Achieving Fracture Resistance In The Day-Phillips Stable!

How is Day-Phillips doing this year results wise? Guessing,--other then well. But, check the Woodbine trainer standings:

http://www.woodbineentertainment.com

Unlisted. Might take a another look at Day-Phillips when and if I ever get to "performance". For now, suffice to say, were I an owner of a horse with Day-Phillips I might be continually frustrated understanding my horse could do so much more in terms of each race prep. There's the inexplicable stuff--here a horse breezes 5 days out from a race, there 7 days, there 8 days, there not at all. Hardly ever do they breeze at race speed and never at race distance, etc. etc. Numerous possible reasons, yet so consistently inconsistent in terms of prepping for performance you begin understand--if possessed of such knowledge--that this lady has very little feel for the performance aspect of athletics.

Yet, in terms of injury prevention we give a good round of applause. Day-Phillips in both 2008 and 2010 has the very best injury record of the many trainers analyzed, and is right in there with O'Gorman. If you send a horse to Day-Phillips you have some assurance lacking in most others --your horse might actually last a couple of years.

So, what may we conclude from what Day-Phillips does with her stable.

Let's first identify:

1. All breezes are in the 12.5/f range that I have pegged as the minimum necessary to get an FR (fracture resistance) training effect.

2. All breezes are at least 4f, identified as the minimum distance to get an FR effect.

3. There is for all horses a frequency of breeze race almost every 7 days for 3-5 months into the campaign.

What is being discussed here is #3 above. What "frequency" of speed work is necessary for FR?For the horse "What Say You" a frequency of about 3.6 speed works/month was achieved January through July and thereafter to December about 3.1/month. Note--a drop of in the last half of the campaign of .5 per month means that in the last half of the year the horse essentially had only about 2.7-2.8 speed works/month. Deep into the campaign Day Phillips sharply drops the frequency of her speed work--which partially explains her performance problems.

BUT there is an interesting pattern for the Day-Phillips horses in terms of speed work frequency. In the first part of the year the go every week--every 7 days--like clockwork, and, but for the two weeks off she gives after the early races, they continue this pattern for 2-3 months after racing begins. To further hone this--the early races are spaced so that you could manipulate her frequency average fairly close to 4.3 times a month which is every 7 days.

The conclusion of this is that Day-Phillips ACHIEVES FRACTURE RESISTANCE with her stock BEFORE she backs off the speed work.

Now, if you are perceptive having read every word of this blog, the above statement is quite a revelation concerning the "circumstantial evidence" we have for FR minimums. In the Day-Phillips stable this is achieved with every 7 day speed work!!!

Training:

Mon. 12/27: 15 min. walk-trot.

Tues. 12/28: 20 min walk-trot--mostly trot.