August 31 Farm Report

The last report was August 3 the day that Art came up limping from his hoof bruise and the post speculated whether this might be a 1 day or 1 week thing. It took a full two weeks to heal the bruise and had me cursing those thin bladed Capwell brand shoe nails that American Breeders Supply (Lexington, KY) kept sending us, although we'd requested the normal size.

As it turns out Capewell Race Nails in size 4 1/2 lack a normal size blade and come only in the thin size, and so the folks at American Breeders were unable to send what we'd requested.

Capewell sizes 3.5, 4 and 5 come in normal size blades. 4.5 only thin. Of course, 4.5 is what we need at the farm to keep on the hoofs through the mud. Ridiculous. We are doing with the size 5 Capewells now, a too long nail that is difficult to drive. Why the 4.5 thin blades--they look smart in the finishing process; nice good looking job for the farrier never mind they barely hold the shoe on. They used to import Australian nicely balanced, perfectly bladed, easily driven, tight holding Australian nails. The Aussies figured it. American made Capewell--out to lunch.

But, I digress. Two weeks into Art's hoof problems he was OK when the 8 days of rain started. 13 of the 31 August days were too muddy to gallop at the farm with 8 days beginning about 8/18 so wet we were unable to do anything. That was the period of our 7 inches of rain. We're still drying out from that one.

Art thus was off 3 weeks, and two days ago suffers his latest calamity. Art has been prone to this from day #1--we just get going with him, and, something happens--typically precocious animal. This time he gets severely kicked in the middle of a rear cannon. Decide he's OK and continue the w/o. Next night we are about to trot him under tack right before dark and he has sprung a shoe on the same rear leg that was kicked. We went ahead with the trot, but in reapplying the shoe noticed Art avoided resting his weight on that leg. Was it a bruise from the sprung shoe or a problem from the kick the night before?

Next evening during the riderless warm up to the w/o there is a barely perceptible hitch at the trot in the same rear leg. Again--sole bruise or bone problem from kick? Of course these two problems would happen with same leg. We decide its a sole bruise--minor thing, and go riderless and miss another day of tack with Art.

So, were are we on Sept. 1? Rod the 3 year old made nice progress all through August despite the weather. He is about were I'd supposed all along at this time. Unlike his compadre Art Rod has missed all of 3 days training in two years due to non-weather problems. Rod is on the verge of big race prep workouts, and we'll see these, weather willing in Sept. Art is playing catch up. We'd expect to have him back in fettle by Oct. 1.

The weather and Art's problems have slowed us in August. We're expecting winter around here by early Oct. and we're about to hit the typically wet months of Sept. and Oct. With us starting to get ready just as racing season ends, the resolve weakens a bit. But, we are now galloping fast at full weight of 155 lbs. rider. That's encouraging and much farther then we've been with these two. Sept. will be a transitional month hopefully toward the race track. We'll see how it goes!

Training:
Fri. 8/28: Too muddy for tack work. We decide on a fully speed riderless workout leaving a little to continue tack tomorrow. 4 x 3f full speed as fast as they could go.
Sat. 8/29:
Art: Trot 1.2 miles with a sprung left rear shoe.
Rod: Trot gallop 1.2 miles slow, about 1/2 each.
Sun. 8/30:
Art: 2 miles riderless in :16s. Concern over condition of rear leg scotches tack work. Minor problem, I think!
Rod: Graduates from size 6 Thoro'bred Level Grips to size 7 which have significantly more mass and depth of fullering than the size 6. The 7s give a big horse such as Rod much more gripping power. This night however we have applied only 1 of 4 as we hit the track. We have 3 long toes, 1 short one and different size shoes, lol. We decided to let the horse dictate the workout with this mess on his hoofs. 1.7 miles total volume--Rod decides on about 1/2 trot, 1/2 gallop in :19s.

Travers

I dialed in the Travers only post race being encouraged a bit that even a great horse such as Quality Road needs to be trained for the distance, although I'm guessing surface conditions hardly did any favors for QR. And, indeed a light hoofed Birdstone plows on through the mud. I briefly looked at Summer Bird's PPs. Nothing spectacular, except he trains steadily since the first of the year. Keep 'em running!, My other thought--if Hold Me Back had any other trainer...but this you could say about most of them.

Training:
Thurs. 8/27: was going to go in the morning, but horses broke into a 10 min full speed pasture romp this eve. we let it go as a workout. standing water from the latest rains.
Fri. 8/28: ground conditions. again we can get more done riderless than tack. and, Art needs to get in some fast licks since the layoff. Planned 2f heats that turned into 3 as we're unable to stop 'em. should have aborted this earlier--4 x 3f in light mud as fast as they could go. Mistake on my part. Never improvise up. Art luckily survived the mistake. easily could have pulled something with the 3 week layoff.

Training

Mon. 8/24: Both horses did riderless spurts to 90% speed for 10 min. Tack: Art: 1 mile trot with a few strides of gallop. Rod. 1 mile trot-gallop.
Tues: 8/25 Off for 36 (instead of 48) hrs.
Wed. 8/26: morning, right before rain starts. good timing for once!
Art: 1.6 miles Trot-gallop
Rod: 1.6 miles mostly gallop in :21s

Training

Training:
Thurs. 8/20 Off, weather.
Fri. 8/21 Off. Could have gone. Still quite wet.
Sat. 8/22: Back at it. Art ok. Total Art off time--3 weeks. Off and on riderless play for 10 min in mud for both horses. Tack: Art walks 5/8 mile. Rod trot-walks a mile after 8 days off.
Sun. 8/23: 10 min of 8 x 1.5f at about 3/4 speed riderless, mostly play. Tack: Rod: trotted 1/2m+1/2m. Art: Trot-walk 1 mile.

And So...

7 inches of rain since Saturday in KCMO. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!! We lose another week. And, you go outside and it's late September temperature wise. Safely predict this will get worse. Could be a good winter to head South.

At any rate despite the weather both our youngsters are now carrying weight at speed, and that represents considerable progress that will allow us to work around weather much more easily when the only speed work we could do was riderless. Thus, we're keeping our heads up and looking straight ahead. We'll get there eventually. Ground conditions have been so bad since 8/14 that we could do absolutely nothing including riderless.

I'd like to leave anatomy to the ananomtists. Aside from this technical stuff making blogging much more difficult than it should be, in an attempt to explain literally everything you get into some stuff which is quite far afield. But, there's a little ways to go yet. I am determined to get to the bottom of this stuff best I can. When it's done, I will feel a lot better thinking that I really know what to do. There will be--seriously knocking on wood--no injured Nicanors or Dunkirks around these parts when we finally get to the track.

I've concluded over the last posts that bone growth, or bone size is other than a concern in terms of the exercise program. I think that needed to be established, and will be helpful in going forward. What's up next? I'd like to take a look back and conduct a brief summary to date, and then on to the crucial concept of detraining.

Training:
Wed. 8/19, Thurs. 8/20: Off. Weather.

Bone Size and FR

A few bone cross sections photos this post illustrate my belief that bones probably have genetic, pattern, function etc. limits to their growth regardless of exercise stimulus. The familiar (on this blog) calf cannon photos above show inward bone growth of calves trotted five minutes a day for 4 or 5 months compared to the confined. I'm thinking that most growth occurs in the early stages of progressive exercise, and most of this growth is inward.

Some of the physiological limits can be seen by the next illustration which shows
the osteons, and also collagen layers both outside and inside the osteons. Probably bone growth will occur mostly in these external and internal collagen layers. The total number of inside layers will be limited so that enough spongy bone remains to cushion the medullar cavity. Possibly the outside layering just under the periosteum will be limited as unfettered growth away from the osteons might destabilize the structure. I think that there will be some outside growth but that most of this occurs early in the exercise program.


As to the question whether osteons will grow in size in response to exercise, these slides of actual bone show the limits of that process as we see osteons compacted in tight quarters seemingly without room to expand!


If my suppositions are true then, the important growth in bone size takes place earlier in our exercise program than the final honing down of the cannon bones to race appropriate FR, i.e. we will have at that stage other issues than overall bone size or thinking we may thicken the osteons or increase their numbers.

This leaves for our speed work program to FR what has already been covered:

increases in density of the matrix, bone glue volume and calcification process (to which more thought needs to be given. The good news of all this is that we are therefore probably talking about remodeling process that we can actually influence by what we do on the racetrack!

Tues. 8/18: training recommences in the mud for both horses tonight.

Training:

Wed. 8/12: Art. Off. Rod: .8 +.8+.8 in :19s.
Thurs. 8/13: Art. Off. Rod: .8 +.8+.8 mostly in :17s.
Fri. 8/14: Art. Off. Rod. .8(WU) + .8 in :13.5s + .8 in :17s finishing with 1.5f in :13.5.
Sat. 8/15: Off. Raining.
Sun. 8/16: 1.75 inches. Off.
Mon. 8/17: Mother of all rains for around here. 13 hrs. steady medium rain, gages topping off at 5 inches. Rain through Thurs. according to forecasts. Off.

More Osteons

Osteons appear to have a set size. Instead of growing larger in response to exercise stress, they maintain their pattern and space. How do we know? There are some limiting factors on osteon growth.

Notice in the photo the outer "cement" which certainly would seem a limiting factor on expansion. Note also the crucial osteon structure named "lamella"which are the concentric circles of bone collagen that layer one on top of the other from the middle outward to form the main structure and body of the osteon. We know in humans that depending on the bone being discussed that there are a certain specific set number of these lamella circles ranging from four to twenty.

Does a process perhaps occur, where in response to stress, an extra lamella layer or two might develop on the outer portion just under the cement? Simple logic indicates that such extra layering on the outer portion of the osteons would immediately bump into neighboring osteons and structures. Conclude that osteons then have a set predetermined size that varies very little regardless of exercise.

The next question: does exercise stress increase the number of osteons and therefore increase bone thickness or size by sheer numbers? Again, I believe the answer to be in the negative.

We know from Nunamaker's shin study that exercise will cause new bone to be laid under the periosteum in the shin area. We may thus surmise that there will be some increase in the number of osteons outward, and I'd further suspect in the race horse there will be substantial osteonal thickening inward as soft spongy trabecular bone near the medullar (marrow) cavity is replaced by hard cortical bone in response to stress.

But, this sort of growth would appear to have very strict logical limits--i.e. we get a small amount of bone growth only to a certain point. When that point is reached we are without any further growth regardless of amount of stress (aside: I'd be interested to feel the cannons of one of those 100 mile Arabian racers.)

What are the limits on osteon numbers? I'd suspect there is a close relationship between the genetic pattern by which bone generates itself and the form, function and construction of the overall skeleton. Cannon bones e.g. must have a certain size including thickness in order to properly adjoin with the knee carpal bones above them and the ankle-fetlock joint below. In this sense bone size is related to and controlled by function. And thus, the explanation why the cannons of my much worked 14 year old, though they feel a little stouter than my three year olds, feel to the touch comparatively the same size.

Since osteons appear to grow only marginally in size and number, is there anything about our exercise program which does affect the osteons, next post.

Training:
Mon. 8/10: Off
Tues. 8/11:
Art: flunks his second trot test showing as much lameness as a week ago. We're now in the 9th day. He keeps re injuring by romping and playing. This is where a stall at the farm would be helpful. Probably looking at another week here. Needless to say, a big interruption.

Rod: After Monday's .75 inch rain it's too wet to gallop. We decide on riderless play in the paddock--about 3 miles mostly in 3f heats in :14s with some faster spurting. About a 3/4 fast workout to permit galloping to continue tomorrow.

Training

Faisig Tipton Saratoga photos on Paulick. Very interesting! Longer I'm around, thinking more more the more that the most important conformation trait might be pasterns. Identify the perfect pasterns, if these can breathe they should be able to run.

Training:

Thurs. 8/6:
Art: Off. Hoof bruise.
Rod: Speed day: 3 x .8 mile; middle heat in :15s finishing last 3f in :14s.

Fri. 8/7: Off

Sat. 8/8:
Art: Off
Rod: 3 x .8 mile; :19s.

Sun. 8/9:
Art: Flunks trot test. Improvement but still slightly gimpy.
Rod: Speed day: backed off a bit due to the recent large increase in volume of continuous galloping made possible due to getting lead changes. Additionally had shown some slight softness of tissue around check ligament areas after last Thurs. work. 3 x .8 mile with but one 1.5f spurt in :13.5.

Mon. 8/10: Off. Rod's legs are tight this time.

Osteons, Exercise, And Fracture Resistance

Think I'm getting a fairly good handle now on this whole issue of FA. The fog is clearing to the point I'm able to criticize some of the scattered research I run into including some 2006 Osteon research from Dept. of Physical Education (think exercise physiology) at University of PA which shall appear ahead at the appropriate point.

The question of the moment is whether exercise impacts the osteons as to their size, volume, number and density resulting in increases in strength of bone materials AND whether the exercise schmetic affects whatever is the process.

Helps to understand osteons. In addition to the Wikepedia last post I ran into this:
http://www.trinity.edu/rblyston/bone/intro2.htm

highly informative page, and, too bad the other pages fail to appear!

Address questions one by one:

1. Does exercise increase the number of Osteons and hence the size or volume of the bone?

A miscellaneous thought might be--sure, lets increase Osteons on the theory that more are better and size increases strength. We conceive of this notion under the general idea of adaption of tissues to stress. Muscles get larger in the gym. Click on to Mr. Olympia contest on You Tube for 2007 when "mass" was in. Do bones also get larger like these muscles?

Have you listened to those NFL broadcasts complaining that the massive linemen get injured because of their little bones? They've increased their muscle mass beyond what the bones will carry. Probably there are reasons for lack of bone size corresponding to increases in muscle size which apply also to the cannon bones of our horses.

(As I'm suddenly in a hurry will continue tomorrow)--but, give the hint, there are bone size limits based on genetics, design, and function that will dictate the number of possible osteons.

Training:
Wed: 8/5 We begin the 3 day cycle per Preston Burch training. For what it's worth, I highly recommend Burch training.
Art: Expected to find the bruised hoof almost healed. Instead he comes walking up at the limp. Previously he'd only limped at the trot. Regression probably caused by romping with his buddies. Might have to confine the horse, we'll see. This will take 3 more days minimum. Hopefully we're without a coffin bruise.
Rod: slow work(:20s) in prep for speed tomorrow: .8 (length of our track this year) + .8 +.4 miles

Rachel Alexandra

Guess I should say a word about R.A. and all the hoopla. Credit where credit is due. She is a nice filly with that perfect type of conformation permitting weight to easily to bound around a race track. For me the Haskell was maybe the most entertaining race of the year. I perk up when I notice a whole field running instead of coasting on the backstretch.

How to evaluate? For opener's, she's good. But, she also has some advantages. You'd guess that R.A. comparatively has the ideal sort of light hoof for a muddy race track. Add this to the filly weight advantage, and you have a filly skimming over a track while the hoofs of her competitor colts strike just a little more deeply into the surface with each and every stride.

Then, there's the Borel factors. Watch Calvin Borel at Churchill through a full card these days and you'll see some of the best riding ever. In a zone, probably Nafzger taught with Street Sense, and the result is perfect pace judgment, perfect balance, with professional attention to detail down to the way Borel holds the reins. Notice his style. I've never tried it. Instead of keeping a snug hold with his fists against the horses neck pushing the neck with every stride--which probably creates a little more effort for the horse since it is having to fight against the pushing on its neck--Borel holds the reins slightly lose and away from the neck.

But there's one more R.A. advantage, and this possibly is the most important. I believe (without checking) that R.A. is the only horse in that field that comes close to consistent racing over the last year. She's Exhibit A of my constant admonition--keep 'em racing, they will win. It's like a snow ball going down hill--confidence builds, conditioning builds, technique builds, and so on.

So, how to evaluate the Haskell win. Give her 3 lengths for Borel, 3 lengths for experience and 2 for the track and weight, does she still win? Believe so. She's good, but those advantages will even out on another day.

As to Jess Jackson I'll be charitable since I'm one of those believing we need to open up the sport to others besides Jesus Christ. In deference to Jackson's age I'm going to stifle...but will maintain my oft stated position racing fillies and mares against colts. What really is the point, and should the sport in the moment worry more about keeping its head down and avoiding Barbaro's and 8Belles than promoting a filly stars with increased chances of catastrophe due to lighter training than her competitors? The original owners may have had this right. More on Osteons tomorrow.

Training:
Mon. 8/3: Art off with his hoof bruise. Rod: 1.4 miles mostly gallop finishing last 2f in slightly sub:14. Break through for this horse.
Tues. 8/4: Off
Wed: 8/5: we got more like 2 drops of rain instead of the predicted 2 inches. Rest of August before us. We should make good progress. Wed. training ahead.

Farm Report

"...a languorous pursuing,
hard retrieving, nauseous doing..."

the above line from Goethe came to mind trying to put together the next post on Osteons. More technical stuff. I'm in process of "retrieving", and trying to make sense before posting.

And so, thought this post segueys to the August 1 evaluation of where we are racing our horses.

I promised myself at the outset of the year that I'd avoid bitching about the weather. But, what's happening is severely testing that resolution. For much of the year there's been a near permanent dome of precipitation over KC that launches an inch or two every 4 to 7 days, take your pick. Occasionally I save the particularly disgusting ones from Accuweather such as those below:








The one just left is our latest, 2 inches expected over next two days.

With any sort of normal, or what used to pass for normal around here, weather we'd have been racing by May. Here it is August going into September and we have yet to hit a race track.

Believe I have over the last few days come to a fairly firm decision on how we will proceed. It's difficult. Going to the nearest track besides Iowa which ends soon, involves a 300 mile trip, giving up the farm, stalling the horses and still being subject to constant track closings due to weather, using our financial resources which are very limited at this point--I used to make $8-10,000/month stopping foreclosures. Over the last year we are without foreclosures to stop--and so on.

Our choice is between a dramatic move of the operation, to St. Louis, eg. and giving up this farm and what I have decided on, which is merely sticking the toe back in the water and proceeding one little step at a time. We will thus decline a move to a distant race track for now, and proceed in the next week to make brief trips just to get going again, see how it goes, and proceed from there.

Training--a hoof debacle:
Sat. 8/1 Off due to weather.
Sun. 8/1: Get to the farm and both horses have lost front shoes. Both reapplied but too late to do tack work. We do a riderless play workout in the mud intending tack work next day. Horses do a lot of full speed spurts over about 3 miles off and on work. Tough workout, as our riderless have been. Next morning...
Art comes to the feed bucket severely limping. He'd lost his newly applied shoe in the mud--they keep sending us thin instead of normal horseshoe nails--obviously severely bruised--bute, painstakingly reshod, booted--this horse has such small hoofs, and the one in question has given us constant problems over the months with abscesses, bruises, lost shoes, etc. Will find out tonight if the bruising is a 1 day thing or a week thing.

Osteons And Exercise

Focus first on the osteons within the larger bone context. Osteons are the next basic structures up from the microscopic forming the length and breadth of the bone material. The Wikepedia rendition is found here:

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

The osteons are several millimeters long, .02 millimeter in diameter, contain patterned collagen in various states of mineralization with a "plasticity" involving the ongoing constructive/deconstructive processes (osteoblasts/clasts) that suggests changes in response to stress.

Consider first their size--"several millimeters would be short instead of long within the cannon bone. The thickness, a near microscopic .02 millimeter, suggests numerous strands with the cylindrical tubes connected by a weaker interosteonal collagen. How does our exercise protocol affect these structures?

Possible questions:

1. increases the size of the osteons, OR
2. increases the number of osteons, OR
3. both.

As you may imagine, human orthopaedics is very little concerned with these questions. The insufficient stress of human activities would never bring these factors into play. Different story, of course, for our equines, where number and size of osteons MIGHT be a factor to consider in achieving fracture resistance (FR).

Needless to say we are without any research information, though there has been some speculation of the equine sort.

Tom Ivers comes to mind where in Phase I (slow gallop phase) Ivers advocated lengthy slow gallops up to 6 miles per day at a 3:00-3:30/mile rate of speed. Ivers called these lengthy gallops "money in the bank" in terms of gradual build up in tissue strength.

But, where did Ivers get this notion that increases in workload might result in increases in tissue strength? I read and listened to most of what Ivers published, and am unable to recall any analysis of cause and effect within the bone or collagenous tissues. Were these notions of Ivers merely intuitive?

My conclusion, after due consideration, would be--yes and no. Certainly the concept of tissue adaptation in response to stress or training is obvious to anyone that's been in a gym. Yet, this begs the question. Do we really get stronger tissue or bone materials from--say--galloping six miles a day or going on with Phase II and III of the Ivers program? Based solely on the work of Tom Ivers, we don't really know.

Huh? you say. But consider--is it conceivable that Ivers' six mile gallops, instead of increasing the strength of tissue for sprint racing, instead caused collagen to be laid in a different and very possibly weaker pattern than would sprint work? There is, after all, quite a different effect between the flicking of slower galloping and the pounding that results from furlongs in :12s. What I will post here after will indicate that the answer to this question may well be in the affirmative.

The moral of the story is that when we're talking about injury to our animals, catastrophic breakdowns and the like, it would be enormously helpful if we get beyond the sort of intuitiveness in Ivers, even if it is informed intuition, and ellicit precisely what is going on. At present this amounts mostly to speculation, which will continue next post.

Training:
Thurs. 7/30: Ground conditions force choice between slow trot gallop or riderless speed work. We opt for riderless speed in a light w/o so we may continue with light galloping next day. 4 x 2f full speed in mud as horses get surprising traction. About 3 miles total volume.
Fri. 7/31: Finally dry. 1.6 miles of trot- gallop for each, with a strong finish.
Sat. 8/1: One day of dry followed by another inch of rain. Off