Mon. Misc.

My first order of business today is to congratulate Bill Pressey on his superb post concerning Uncle Mo and Comma At The Top. Uncle Mo is of interest as having close kinship and body build with our own Rolling one. Interesting training by Peter Miller! Four more days of winter in KC and it's going out with a bang. Working on next post!

Training:

Off due to hard ground except finally got a pasture romp over the grass on Sun. 1/30. Several nice spurts from the Rollin' Rodney.

1923-2011 Kudos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Elliott_Burch

Digestion

Here is an interesting article. A little obsessive perhaps, but also state of the art in that it at least indicates that most of us probably already know most of what we need to know about athletics and digestion, and also health. Embedded here, if you read carefully, is an explanation why our horses generate their own B vitamins, and also that we might want to supplement them with the energy producing B vitamins as production by digestion might be problematical.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/you_are_what_you_absorb

Fri. Misc.

Whoa! Just drafted next FR post, about to punch the publish button, and noticed a "comment" on last post. Will take a closer look at the comment which anticipates the exact subject of this post just drafted. Post it all later.

Training: 48 degrees in KC today but ground and ice was hard as a rock this morning. Will evaluate ground conditions later this aft.

A Fracture Resistance Formula

Doubtful that Larry Bramlage DVM himself would or could declare some immutable law of fracture resistance (FR). Horse racing is without reliable stats and also research except the dated Maryland Shin Study. Literally no one knows what absolutely must be done with a horse to prevent catastrophic fracture.

This ignorance results partly from slow progress in human research where only in the last 6 or 7 years has consideration been given to bone development at the nano level. That bone diagnostic instrument in the Hansma lab is but 4 or 5 years old, and the Max Planck Institute bone nano study is from 2008. If I'm reading correctly in human research, they've a ways to go.

There's also the difficulty of dealing with this--questions of science-- in the daily blog context where by the time you finally get to the end you forget what you posted at the beginning.

What I can say here is that a lot was looked at very closely, and the available evidence does seem to point in a certain direction, hopefully accurately interpreted! And, I might add that the conclusions also result from my own observations since the year 1982, and also breezes in the hundreds with numerous horses and a few races over the years.

It is somewhat relevant how my thought on this subject evolved over the 3 years on the blog. Although training since1987, at the outset of this blog in 2006, I had never myself done speed work at a greater interval than every 5 days, usually my frequency intervals were the Tom Ivers every 4 days with some dabbling with Preston Burch training at 3 day speed intervals.

As such at the outset of this Q on the blog, I had little direct idea of where the "minimum frequency" of speed work is for FR I did have additionally the large sample involved in miscellaneous observations, first as a handicapper, and later on the back stretch. From day one as an oblivious fan it started to occur that the track trainers were quickly injuring most of their stock.

What's interesting to me is that all of my info--the direct look at physiology, the trainer stats, my experience as a trainer and as an observer of other trainers--all point to the same conclusion, which is that the minimums probably are around 7 days. Trainers who are breezing their horses every 8 days or 9 days or more are injuring every horse, and that's virtually a guarantee.

This all being noted--and, with a desire to get as close to science as I personally can--it's necessary to develop a formula and then conduct just a few tests of it, which I hope to do over the next posts. Then possibly we may say, if you do speed work with your horse every 3,4,5,6, 7 or more days, this or that is likely to happen to your horse.

Training:

Tues. 1/25: riderless in deep show with some decent bursts for about 7 min.

Wed. 1/26: Off. Crunchy hard snow now. Unable to repeat without bruising.

Thurs. 1/27. Off. Office business. Melt is on!

Getting The FR Horse

Last post dealt with quibbles about the trainer stats, accuracy problems, interpretive problems etc. I'd originally gone back to looking at trainer stats to see whether those stats might support conclusions based on physiology.

Two sources,--I'm supposing-- of info concerning minimum requirements of fracture resistance (FR):

1. Direct evidence that we have concerning physiology, and

2. Circumstantial evidence provided by available trainer statistics.

We'd like to put these together, see if one supports the other, and then hopefully discern:

1. minimum requirements for FR, and

2. ideal requirements for FR.

Simplistic of course since this blog has dealt with the subject for two years. The aim is to arrive in general with an intelligent injury preventing exercise program.

Start this off by reviewing that in the numerous posts putting together the physiology of FR on this blog, as info piled on info, so difficulty in concluding also piled up. Yet, based on several of the processes operating on the equine cannon bone under stress, as perceived and interpreted, these pointed to a 7 day period as a minimum frequency much like the trainer stats.

To be sure, for some of the "processes" operating, "calcification/ossification" being an example, no conclusion was ever reached for the reasons of lack of definite info, and to avoid going to far astray with the posts.

And so, with regard physiology, I have left it and rest on the conclusions that I did make. I think they are enough, and probably fairly accurate.

First note that all of the physiology pointed to a more than every "8 day" frequency (of speed work) rate to be insufficient for FR. And, the trainer stats seems to point exactly in that direction. If the trainer is doing speed work on average only every 9 days, this is probably an individual that is going to injure the horse most likely sooner than later.

At 8 days the physiology pointed to some slight benefits. The FR producing processes were in their last gasps on day 8 post race, and yet, I am supposing the physiology shows that a horse that consistently works at sufficient distance and speed every 8 days over a lengthy period probably will eventually get to FR.

But---and, but again--the 8 day period is problematical. The horse will get there only after months and months of it, and only if it luckily avoids injury in the mean time.

The next is an every 7 day period--both physiology and stats also show 7 days to be problematical. There is still physiologically on day 7 a lingering positive FR effect, but it's weak, and significantly weaker than day 6 and day 5. Again, in terms of consistent work over time however, everything shows that speed work every 7 days will eventually get the horse there, again with threat of injury before you get there.

Frequency every 6 days in the manner of Dutrow seems to me to be a common sense conservative exercise schematic for those thinking working a horse every 4 or 5 days is too much. It is an extremely educated guess to me to think that working every 6 days will get the horse to FR geometrically faster than 7 or 8 days as long as we also understand that everything also seems to show that's it's much safer to breeze every 4 or 5 days than it is 6.

Training:

1/22: riderless 7 minutes in the snow with bursts.

1/23: Off

1/24: Off

1/25: riderless in the snow. Rodney was into it initially and performed about three 2f bursts as fast as the snow allowed before succumbing back to refusal mode. Was decent enough work for the conditions. Melt coming.

Trainer Stats and Frequency: Conclusions

"The stats show that the dividing line is between 7 and 8 days."

From my last post.

Can we with definitiveness say that the stats show that speed work every 7 days is enough to achieve fracture resistance (FR) in our horses? To arrive at what is definite or "true", scientific law as opposed to theorem or fact, we question everything and must answer all Qs. in affirmatively in support.

The first thing to Q about the bold typed statement above is the word "stats". I have been posting about "trainer stats", and yet, these are anything but "statistics" in a scientific sense, as "stats" here were merely information taken off of trainer websites with numerous suppositions made to arrive at "the stats". And, even had we been able to glean perfect stats, we know that statistics can be made to show almost anything depending on how we bend them. The point of course, the phrase "the stats" is problematical and being so puts everything else into Q.

With that disclaimer, it's also necessary to note the "the stats" as interpreted, support everything that I'd always supposed as being true: trainers who do speed work more than 7 days apart--and many do it 8, 9,10,11,12 days apart, or, never except for racing--injure most of their stock, and most very quickly. Whereas, when you see the rare trainer out there doing more, in the manner of yours truly, you still get injuries, but, as Tom Ivers would have phrased it, these are a lot more sincere these days than in past days of our ignorance. Doing frequent speed work--for years in the Ivers mode of every four days--I never had any injury at all that was other than a direct result of some stupidity generally of the "failure to control your rider" sort. Although the sum total of my races is small my breeze work was comparatively enormous, and I never ever had a horse of mine injured from directly resulting from the work the horse was doing. My experience was the opposite--my horses did enormous volumes of consistent speed work without any injury at all over years and years.

And so, here is what I can say about the trainer stats:

Indeed they show, in support of my personal careful observations, that your trainers that are failing speed work once a week have a high rate of injury for their stables. Those breezing only occasionally or only racing have a 100% injury rate/year. Those breezing stupidly and failing to control their riders also have near 100% injury rate.

And, I am suspecting, based alone on these stats, that the dividing line between FR and non-FR for most horses probably is in the 7 day range. Breeze every 7 days, do so consistently for 2 or 3 months, and your probably going to get an FR horse.

But then we have trainers as Day-Phillips who get their FR horse, start racing and the exercise schematic goes out the window. As in human athletics such as professional baseball, the experts are just now starting to catch on to the necessity of in-season training. This, of course, brings up a Q yet to be dealt with--the Q of "de-training". Once FR is achieved, how quickly is it lost unless the work continues?

One more observation has to be made--we have so few samples of such as O'Gorman, who breezes at a higher rate, and on the soft European surface no less--and insignificant samples as my own work--those few of us who do exceed the normal stats--that it is impossible to say what e.g. is the "ideal" amount of speed work frequency. To find the "minimums" and the "ideal" are different Qs. And, please note, we have both the trainer stats, and the look at physiology such as extensively looked at on this blog.

Training:

Mon: 1/17: decent pasture romp with a little speed work.

1/18-1/21 Off due to weather. Snow storms, cold and about 9 inches of snow on the ground.

1/22: Riderless paddock work for 7 minutes. The horses really really surprised as to how easily they galloped over the snow. I should have been working them all along. At any rate, we get a few short spurts, and possibly I can start up again from what I saw this date.

1/23: Off. Bitter cold and warmer coming. We escape the forecast 5 inches of snow!!!

Sat. Misc.

Above, our last serious training at Eureka in 2007. Below, 1/22/11. The worthless Android Camera phone fails to hold its settings again, and so, another neck tilter. Forgot to turn it off afterwards. The event goes to about the 7m mark.

Trainer Analysis Conclusion

If the stats show fairly definitively that 3+ speed events per month for the horse fails to achieve fracture resistance (FR), i.e. a 3.25/month frequency rate is deficient in that it will permanently injury 50-65% of the stable per month, then, may we agree that at some point in this continuum of number of speed works/per month:

3

4

5

6

7

8

as we increase the rate, the horse will achieve FR. The question is: where is the dividing line?

Since the number 3 is eliminated, is there any evidence to support 4 or more, and exactly where do the stats lead us?

I will propose that what the stats show us is Day-Phillips and Todd Plecher as a dividing line between the amount of frequency that will likely achieve FR and that which is likely to fail.

What we know about these two trainers:

Plecher--breezes every 7 days almost religiously except for the off time of the horse.

Day Phillips--her PPs also show strict adherence to the every 7 day schematic for several months into the yearly training, but thereafter a sluff off that reduces her average speed work down from 4.3/month(once a week) to 3.54.
Note that Plecher is on the better end of the injury stats with 50%/year (as compared to e.g. Reade Baker's 65%/year.). By these conventional trainers a 50%/year permanent injury rate is comparatively decent! The theory would be that if perhaps Plecher improved his per month frequency rate from its present 3/month to Day-Phillips 3.54 that this would cause a significant improvement in Plecher's injury rate.

My theory is that Plecher type trainers regarding frequency of their speed work are skirting on the edge of FR and just failing to get their horses over the hump. I think it interesting that Plecher's history is showing that such horses as Dunkirk and Rags to Riches are crossing the finish line in major races--both Belmonts here--injured but they did make it across before falling apart. Momba for Plecher (highlighted on the blog in Momba's Derby year), was one of those that Plecher started his normal routine, and then just quit training the horse. Momba was thereafter predictably injured serving as a symbol that doing less than what Plecher does is sure to injure as its the wrong side of the FR frequency dividing line!

Day-Phillips on the other hand is a very slow injurer of horses, and although I'm unable to prove this, I'd suspect that the larger part of her 35% injury rate comes for each horse in its second year after she has for her racing animals let up on her speed work frequency a good long while. Stated another way--for the first year of their racing I suspect that Day-Phillips injury rate is way below 35% and for the second year that it's much higher.

If this is true, then with Day Phillips also, the once every 7 day breeze work tends to point to minimums.

Ideally of course, we'd have trainers that we could look at doing speed work at rates of 4,5,6,and 7 times per month, and more than one trainer for each of these numbers so that we could confirm injury rates. And, although we have some trainers we know do speed work more frequently than every 7 days--Richard Dutrow "everybody knows what I do"--which is speed work every 6 days--the stats are unavailable.

Thus, to conclude, here is what I think the stats show:

1. Definitively--those trainers doing speed work every 8 days or longer fail to achieve FR.

2.Those doing every 7 days are close to the mark.

Thus I think the stats show that the dividing line is between 7 and 8 days. A few more considerations, next post.

Training:

Fri. 1/21: the good news, the predicted -8 degrees was a low of +8. They missed it by 16 degrees. The bad news--we have about a foot of snow on the ground and prospects that it is going to be around a good long while. But for one pasture romp that I was glad to get, we are at the end of our second off week already. Serious detraining now commences unless something is done with the horse.

More Trainer Analysis

Permanent injury rate per year/average no. of breeze-races per month

33%/8.00 O'Gorman

35%/3.54 Catherine Day Phillips

43%/3.33 D.Wayne Lukas

50%/2.98 Mark Hennig

50%/3.00 Bruce Jackson

50%/3.00 Todd Plecher

50%/3.4 Bongo Racing Stable

55%/??? Kiarin McGlaughlin

55%/??? Mark Casse

55%/3.25 Joan Scott

62%/4.00 Richard Mandella

65%/???Reade Baker

65%/Mr or Ms. Average American Conventional Trainer

69%/3.25 Linda Rice

75%/2.88 Doug O'Neill

Most of the above average around three speed events per month, a little more or a little less, and average between a 50-65% permanent injury rate per year. Before I began looking at trainer stats I'd long ago pegged Reade Baker and Doug O'Neill, just by looking at photos of their horses, watching their horses disappear and watching them race as problematical trainers. Unsurprising then that these are near the bottom of the injury stats.

Last post, however, noted that the 3 speed events/month+ is gotten in different ways in different barns. And also that O'Gorman by his recommended training program for older horses notes the importance of an accumulation of works, averaged, instead of a specific definite protocol. My opinion is that scheduling matters in the sense that trainers doing speed work every nine days are more problematical than trainers doing every 7 days and skipping a week here and there.

Can we make any firm conclusions from the above stats? I think that one is fairly obvious. If you want to achieve the O'Gorman type injury rate of 33%, you are going to fail at that if you are doing speed work 3 times or slightly better a month. Only Day-Phillips achieves this and she does so by averaging 4 times a month for several months in her early program.

Put it another way: To optimize the injury rate and keep it as low as possible the stats say that speed work 3 or slightly 3+/month will fail to work!

Can this be stated in a positive manner? If we had 10 O'Gorman trainers that were all getting 33% injury rate, then we could conclude that someone doing the same speed work as O'Gorman would get his injury rate, everything else being equal. However, and unfortunately, we have only O'Gorman that seems to do speed work more than 4 times a month--and thus we are unable to say definitively based on the stats that O'Gorman training is responsible for his low injury rate. Although, please keep in mind that there's much more info including info on this blog, that tends to point in the O'Gorman direct.

A final statement as to what the trainer stats show us in terms of frequency of speed events and fracture resistance (FR) next post.

Training:

Tues: 1/18: Off. misheard the forcast and thought the snow was coming in today. Too bad, as wee needed to go this day.

Wed. 1/19 and Thurs. 1/20: Off. Accuweather shows 7 inches of snow. Up north at the farm I'd say close to 10 inches. They've revised the -8 temps up to 2 degrees but also revised a nice extended forcast downward so that the snow will be around to end of Jan. Shades of last year. Maybe we can figure out how to do something in the paddock when it warms up in a couple of days.

Trainer Analysis Continued

33%/8.00 O'Gorman

35%/3.54 Catherine Day Phillips

43%/3.33 D.Wayne Lukas

50%/2.98 Mark Hennig

50%/3.00 Bruce Jackson

50%/3.00 Todd Plecher

50%/3.4 Bongo Racing Stable

55%/??? Kiarin McGlaughlin

55%/??? Mark Casse

55%/3.25 Joan Scott

62%/4.00 Richard Mandella

65%/???Reade Baker

65%/Mr or Ms. Average American Conventional Trainer

69%/3.25 Linda Rice

75%/2.88 Doug O'Neill

There are three groups of trainers listed above:

1. O'Gorman

2. Lukas

3. The rest.

And, note these are 2008 stats. Things are changing a bit, under pressure, as they had been changing even into 2008. Examining the above the first thing that strikes is that "The rest" group is going to permanently injure 50-60% of your stock every year. Meaning that, regardless of how much $$$ you invest, regardless of the day rate, or the individuals trainers skill at husbandry, if you give them 10 of your horses, you'll have 4 or 5 left for the next year, if you're lucky, with the hope being that the injured earn a few bucks before they go down.

The second thing to note is that none above average one time a week speed work except Mandella and O'Gorman, and that the closest to one time a week is the one with the best injury record, Catherine Day Phillips. Look at 'em close. We're analyzing now. Additionally, the one with the lowest per month speed work average (O'Neill) also has the worst injury rate by far.

Does one begin to see some correlation then between frequency and the amount, quantity or average speed work/month?

However, let's look at it a little closer. Were the speed works per month by these trainers gotten by consistent breezing e.g. every 8 or 9 days, or are these trainers in "The rest" group all over the place. The answer is "both". Some are consistent, some of their PPs such as Bruce Jackson show very little consistency. You might interpret e.g. that Bruce Jackson is either out to lunch or that he carefully taylors his specific program for the individual horse. Given his state of education--high--you'd suspect that latter, whereas with others of the inconsistent trainers you'd go with the "out to lunch".

The main point to consider is that if a trainer averages 3.25 speed works per month, does that mean the trainer breezes about every 8 or 9 days OR does it mean e.g. that the trainer speeds their horses every 7 days and then takes a week off per month. The difference in this is significant!

If the trainer does speed work every 7 days for the first 3 weeks of the month, and then merely skips a week, quite possibly this would be much closer to achieving FR than a trainer who that never does the minimum FR frequency of once a week. Huge difference. Put another way--if we're breezing our horse every 7 days and decide to give that one week off at the end of the month, right after a race maybe,--our horse, injury wise, probably is better off than in the barn that consistently does speed work 9 days or more apart.

To provide examples--certainly Todd Plecher is a trainer that consistently does speed work every 7 days but for the lengthy post race 2-3 week breaks from speed work that he gives his horses. In contrast Nicholas Zito, and let's say the old Zito for Zito too is changing and responding to competion, would never breeze a horse every 7 days and fairly consistently breezed or raced his horses with 9 day or more breaks.

In this regard, quite interestingly, O'Gorman's book in his older horse training section notes that since you have to daily adjust the O'Gorman twice a week speed work program to each horse and how they are specifically doing and feeling, O'Gorman, instead of being interested in a general rigid schedule, is interested only that the horse gets in the sufficient stated work over the long run. O'Gorman thus uses a point system where he assigns points depending on what the horse has done. A breeze gets so many points, a longer breeze gets more, etc., and each horse must achieve the goal of "points" over a period of time.

Thus, possibly by feel and experience, O'Gorman uses "long term averaging" of the number of speed works instead of a rigid schedule in a manner similar to which the "average number of speed works/month" were gotten above for each trainer. Continue next post.

Training.

Mon. 1/17/11. Suddenly warm this day. The horses were playing and doing little short sprints on my arrival. We went with the program and got in a pretty good pasture romp for the conditions. Several fairly lengthy :14 sec/f type licks with short bursts a little faster. After 7 days off this put relaxing detraining corpuscles on notice that we're at it again.

More Analysis of Trainer Stats

Here they are again. What do we make of them? I'd forgotten to include trainer Joan Scott, who is included below.

Estimated permanent injury rate per year/number of breeze/races per month

as estimated from their websites, O'Gorman's book, Ross Staaden's "Winning Trainers", the DVD On The Muscle, and various horses that were followed on Equibase.

33%/8.00 O'Gorman

35%/3.54 Catherine Day Phillips

43%/3.33 D.Wayne Lukas

50%/2.98 Mark Hennig

50%/3.00 Bruce Jackson

50%/3.00 Todd Plecher

50%/3.4 Bongo Racing Stable

55%/??? Kiarin McGlaughlin

55%/??? Mark Casse

55%/3.25 Joan Scott

62%/4.00 Richard Mandella

65%/???Reade Baker

65%/Mr or Ms. Average American Conventional Trainer

69%/3.25 Linda Rice

75%/2.88 Doug O'Neill

Examining these again, am wondering--any owner out there have less than a 50% permanent injury rate/year with their trainer? Or, any trainer reading the blog that can report consistently injuring less than 50%/year permanently? My own observations over the years are that the 65% estimated for Mr. or Ms. Conventional trainer is right on the mark or, if off, it's a little generous.

I'd more guess, although this might be a slight exaggeration gleaned from cynicism, that with Mr. or Ms. Average, the average horse will have some sort of injury within 3 months of hitting the stable--most, instead of all.

For owners, of course, this is a dreadful unsustainable injury rate. Reason we're out of owners, I'd say, although very few seem to recognize the problem, or they poo poo it as "just racing". We can always point to the few winning owners like so many proud winners of the lottery.

However, we're interested whether the above stats tell us anything about minimum training parameters.

To evaluate, the prior posts lumped all these trainers into a group as "conventional trainers" except Lukas and O'Gorman. With outstanding horse care, consistent training, and very regular speed work for the first five months for her horses, Catherine Day Phillips is buzzing along in 2010, as she did in 2008, with an outstanding comparative injury rate. Possibly we could say Day Phillips skirts or blurs the line a little, but, unfortunately, as you examine her PPs in many ways she "gets it" little better than the rest. Her performance parameters, that we'll get back to, show this. After racing begins Day Phillips is, primarily, conventional.

There are only 2 above--O'Gorman and Mandella--that average 4 or better times per month speed work. I must observe that "On The Muscle" fails to fully communicate what Mandella does. I stopped the DVD on those training logs of his and tried to magnify them, but they were still blurry and hard to read. I got better info by following his horses on Equibase and from that am guessing, if you watch Mandella closely, he knows very little what he's about, and is about as conventional a trainer as conventionals get that provide very excellent horse husbandry.

Next post--do these stats show anything? I think they do.

Training:

Sun. 1/16--13 degrees when i was at the farm, and we passed on training again. Rough week weather wise ahead, and then winter seems to be over. Will see how our intestinal fortitude to fight the weather this week goes. At this point, uncertain.

Sat. Misc.

The next order of business was to look at trainer stats for some conclusions, and, as is wont to happen when there's some real work at hand, the blogger gets a little lazy. Still to get to this. We have had 8 inches of snow in KC this week and cold weather. Looks as if the snow is hanging around for a while, although the long range forecast looks pretty good. Last training day was Monday 1/10. Plan to start again tomorrow and tack through the snow.

Wed. Misc.

Deep winter in KC. 8 inches of snow at 2 degrees F at the moment with yesterday the one day our snow tire/4 wheel drive dudes get to show their stuff.

Noticed a Light PU Truck forum the other day-- new F-350 owners-complaining-post after post- about gas mileage at roughly 12 mpg for most of them. Thought to tell them possibly to ditch their gas guzzling 4 wheel drive, all season (instead of Hwy)tires, automatic transmissions. My stripped down 2008 F-350 with manual transmission gets 16.4 mpg, and also saves the engine because I can coast about a third of the time. Liking this manual more and more!

Horses? My two boys are standing outside in the wind and -0 wind chills as I arrive last night. Put 'em in the barn. 5 min. later their back outside. Two Einsteins.

Training:

Sun: 1/9: With the weather coming in we decline tack work. 4 miles riderless with some spurts.

Mon. 1/10: We get in a riderless 4.5 miles with the idiot in 15 degree weather before the snow starts. The older horse is hurt again, and big Rod's thing in the paddock these days is getting a charge out of pulling himself up unless I am within 15 yards. Need some clod producing weather as we're out of clods to hurl. As soon as he gets out of range, up goes the tail and he starts prancing.

Tues. 1/11: Off. Weather

Wed. 1/12: Off. Weather

On With Race Horse Injury

If you own or train a horse the idea is to keep them injury free, keep them running. My most consistent observation since 1982 when I started in the sport as a handicapper at Ak Sar Ben, is that horses that race consistently will win. I saw early evidence one day when Mary The Twit at her usual 50-1 ran away with a $5000.00 claimer after two years of futility but consistent racing by that horse. They'd wheeled her out there every other week for two straight years, managed to keep her healthy as she never ran fast enough to get hurt, and finally she did win.

The question involves what is minimum frequency of speed work required to achieve race appropriate fracture resistance (FR)? I'd speculated that it was possibly "once a week"--every 7 days of at least 4f in at least :12.5/f, quite similar to what Catherine Day Philips does with all her horses for the first five months of her program.

The Q here is--do the trainer stats tell us anything? Can we divine that if our horse averages speed work 4.3 time/month that it is likely to stay healthy?

I'd posted, of the stats I looked at, there is Bill O'Gorman and "all the rest". But, there's D.W. Lukas also, who I differentiate for his slow day work in that Lukas sends his horses to the track mostly for 1.5 miles averaged 22 days/month in 1988. Very few trainers give their horse this frequent amount of track work including yours truly, and so, I think Lukas training is a little different than your average Mr. or Ms. Conventional Trainer.

The Q came up that it is a surprise that Lukas has a 43% per year (better than most) permanent injury rate because he injures a lot of horses. Well--Lukas had a lot of horses. To explain--my exam of Lukas's 1988 training logs for his CA stable--published in Ross Staaden's book "Winning Trainers"--and following a few of those horses on Equibase for verification--showed a 50% per year disappearance rate. Since horses disappear for other reasons besides injury, I gave Lukas the same 7% benefit of the doubt that I gave all the trainers looked at, and came up with 43%. The detailed posts here on Lukas training appear in late 2006 and early 2007.

Next post I'll look at the trainers as a group and try to make some solid conclusions concerning their injury stats.

Training:

Tues: 1/4: Off--they escaped the paddock.

Wed. 1/5: 19 min walk trot.

Thurs. 1/6: 1.5 miles riderless spurts + 3 times slow gallop up the hill.

Fri. 1/7: Off.

Sat. 1/8 In 18 degree weather we decide riderless only. They did some spurts before the older horse showed slight lameness on left front and was removed. Rodney then did a continuous 3.5 miles with what have become his antics when he's running alone. He pulls up his tail and prances at the trot thinking he's fooling me not having to run unless I am there within 15 yards running with him, i.e. he pulls himself up out of the gallop. And so, we had just short spurts mostly. Should have done tack work as Mr. Nob was quite warmed up after all this, but late start. Try it tomorrow weather willing. Winter interruptus on the way to KC!

Fri. Misc.

Hopefully back to posting tomorrow.

Training:

Tues. 1/4: Off

Wed. 1/5: 19 min walk-trot.

Thurs. 1/6 Nice w/o but with incident at end. The two horses were playing and galloping in the paddock on arrival. Thinking injury to 16 yr. old less than thought. Give him a try. They do 1.5 miles enthusiastic riderless spurts. The older horse is stepping a little gingerly afterward, but without limping. The fence related injury looking more now a slight strain or sprain of tendon or suspensory than pulled sesamoid. Good news. Rodney galloped up the familiar hill 3 times. 19 min tack work. And then the moment Nob relaxes and pats the horse "good job" severe spook and the horse almost goes over backwards. Nob hung on. Another reminder.

Training

Some distractions. Back soon.

Fri. 12/31: Off. Cold.

Sat. 1/1 Off. Wrenched my back while shoeing and unable to unbend from a 90 degree angle. This corresponds with very cold weather that has hit KC.

Sun. 1/2. Off. Barely able to walk today due to the back.

Mon. 1/3: Luckily the back situation was a muscle thing instead of fractured disk. Feels good enough today to get 'em in the paddock. Riderless off and on for about 10 min. with some spurts.

Discover post w/o that Groovin'Wind the 16 year old injured his fetlock last week when he was caught in a fence. Almost had the second fence disaster of the year. Wind was standing in the middle of the field at midnight with 15 ft. of fence attached to his leg. I thought he got lucky and was ok, but this day, what I'd thought was a bruised sole pops up as a possibly pulled sesamoid. Running career in jeopardy if that's what it is. Will see. Wind will be off now till Feb. 1.

Tues. 1/4: Trip to farm wasted. They escape the paddock just as I am going to saddle. Back still tweeky enough that I decline to chase. Off.