And, What Of Quality Road

One of the best built horses ever, holder of a track record for 6.5f, high profile (seemingly) able trainer. What's the deal?

The popular line on QR was that he was suited to shorter distances and was unable to run 1.25 miles. The punditry will without a doubt decide the 2010 BC performance confirms this view.

On this blog, dig a little deeper. The distance QR was able to get in this race was barely a mile, and then a dying quail despite ballyhooed training where Plecher noted that since early Sept. they were preparing the horse for the distance.

And so, the non-performance of QR in the just completed 2010 BC Classic is an interesting subject for analysis. Leave this for future posts when this blog gets to the question of performance, except for this wild guess-- that the horse was utterly unprepared for the racing distance, and what he was asked to do in the race.

Now however, back to the question of Plecher style training in terms of injury avoidance, Qs I posed last week. QR might have stopped in the race due to bleeding or injury. Most likely he simply stopped because his breathing locked up due to lack of conditioning. As I'd noted, QR seems to have done just enough that there is fracture resistance, and probably the stop was due to other than injury. Continue next post.

Training: drastically oversleep and on an ideal day for galloping have time only for riderless work. After 48 hrs. off after a rigorous training week, and with rain incoming, it was decided to do a rigorous riderless w/o, and this one turned into one of our best.

Thurs. Nov. 11: WU + 6 x 2f riderless spurts near full speed. Full rests between. On a brisk day the horses were into it. Followed by 2 continuous miles, first one in :14s and :15s, and then we hit the point were they were tiring and slowed, and so the last mile I let them go at their own speed, probably :17s. They traveled overall at least 4 miles and a little more. The horse version today of the body builder's training to failure (i.e. you are unable to again lift the weight over your head due to muscle fatigue). The horse limitation is heat build up. Post w/o/post bath videos below. We call him Rollin' Rod for a reason. Rod is the larger horse, momma by Arch.