Dec. 1 Farm Report

Faust: "I wish a tally daily to be taken
how much the trench in hand is gaining room."

--Goethe

The "trench" at the farm has been gaining very little room, although we're presently in two weeks of good weather, an act we've seen played out repeatedly. We get the horses just back into it then the next monsoons come in and knock out the track for 2 or 3 weeks.

The mid-November rains came as I'd built up some hope for a trainable December--if we could gallop through November followed by a decent December we'd be on the way. Never happened of course, and possibly this caused the final mental transformation in yours truly in terms of trying to train here in KCMO.

I have now basically given up the idea that, due to wet climate, we can make any progress at all at the farm, and will merely keep the horses in as good a condition as weather permits until we can determine a track situation and move them there.

How is this latter aspect going? We're considering several things--Eureka, although I'm unable to imagine after two years of constant rain without any race meets that there's any surface left there--Will Rogers in February, St. Louis starting in April, or Prairie Meadows.

A major concern is that after all this non-racing time that the horses still have their speed. I am worried about that in terms of major track competition. At any rate, there's nothing going on racing-wise within hailing distance at the moment, and we thus have the luxury of sitting back and preparing to the extent we can.

Next bone post hopefully up later today.

Training:
Sat. 11/28: Art: .8 +.8 trot. Rod: the suddenly spooky three year old a dangerous ride of late. Walk-trot for 10 min.
Sun. 11/29: Art: .8 +.8 mostly trot with ending with a 2f of strong gallop. The track is still only about 1/2 usable due to mud. Rod: tack work cancelled due to dark. Horse was driven riderless intermittently as fast as conditions allowed--short bursts of :14s.
Mon. 11/30: Off