2010 Stats Day Phillips

Hamlet:

"...why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,

till he find it stopping up a bung-hole?

Horatio: "Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so."

Hamlet: "No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with

modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as

thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,

Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of

earth we make loam and why of that loam, whereto he

was converted, might they not stop a beer barrel?

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,

Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!"

When trespassing on another's turf like a home burglar may we take justification in this: "No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as thus:

The operative word above is "trace" with hopes of: "And likelihood to lead it". Leave to Mr. S. deal so eloquently with the tendency to avoid digging deep enough to get to the point.

And, with that fan fare:

Between March 1 and March 15 it looks as if Day Phillips sent her whole 25 stall stable to the track to do breeze work.

Click on her website: "workouts" "all horses" and start at March 1 to identify the 25 horses I followed through the year. How many were still racing/breezing in October? I.e. they survived without permanent injury to that point

11 were still hitting the track for speed work in Oct. and 14 were missing in action. None of these 14 appear on the work or race tab for Oct and Nov. Thus 11of 25 or 44% who comprised most of the stable in March were still at it in Oct. For sure, several of the 14 missing were retired due to poor performance or at end of their careers. The nice horse True Jean is an example. Estimate that 5 of the 14 quit for reasons other than injury.

Thus, giving every benefit of the doubt 16 of 25 would be still healthy in October. That's 64%. For the skeptical that might think I have deliberately manipulated this--I derived the figure 64% only after going through the machinations above. Fairly obviously, Day-Phillips is consistent and a 35% permanent injury rate/year in 2008 has become a 36% rate in 2010.

To agree that several horses would have been retired you may look at the group and see the poor performance in some e.g. one raced three times and finished 7,7,7 and then disappeared. Several others similar.

Conclusions on what Day-Phillips stats tell us, next post.

Training:

Mon. 12/27: we have been guilty of inconsistent tack work since the nice weather started early Oct. Hopefully this aft. was a beginning. The horse was tack for 15 min trot-walk.