Horse Named What Say You

What Say You trained by Day-Phillips: 2010 Breeze/Race record

10 races

22 breezes

In the money finishes: 3,4,5,3,3,2,3,2

Speed works/month: 3.13 (note that to 7/17/10 she averaged 3.58 breeze/race/month.

Most breezes are of the :12.5/f variety

Races mostly 7f or 1 1/16 miles.

Never really improves performance, but looks as if she's injury free.

Here is her breeze race schedule with running commentary:

1/30/10 3f 3 yr. old filly shows up on the radar.

2/6: 3f 8 days later.

2/13: 4f now they go in 7 days (why the difference? is there really a plan here, or are they going on rider availability or something else?)

2/20 3f 7 days again

2/26 4f 6 days this time

3/4 4f 6 days again

3/10 5f 6 days

3/17 5f 7 days now

3/24 5f 7 days

4/3 4f 9 days lol--race coming, why do they wait?

4/10 7 days later Race #1 MSW finishes 6th--nice placing for an injury free first race. Instead of pressing the horse, they take it easy!

(Note: why is Day-Phillips a conventional trainer--in the crucial 17 days before the race the horse has one 4f breeze.)

4/24 5f in 1.01.8 personally I'd prefer to avoid waiting two weeks and then going right into a 5f in almost :12s. the horse has now had but 3 breezes in a month.

5/1 4f in 48.8. Looks as if they got away with the 4/24. they're right back at it 7 days later.

5/22 4f in 48.8 Or, maybe they failed to get away with it as this time they wait 3 weeks. very possibly a minor injury there.

5/28 Race #2 claiming at 7f. Finishes 2d. With a little different training, might this have been an easy win?

6/19 5f in 1.02.8 They've waited 3 weeks and done essentially a 1:03 breeze. Can they possibly expect any performance at this race:

6/24: Race #3 MC 7f finishes 3rd. This time they breeze 5 days before the race. inconsistency or had they produced a slight injury again?

7/10 4f 49.6 2 weeks

7/17 Race #4 MSW 6.5f finishes 2nd. Horse has responded somewhat. My guess--very consistent racing schedule and probably doing more work than her competitors. Will this horse get better now. Why or why not?

7/31 4f 50.8. 2 weeks since last. Slow time either due to 2 week layoff or are the buoyed by the 2nd place finish figuring unnecessary to do much?

8/5 Race #5 MSW 1 1/16 miles finishes 3rd. Again, they breezed 5 days out from the race. The two weeks post race off period is inviolate, but if a race comes up within 5 days of breeze, they go.

8/21 4f in 49.4 again they wait about 2 weeks.

9/5 4f in 48.6 15 days they wait. ??? Could of course again be a minor problem.

9/11 5f in 1:03 8

9/18

9/18: Race #6 MSW 1 1/16 miles finishes 3rd.

10/2 4f in 47.6 --the first reasonably fast w/o. then they wait 8 days to race.

10/10 Race #7 MSW 7f finishes 10th. What exactly happened--maybe need do more than 1 breeze every 3 weeks for performance? Or, just a throwout.

10/23 4f in 52.6. Two weeks later essentially a non-breeze.

10/31 Race #8 MSW 7f finishes 5th.

11/13 4f in 51.6 they are now babying the horse between races. Probably the opposite of what's necessary here for performance.

11/20 Race #9 MSW 1 1/16th miles 4th.

12/5 Race #10 MSW 1 1/8 mile finishes 3rd.

Conclusions: Original intent was to take a look at another group of 10 horses from the 2010 Day Phillips Stable. Unnecessary. The training of What Say You indicates Day Phillips does in 2010 exactly what she was doing in 2008. What is that? As Tom Ivers once observed--these trainers that say they have 20 years experience--what they really have is one year which they repeat 20 times. I think what we see with What Say You is possibly the minimal injury avoiding protocol. While to me this training is highly deficient in terms of performance, it's very consistent all the way through the for the horse in terms of injury avoidance. It's minimalist injury avoidance training in my world, but in the world of the trainer, she probably does more speed work with the horse than most of her peers. To her, she possibly thinks she's doing a lot, maybe to the point of overdoing it, as you see Day-Phillips inexplicably back off this horse at strange times.

The horse never gets a sustained break. Rather, the rest is always post race. Again, lots that could be said in getting performance out of the horse. In terms of injury, if I'd taken the trouble, would guess Day Phillips has the same decent injury rate. Primary reasons: 1. She does minimal injury avoiding work, and 2. She declines to press them at any point.

Training:

Sun 12/26: in frosty conditions the horse did 4 miles of riderless trot-gallop. The older horse has a bruised foot. Rod's first "refusal" w/o. Basically just refused to gallop unless I was within 10 yds of him hurling grenades at his butt. Weather looking good. Tack work recommences tomorrow.