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.