkens to Todd Plecher. This must have happened before my Dunkirk posts. The beat goes on with the owner-trainer quandary.

But, here it's back to 'let's get technical'. I am attempting to think through all this as we go, and, before wrapping up the post-event happenings in the cannon bone at the micro level, it occurred to me that I'd yet to define the basics of what is being talked about, which would be FR and Bone Remodeling.

May we define Fracture Resistance, termed here "race appropriate FR" merely as that quality of measurable bone strength that will hold up to the event? But, consider these contexts:

1. Is FR static to every race situation, or does FR vary with the event. Do we need the same FR for a 6f race as we do for 1.5 miles?

2. After the horse achieves FR, will FR thereafter remain, or is this quality of bone changeable depending on circumstances?

"Bone remodeling" seems a general term to describe bone strengthening in response to exercise. On deeper consideration it's a little more complicated:

1. Can the bone remodeling as a process go either way--stronger or weaker?

2. If bone strengthens, what is it that occurs? Does this signify changes in density, size, circumference, stronger molecular bonds, or does weaker bone merely deconstruct to be replaced by new material that is stronger in some specific way?

Training:
Sun 6/14 Off.
Mon. 6/15 Art trots 2.5 miles on very soft squishy ground.
Ground conditions dangerous for sky watching Rod. We fear he'll misstep. Rod does a snappy riderless gallop 2.5 miles through deep mud.

Blog Outline

After the TC races, which have been instructive, the blog dives back and hopefully figures out what's necessary to avoid injuries to our horses such as Dunkirk. An outline of this since the Blog started in late 2006:

1. Why should we avoid conventional training, and why might we prefer the old time methods of Preston Burch et. al. instead. Possibly the old timers were playing their own roulette by doing too much.

2. But, since conventional training creates a high percentage of injuries, we need to find a better method!

3. What can we do, and what are the minimums and maximums in terms of injury prevention.

4. The "max" question was dealt with July-Sept. 2008, concluding that possibly 7 or 8 speed events per month is the safe max, and more in Preston Burch style starts to get dicey.

5. Minimum work to achieve appropriate bone remodeling/fracture resistance (FR) is the present subject, and deals with the variables:

speed: at least :12.5/f
distance: at least 4f
frequency: to be determined.

Frequency of speed events is possibly our most imporant subject. One trainer does 4 per month, the other 1. Who is correct?

We look at available evidence:

1. Trainer and injury statistics, here: (see Post of 1/23/09).

2. What occurs at:

the molecular/atomic level (where the blog is right now)

within the larger structures within the bone tissues

at the macro level involving the whole leg and stride.

Evidence to date points to a minimum frequency for FR at 7 days or less.

Training:
Sun. 6/15 normal off day + another inch of rain.
Tues: about to go out there. It's raining again. All we can do is trot. Thinking each horse will do about 2.5 miles on very soft ground.

Red Flags In Plecher Training?

Had Dunkirk been trained to the point of race appropriate FR (fracture resistance)? Can D's fracture be blamed on the training?

Dunkirk apparently suffered a non-displaced fracture in the trabecular(soft) bone at the condylar (end) aspect of a hind cannon requiring but one screw for repair. Guessing then that there is but a single small crack.

The relatively innocuous nature of this probably rules out the bad step/blunt trauma scenario where the bone is rolled or crushed. Surmise thus D's bone simply gave way either due to pre-existing condition or from the normal stress of the race.

D's training then, and the manner of it in terms of achieving FR becomes highly relevant. Let's take a look.

On June 6, 2009, Belmont Day, Dunkirk PPs show 18 speed events over 118 speed furlongs since 1/1/09. In this respect D ranked in the upper 1/3 on Derby day:

http://ratherrapid.blogspot.com/2009/04/17-chocolate-candy-107-17-papa-clem-103.html

And, for speed work done 60 days pre-Belmont Dunkirk ranked in mid-field:

http://ratherrapid.blogspot.com/2009/06/handicapping-belmont.html

These charts show that lesser trained horses than D survived both races, BUT please note the fine distinction between lack of FR and a horse fracturing in any one particular race! A lot of cars drove over the bridge before the Minnesota bridge collapse, and horses in huge numbers survive races without necessary bone structure. Physics of the fracture process in solid materials indicate that they hold pretty well until the final moment of collapse.

The question for D therefore is solely whether FR is present or otherwise from the training.

The above math works out that since 1/1/09 Dunkirk performed 3.5 speed events per month and 23 speed furlongs per month. This calculates to one work EVERY 8.6 DAYS with an average distance per work of 6.6 furlongs. This includes races, of course.

My prior on "frequency"--how often the horse must do a speed event to achieve FR speculated that the minimum frequency is 8 days, and further that an 8 days frequency just barely gets there. Dunkirk's frequency is less than this minimum and obviously is also below minimum on this training to enter a 1.5 mile race where the horse is "sent" to run the distance.

I began the Dunkirk post speculating that I was considering the Plecher style training is a cut below that needed for FR. Although Dunkirk due to the timing of the TC preps, was worked more often and harder than a typical Plecher horse, the math and my speculations (thus far) do support this conclusion. Closer looks in coming posts!

Take note also the possiblity of another factor involved in D's fracture that will have to be looked at down the road . Plecher breezes never exceed 5f with minimal gallop out. D close to the Belmont performed two 4fs and one 5f. On this shaky foundation the horse was then "sent" 1.5 miles. We get here to Tom Ivers's concept of never surprising a horse by forcing it faster or farther than its training. Ivers reaction to what has passed here might be other than pretty.

Training: the quagmire continues at the farm. Some rain almost daily. The good news-- the horses gallop much stronger now than in the intro galloping in May. Our week's work:
Mon: 2.7 miles gallop. Art strong and fast on second heat. One short too slow spurt for Rod.
Tues. Off rain.
Wed. fast riderless heats in the mud. tough workout.
Thurs. Off. Connections pussy out in working on horrible ground.
Fri. Inner track trot-gallop slow on extremely soft grass to accommodate to rider weight after 4 days off from that. 2.3 miles.
Sat. Attempted speed work with Art on the inner track, still very soft. Got it, sort of but with several stumbles through deep mud. enough of that. Rodney was trot-galloped slow for a mile and then did two riderless miles in the mud in about :15s.

The Interesting Case Of Dunkirk

Dunkirk's regrettable injury has numerous obvious ramifications, including the question how close were we to another 8 Belles on national TV. Real close and way too close for comfort are thoughts that come to mind. I've advocated minimum training and racing standards for entry. Might have barred most of the Belmont field, but, can we continue to play this sort of roulette with the sport?

The high profile Dunkirk and his hind condylar fracture also ties in with the present blog subject as I've been considering that Todd Plecher style training may be a dividing line between appropriate and inappropriate training for fracture resistance.

What caused the Dunkirk near catastrophe? First discard a few preliminaries regarding the usual that breeder's are giving us unsound horses including the particular instant of Unbridled's Song.

While there may be a grain of truth to this that might debatable at great length, if there is any breeding connection to what happened to this horse, I might consider more the following:

1. Taller, lankier youngsters will produce more injuries. This is nothing new.
2. Albino oriented horses, including grays, quite possibly might have a genetically weaker bone structure. Every farrier e.g. understands that white hoofs are significantly weaker than solid colored hoofs. I've long considered that this weakness may well extend on up from the hoof into the white socked portion of a horse's anatomy, and that gray horses might have the albino weakness factor throughout their bone structure. Notice Dunkirk's solid white left forleg in the photo! Minimally, I believe these sorts of horses in terms of color require extra-ordinary training, particularly with larger horses.
3. If you watch the Unbridled's Song sales yearling go through the ring, year after year you will see a bunch of weak, hot housed youngsters emanating from Taylor Made that has its sales "hot-housing" instructions on its website. These instructions are hardly conducive to solid bone development and imo put Unbridled's Song youngsters behind the developmental eight ball from the get go.

Next post, a look at Dunkirk's handling.

Training:
Below is a video of heat #2 of Rollin' Rodney's Monday work. The planned 1.5f at :14 goes in about :16 as the horse shied away from the camera.
Tues. was Off due to weather.
Wed. we decided fast riderless in the mud instead of slow tack work on soft grass. Tough workout.

Post Race/Breeze Remodeling X: Simplified Review

Pages and pages of fracture resistance posts on here. Some of them pretty good, if I do say so. The June 1 post attempted a to-date summary in detail. But now, a shorter summation hopefully in terms of what Mr. Trainer* (pictured) really needs to know.

This all starts with what happens within the cannon bone during the breeze. That alone involved weeks of posts. For anyone new, if your interested, what occurs during the event is put together here:

http://ratherrapid.blogspot.com/2009/02/remodeling-humanshorses.html

So, Mr. Trainer will be particularly aware that during the speed event something is going in the legs. This concept will be reinforced for most of them repeated over time as a certain fixed percentage of their horses limp off after the races almost as if scheduled. Something happened!

The inquiry on this blog has been that we might avoid most of these constant injuries by appropriate training, but then, what is "appropriate"?

To date the blog has estimated that Race Appropriate Fracture Resistance (FR) is got by the leg bones remodeling in response to exercise which exercise in turn must actually do the trick of getting us the FR.

Through a long torturous process of posts I surmised that, of the exercise variables of

speed
distance
frequency

that the speed events need to be minimally 4f at :12.5/sec/f to stimulate appropriate remodeling.

How often this needs to be done is the present focus, as we look at the most we can do without causing injury, and also the least. Right now we're looking at minimums.

And so, for Mr. Trainer, who by experience has an appreciation that during the race/breeze something is going on with the leg bones, there also NEEDS TO BE some understanding of the goings on after the event.

Just to illustrate this--for the longest period in my own training I had assumed that the post event cannon bone heat was primarily the result of (insignificant) micro fracturing on the canon bone surface, and that these small tears would fill up or heal over 2 to 3 days.

What I now believe happens, and what Mr. Trainer should know, after the event, while there is some diffuse micro damage for the appropriately trained horse, there are some positive processes going on in terms of bone remodeling that NEED TO BE REINFORCED within certain time periods OR THE BENEFIT WILL BE LOST.

So, "what the heck is that" asks Mr. Trainer. And, my answer would be that the event has compacted the bone materials, and that this compaction, with appropriate follow up exercise, will increase bone density over time.

"You mean", says Mr. Trainer, "that if I follow a certain formula in terms of exercise I will be able to increase density of the cannon bone?" "Yes, exactly", say I.

"So, tell me what I need to do!". And the response: "minimally you must do appropriate speed work within 8 days, and ideally on the 4th day. That is really, all you need to know!"

Now, for the new reader. I'm still looking at this, and what the exact time limits need to be in terms of exercise frequency. A comment on the interesting case of Dunkirk, next post.

*Pictured: Dutrow walking Big Brown

Training:
The horses were off yesterday due to buckets of rain. Art's gallop that we missed on the video was scheduled for 3 go around but was aborted after 2 as in the second heat, Art, despite attempted restraint, went so fast that he was a step or two ahead of his training. We followed Iver's advice that when your horse does something spectacular, what you do next is "nothing". Art's work Monday was nice enough I was a bit miffed we missed it on video. We did get a video of Rod, to be posted tomorrow, who did his 2.7 miles with an attempted spurt thrown in. Back at it this evening on wet ground.

And, drumroll, the gallop:

We see why Tim is chasing the ladies (instead of the other way around). Pushed the wrong button again. Lol Tim!

RR Stable And Long Gallops

"...what we were summoned here to do we knew, but have forgotten."
-Goethe

Amart, pictured 6/4/09, and Rod indeed have both forgotten many of their February galloping lessons. We're reteaching right now. Lead changes, control, acceleration, buzzing down the track, around moving deer, etc. etc.

But, this is the fun time of year, and fun time of training. Surely heavenly weather will be the month of June, and at this stage the horses develop rapidly on a daily basis.

We're right now a little past 30 days in, having been able to start--weather wise--on 5/3/09. This was after 3 months of continual weather interruptions and our horses losing much of their conditioning. We've needed thus go back retrace some steps.

Right now the horses are doing 2.7 miles per day which is three times around our farm track. The 2.7 miles consists of :18-:20/f galloping, accelerations of 1F here and there up to :14s so far, and appropriate walk-trot depending on what we're doing. Keep in mind that galloping 2.7 miles on a soft grass farm track is a far different adventure than doing the same exercise on a hard race track. I'm never comfortable galloping more than 2 miles/day at the track, but here at the farm, 2.7 miles seems to be a nice distance and the horses are handling it well.

There is also my own usual quandary concerning long gallops. I initially thought the long galloping is what might get us to the race track the fastest, particularly in that we have a 3 years old with a lot of learning to do, who is also fat. The longer gallops might be the fastest way to learn and also to get the weight off.

Yet, when it's time to get down to the business of speed the long gallops get in the way. I'm already at the point and considering whether to keep up the 2.7 miles, or to quit that and start Preston Burch type breezes (every 3 days.).

The quandary involves that it's very difficult to condition your horse simultaneously for long gallops and speed. You can do one, or the other, but its extremely difficult to do both.

E.g. Let's assume we're doing 2.7 mile daily gallops for 3 straight days. Please note that these are strenuous, tough workouts. Are we then going to breeze 6f on day #4 having galloped 2.7 miles the day before? The danger of course is doing too much and injuring the horse. Thus, we are unable to do a 2.7 mile gallop the day before the breeze. We also omit galloping the 2.7 miles on the day of the breeze, of course AND the day after, which is a rest day. We have now gone 3 straight days without galloping 2.7 miles. Are we then going to go right back to galloping 2.7 miles after these 3 days off from doing it? Again, I'd think otherwise, for the horse is now conditioned otherwise than long galloping, and again, if we ignore this and go ahead and gallop 2.7 miles the day after our post breeze off day, then we're again endangering our horse.

Possibly long galloping lacks any useful place in race training, though I might have a problem convincing a ghost of Tom Ivers on that point, and also maybe Tim Woolley and his Mine That bird. I've noted the timing problems above, but also consider whether we want to condition our animal's musculature and nervous system for 2.7 miles/day instead of for explosive speed.

Early in race training, were you have a youngster to bring along quickly that needs a lot of lessons maybe we can bring them along faster than the alternative of short early breezing. My own main reason was the fat horse thing. Will be interesting how long I go with long galloping. Try to post another video on this in a few days.

Belmont Musings

Another incomplete handicapping job on this site. Getting a little irritated with myself displaying a fractured thought process that fails to consider everything. There "is" a "Belmont" website, had I bothered to check. The site contains videos that show my pick Chocolate Candy an obvious throw out, a distressed, away too skinny, tied up animal, showing questionable husbandry and exercise riding, and Holendorfer in some other world. Jet lag, claims Dorf. But we've seen this same act the last few years with several Dorf horses. CC ran like he's hurt. We'll see.

The rest of the race? I'll claim again, Hos Epi To Polu--got it right, "for the most part". In one sense I comprehended the generally inadequate training for the distance, but then failed to carry that thought to realize that the entire field would die at the 3/16 pole except the winner. As Desormeux noted, with the two in front of him clearly struggling, only a closer could have beaten Summer Bird. The only two trained for that, CC and Hot Stuff never ran a jump.

I'd agree with those who say Borel put insufficient work into the race, and maybe disagree that Borel moved to soon. Tom Durkin's call that Mine That Bird passed the field on the final turn like a shot simply was inaccurate. Instead of spurting to that point, Borel had made a measured steady move from mid back stretch and only started to spurt (or tried to) before they hit what would be the quarter pole on a normal track. Borel expected the same Derby 3f response at that point, but it was obvious that Borel was strenuously whipping the horse at the head of the stretch and failing to get a response. MTB was tied up and done at that point. Hillariously, I think Durkin lost sight of MTB, again, at the top of the final turn.

Where did they go wrong with MTB? Query whether the trainer and jock were together on instructions. There is nothing that I am able to see in the training that would have prepared MTB for the move he was asked to make. Running fairly hard for 1 1/8 mile then accelerating another 3f is what Borel expected. I question whether the horse was trained to do what he was being asked to do. Little details.

As to Dunkirk, it was fun to see the $3.7 million dollar horse and the $9,000.00 horse running nose to nose in the stretch. D ran a nice race, and if you're spending $$$ on a horse, that would be the type. Smart Plecher strategy possibly compromised by usual Plecher training? An interesting training note as I'm considering whether Pletcher does enough with his animals to maintain fracture resistance. I'm thinking "in the negative" (without any final conclusion)--and that you are unable to do what was done with Dunkirk and Charitable Man without getting an injury. Wondering whether either horse will ever race again.

Summer Bird? Everything came together for them. Can we say that of such ingredients are victories made? My fear that SB lacked long term bottom to compete in the stretch never became a factor as the horse basically ran uncontested to the wire, the rest of the field having tied up a furlong before. Nice training job and ride, imo.

RR stable post up later today or tomorrow.

Handicapping The Belmont

With a little bit of extra time this Saturday morning, let's get to it. Galloping (speed event) for the last 60 days might be interesting here. Any of these particularly trained for 1.5 miles?

Last 60 days: # of events--horse--# of furlongs

8 Chocolate Candy 49
7 Mine That Bird 43
7 Flying Private 43
8 Mr. Hot Stuff 43
7 Luv Gov 40
7 Dunkirk 37
6 Brave Victory 28
5 Summer Bird 33
5 Charitable Man 25
5 Miners Escape 25

The usual suspects (trainers) at the bottom of the chart. Expect the usual result, and be shocked, surprised if these inexplicably win, horses overcoming their training: Throw out Zito and McGlaughlin. And, also Lukas, who has given his horse some work, but with the last of it 9 days out, how can the Lukas pair possibly compete against the rest? Lukas out.

Summer Bird? The training fails to make up a small talent deficit. There is an overall lack of bottom in training terms--lack of long term development--that will get this horse in the unlikely event he'll be competing in late stretch. Out.

This leaves Dunkirk, Mr. Hot Stuff, Chocolate Candy, Mine That Bird. That is a solid group of talented horses to consider in terms of intangibles such as pace, jockeys, work over the track, particular targeting of works that might make the horse dangerous, etc. To answer my own question--none is particularly trained for 1.5 miles, unless you consider MTB 2 mile galloping (which should have an effect), and so these four horses enter on fairly even terms.

First, we'd have to think that Charitable Man based on the nice Peter Pan will be part of the race. His trainer has already given him the "kiss of death". In all my time in racing I've yet to see a horse win whose trainer pre-race pronounces the horse as"fit". This generally provides reason for lack of work and a trainer that fails to understand the concept of improving an athlete to a race. Notably, Charitable Man was absent during the crucial Thurs. galloping. And, though talented, CM's talent fails to stand out particularly against the rest. A CM fade in early stretch, assuming he survives that long injury wise. Would shock me to see this horse go on.

But, CM will probably affect the race in that I'd suppose the other riders will need to be close enough to avoid a CM runaway. This effort to stay close to a fast pace is what probably will get Dunkirk. Can a horse giving little effort in the Derby, run 1.5 miles on two 4f breezes and one of 5f. Should D sustain his drive chasing a fast pace, this would be a slap in the face of we "trainers". Rags to Riches did it with steroids coming out of her ears. I'm looking forward to the puzzled look on Plecher's face. D out.

Mr. Hot Stuff provides the enigma. Quite obviously the horse has the genetic heritage, and combined with his work would seem as fit as the rest. Yet, he has a trainer who enjoys killing animals (fish) as a hobby and who seems unable to get past the concept of the 5f breeze. Hot Stuff should last 10f. Out.

So, can Chocolate Candy run down MTB??? Think Chip Woolley wishes he'd arrived a week sooner. Belmont requires extended lead work over longer turns which will negate for MTB some of that 2 mile galloping. Should be a factor that CC has trained on this track for a month.

Yet, per usual, Hollendorfer gets but part of the equation. CC fails to show any true speed work since the Derby. This imo would be a CC runaway with a significant 6/1 breeze. Never happened, and so CC will at best be on even conditioning terms with MTB, who had his last significant speed work 5/16. Per last post, there's little reason but to suppose that Borel will get MTB up at the wire. The biggest fear I have for MTB is that Woolley may have exhausted his horse. The Friday gallop in the mud may come back to haunt as I'd be unsurprised to see MTB run out of energy in the stretch. I'll have to reluctantly assume Woolley knows what he's doing in choosing MTB to win.

This is a tough race to handicap. Hopefully we'll get a good track and we'll see what we should have seen in the Derby--a heck of a race. Who fills the exotics. CC obviously. Who else is fit enough to be chugging at the end? A Lukas horse and Summer Bird might well sustain some sort of run. Best of handicapping luck to everyone!

Belmont

What a nice racing shaping up! Since I'm struggling putting together my next "injury" post, a few Belmont impressions for the fun of it. I have yet to look closely at the race, but, have followed these horses. Maybe will post a handicap of the race before post time. Initial and cursory thoughts.

1. Dunkirk: yesterday's Blood Horse video shows questionable physical condition, then Haskin today writes D "had to" gallop Thurs. as all he's done is "jog" and walk the shedrow since the last powder puff breeze. Probably they think the talent will gallop away from the field. My thinking: Pleacher has yet to adapt to post steroids.

2. Charitable Man: That was quite an impressive Peter Pan. Better glance at the PPs before rendering an opinion. Hmmm. Lightly worked horse, out to lunch trainer. Probably more likely to be injured than perform. Throw him out.

3. Mr. Hot Stuff: should be dangerous. I'ts maybe a little much to expect a polytrack horse to run on dirt for the first time in the slop at Churchill.

4. Chocolate Candy: would be shocked if he does anything but run well.

5. Summer Bird: trainer seems to have some ability.

6. Lukas Horses: Last breeze 9 days out. DW '90s stuff. Throw out.

7. Zito's Horses. will miss their steroids.

8. Mine That Bird: would think MTB behind the 8 ball due to the powder puff breezing since May 16(Edit: and here I'm looking at Calvin's last breeze taking it way past 4f!). Can a horse retain any speed on two :50 breezes in almost a month? Probably to a degree, but, vulnerable to a charge by a more recently conditioned animal. They've got those consistent, and apparently strong, 2 mile gallops putting MTB ahead of the field with basic fitness. We'll be seeing what that gets. But, really thinking the jock factor's the thing. Anybody watched Borel at Churchill of late? Doubt I've seen better riding in my 20+ years. Calvin will accurately measure this field. Will take some doing to beat the jock here, never mind the horse.

Contenders: MTB, Hot Stuff, Candy, Summer Bird. Probably Hot Stuff and Candy are more talented horses thant MTB. Is Hot Stuff trained for 1.5 miles? Knowing Eion Harty, probably otherwise. Without handicapping, on just bare impressions: predict Candy and MTB close to the wire and better jock prevails by a note.

Art's Monday Gallop

The camera person kept punching the wrong buttons, and overcast skies and time of day affect quality, but we did get these two short videos of Art's 6/2/09 gallop about 8:15 p.m. Large rider, small horse. Hopefully another video in two weeks will show a much stronger gallop, but this is about where we are right now. The first clip shows the end of mile #1. The second clip looks to be about :18/f pace in the midst of mile #2.

Post Race/Breeze Remodeling IX: More Review

The new 2008 Ford F350 on a 500 mile trip over the weekend averaged a very decent 15.6 mpg with help of the manual transmission and a lot of coasting. So, we're back, and now to tedious but necessary horse grunt work. Here is a review Post Race/Breeze Remodeling I-VIII with warning this is quickly typed and technical. I'll attempt a simple, more understandable wrap up next post. This is a shortened summary of how the thought process developed:

I: Nunamaker (Maryland Shin Study): Fracture Resistance (FR) depends on exercise load. Small increases in bone quality,size,density provide geometric additions to strength. "Appropriate" speed exercise "stimulates"(engages) bone remodeling that is "quick" and "immediate".

Speculate that in horses (as compared to humans) this remodeling involves more than osteo/blast/clast remodel.

During the event the mineral lattice compacts/ girds against force. Post event the lattice will rebound from this compaction.

The event also squeezes bone glue proteins against the lattice creating empty micro spaces around the existing glue. (speculation.).

II: Hansma: "Non-collagenous (bone glue) proteins exist as substantial contributors to the overall fracture toughness of bone."

Bone glue possibly is the muck left over from the chemical processes of (bone) collagen formation.

Post event, the micro spacing created by bone glue compaction is filled with more bone glue. This results both due to dilation of capillaries causing material to leak into the spaces, and because the empty spaces create a pressure equilibrium that sucks in the material.

Thus, the empty micro spaces created by event compaction refill. This is estimated to occur by 12-24 hrs. post event.

Estimate the event caused 5% micro spacing which fills in completely with new, additional material within 48 hours!

At 48 hours post event bone glue has returned to pre-event consistency BUT THERE IS MORE OF IT!

III: The event has caused heat build up and compaction. Post event several differing processes engage: inflammatory process, slight molecular and atomic reshaping and rearrangement, dilation of collagen, circulatory system speed up delivery of repair materials and engage repair of micro scarring and cell damage. Fill in of micro spacing with new bone glue, and commencement of osteo cast/blast reconstructive/new construction activity.

PLUS: Rebounding of compacted mineral lattice at cellular level!

IV: Want to conjure a model to provide an idea of post event condition of bone structure.

Inert solids (minerals included) gird and tighten at the atomic level in response to concussive force. Ditto in the mineralized lattice of bone structure.

This compaction works by the branches of the single cell lattice shortening(smashing into) slightly into their calcified connection points. (see illustration in 4/3/09 post.)

Thus, post event, millions of mineralized bone cells are in compacted, tightened, girded condition which creates a "push back" energy from the same millions of cells which subsequently (over time) "rebound" to their original positions.

V: Estimate: 5% mineral lattice contraction during the event and then gradual rebounding post event back to original size and shape over a period of time.

There is also an "inertia" in the opposite direction preventing (or retarding the rate of) bounce back.

Query how long (how much time) it takes for Effect #1 (bone glue) and Effect #2 (mineral lattice compaction) to return to pre-event states. This post estimates 3-5 days for the mineral bounce back and 2-3 weeks for bone glue.

VI: Thus, the "effects" or changes resulting from the event create a temporary increase in bone tissue strength (density).

Now the question of what occurs (what is the effect) of a subsequent speed event e.g. with a 3-5 day period or longer!

Answer: the subsequent event, depending on its timing, will serve to reinforce Effects #1 and 2, bone glue and mineral compaction. i.e. if we send our horse back out in 5 days and do appropriate speed work, the next speed work will serve to keep our lattice compacted, and bone glue pressure high!

Estimate the subsequent speed work needs to be faster than :15s and at least 3f.

The faster and longer the horse goes in this subsequent work, the greater the reinforcing effect.

VII This post surmises that while the greatest mineral lattice rebounding effect is within 3-5 days of the event, there is some rebounding all the way to 8 days out. Thus, if the horse breezes within 7 days of the event there will still be some reinforcing, saving effect.

What is an ideal post event time period for the next speed event--I believe Ivers got it right--4 days out.

Be aware that this covers reasons to breeze again in 4 days. There are significant reasons to avoid this that were omitted from this review post.

Training:

My horses have been working 2.25 miles per day. Will report as this work develops into race prep.