$122.00

Cost of a fill up for my truck this morning. Good grief! Taking stock of our horse racing effort these days obviously gas prices make it history to take a dash down to Eureka 175 miles away for an every 3 day breeze even as recently as 2007, it being--formerly-- far more economical and easier on horse and man to drive to that little track, unload the horses, give them a half hour rest, do the breeze work, load up and drive back to KC instead of stationing the horses at the race track. Nostalgia!

These days we operate in an economy were I make barely enough cash to pay minimum bills. And, I've been unable to muster sufficient personal energy to overcome the meteorological rain deluge of the last three years in our area.

My personal optimism that I can get to the race track is still there even if the problems seem so much larger than in former times. Nearby race tracks have closed. I have now large engineering difficulties with my equipment as the new truck with its 18 inch wheels and old low to the ground horse trailer fail to mesh. I screwed up redoing my trailer floor, and that's still up in the air. Kansas Racing Commission is no more, and so, a trainers license must be re-got in another state, and the litany of obstacles goes on, and that's hardly to mention the combo of lingering snow and abscess-hoof problems that have seen us training in 2011 so far 2 out of the 5 months.

I look at all this with a "wow". But hope springs eternal, the weather seems to have shifted back to "normal" and, frankly, I still enjoy the daily work of training combined with--and this is more than ever--the purses these days are so large seems to me you can grow fairly quickly wealthy at the race track with a nicely trained horse. That is ever before us!

I will be very busy in my office through June 6, but then things will have cleared up, and will commence addressing getting to a track. On my blog I hope to continue following the progress of Animal Kingdom as they prepare that talented horse for the Belmont.

Training:
Sat: 5/29 The horses were feeling no pain after 4.5 days off due to weather. 10 min of light riderless paddock play and some light tack work.

Sun. Misc.

Warning, titled vid of questionable interest that am posting for myself mainly to look back if, should we make it to the race tracks, brought into Q again this week by 5 straight days of mud. Vid is tilted and half way through sun disappears.
Where is it written that animals will cooperate? We get finally a sunny day for a video with intent to show our horse's new found enthusiasm for heading his running mate. These horses are pretty smart. Vid begins waiting for Rod to dump. He takes his time. Next they head straight into the barn, lol. Nor do we get any of the planned vid of Rod running all out, catching the older one and putting on a display. Instead we get a minor breakthrough as Rod actually takes the lead and keeps running, instead of his usual stop the minute he gets in front. All the yelling involves the older horse peeling out of the exercise the minute he's headed and getting that one back into the right direction. Very little necessary today to keep 'em going where in former days we'd have to sprint all out to keep Rodney going. The vid starts after the fastest heat of the day had been run of about 3.5f that was all out. Fastest shown is in :14s. Riderless then followed by also a break through in tack work were we got our first fairly fast heat of the year.

Animal Kingdom Training

We look to training with regard to 1. injury prevention and 1. performance.

Animal Kingdom training (posted last post) indicates that since February 3, 2011 AK performed speed work a total of 11 times including his races to and including Preakness Day. This would be 11 speed events in 107 days or an average of one speed event every 9.8 days. That is 3.06 speed events per month.

We know--if you go by this blog (big if, we understand)--that AK is working significantly below minimum speed work requirements for injury prevention in terms of frequency, which requires, as a minimum, speed work to average taking place once per week or 4.3 times per month average. AK in terms of speed work frequency is near the bottom of what we generally see in terms of frequency for animals at this level which sometimes dips into the 2.8-2.88, in that neighborhood, speed works per month. You rarely see anything lower than that at this level, and AK is right there.

With this insufficient injury prevention protocol how is AK holding together in a literal sense? A couple of observations: 1. AK's racing style has been almost the easiest possible on a horse's legs--in both Preakness and Derby circumstances (the Derby trip) or Zenyatta style racing in the Preakness, the horse was able to gallop along at a slow pace and give extended effort for but a few furlongs at the end of each race. 2. What does show in the speed work up to that 6F in 1:13 on the Saturday right before the Derby is that AK's breezes and races ertr particularly well spaced and very appropriately speeded up for a couple of them. There is a nice well planned--in terms of minimalist type training--speed work that, may we say, maximizes what injury prevention is to be got from this sort of conventional training.

Does G. Motion off day galloping contribute anything to injury prevention or performance? What AK did between Derby and Preakness shows that G. Motion training on the off days is much more in the nature of "bare maintenance" sort of galloping than anything logically moving a horse forward or contributing to injury prevention. The horse gets out of his stall onto the race track, and we give kudos to that in a comparative sense, but in terms of what the horse does when he gets to the track, I would have to categorize G. Motion work here only in terms of "bare minimums" in terms of performance and well below minimums for injury prevention. Could a horse possibly do less than AK and still perform???

What if anything do we take away from the training of this animal? AK training, for openers, seems to me an interesting benchmark of the lowest you can go in terms of track work and speed work and still get something from the horse. Note after the Derby that G. Motion, once the horse got on the track the Wednesday after the Derby after three days off, off time which seems reasonable, sent the horse to the track every single day to the Preakness. I avoid recommending this sort of constant galloping protocol for a number of physiological reasons, but we take note that the animal is doing something every day and gaining some minimum benefits in that sort of constant doing.

And, if you have the extraordinarily talented animal such as AK, obviously this minimalist work done by G. Motion was enough to get the Derby victory and there was enough left over in terms of conditioning, albeit much weaker galloping in the stretch than in the Derby, to run past the Preakness field.

I tend to give high praise to any trainer that wins a major race--whatever you want to say about them, they pulled it off that day, and there's something to be learned from each such victory. However, for G. Motion--and fail to know him personally from Adam--in terms of the man's training I continue my own large contempt. Here is a trainer with one of the most talented animals in any year skating on the bare edge of both injuring the horse and actually actively compromising the horse's performance merely by an unimaginative mostly stupid training schematic, and that can be said even with the couple two or three nicely timed and performed breezes. It's mostly bad instead of all bad.

This evaluation above--we'll see if it stands the test of time. G. Motion's history is that his horses occasionally rear their heads and win a race. That's what imho happens when you get to race against 10 peers that train as questionably as you do. Somebody's got to win. In AK's case I suspect we'll hear very little from this talented horse going forward due to the training, and we keep our fingers crossed the horse holds together with this sort of nonsense. I'll come back to this post in the future when we see more from AK as to accuracy of this analysis.

Training;
Fri. 5/27--mud and bad going, but we could have gone and declined. A day of trainer implosion.
There'll be 3.5 days now between track work.

Animal Kingdom Training

Animal Kingdom training (PPs and Paulick Report)

Feb 3: 1:03.75

February 25 5f fm 1:04.75

March 3: 2d in Optional Claiming race 50k looks like. Is that believable?

March 21: 5f fm 1:03.8

March 26: Wins Turfway Spiral Stakes

April 16: 59.1

April 23: 1:02.8

Sat April 30: 6f 1:13

Sun May 1: Off

Mon. May 2: M trot

Tues. May 3: M g in slop

Wed. May 4: 1.5 M g

Thurs May 5: 1.75 M g

Fri. May 6: 1 5/8 M g

Sat. May 7 Derby

Sun. May 8. Off

Mon. May 9: Off

Tues. May 10: Off

Wed. May 11: "light jog"

Thurs. May 12: 1.5 m trot clockwise

Fri. May 13 1/2 m trot 1 m gallop

Sat. May 14 1/2 m trot 1 m gallop

Sun. 5/15 presumably 1.5 m g (no Paulick notes this day)
Mon. 5/16: 1.5 m g
Tues. 5/17 1.5 m g
Wed. 5/18: 1.75 m g.
Thurs. 5/19: 1/2 m trot 1.25 m g
Fri. 5/20 1.5 M g

How do you get a Derby winner? How do you blow TC. Take a look!

Training: As always, when we get him going, it rains. Wed and Thurs. off with rain coming in Fri. Will see about today.

Wed. Misc.

Busy day. We're mindful around here of Joplin, Mo. 175 miles straight south of KC on U.S. Hwy 71. In my real estate days I owned four houses in South Joplin. Doubt they are there anymore. Did the media come a little slow to the magnitude of this disaster? Photos of the damage are surreal.

Dale Romans Knows

"Yet sit and see, minding true things by what their mockeries be."
--Mr. S.



Winning the Preakness tempered by break down of Paddy O' Prado. Where is horse racing when the Dale Romans of the world start winning TC races? First, give credit where credit is due. Unbridled combined with Forestry--a longer leaner style together in the same body with a stouter more muscular animal gets us the ground pounding Shakelford with the intrinsic ooomph that hard boots recognize in some of the larger horses. In human parlance S has "got it going", and although it was a little hard to tell whether that final surge to stay ahead of Animal Kingdom came from "pure want to" or a little extra energy from a lucky late lead change, it is a fairly rare thing to see one of our animals show a look of real determination--a huge muscular animal refusing to be headed.

For AK, did anyone wonder what happened to the big strong powerful looking animal that won the Derby? The nice ground eating stride of this naturally talented horse still there, piss and vinegar and appearance awol. Quite unsurprising per previous entries on this blog.

How does Romans get a pass for failing to breeze Derby to Preakness, and Graham Motion gets nailed here. Romans was quoted that he was going to let his horse roll a little in a long gallop somewhere on the way. Will look at it on Paulick report to see if there is any hint. Suspect this exactly occurred--probably a good bit of lengthy two minute licking and faster compared to AK who seemed restricted to fractions in :16s--and again to Romans the credit for training that resulted in a win.

You could see the AK thing coming merely by looking at the horse, if you know what to look for. Here he is unloading at Pimlico, a little left over Derby tightness showing, but in a state of fading fast due to the light training:
And, why would you put the horse in a van shortly after 5 am, the same exact time when horses normally rest and sleep? Unable to wait to 6 a.m. or better yet 6:30 a.m.??? Just asking. And, the trip in the Preakness for AK. Did this piece of brilliant race strategy of letting the horse get 20 lengths behind come from G. Motion, the jock? They're all Zenyattas now.

More little stuff. Below a shot of Mucho Macho Man's glue ons, if you enlarge. Aside that equilox holding those on kills hoof walls over time, for what fathomable reason would a horse wear glue ons in major racing? Never used 'em but can almost guarantee slight slippage and giving horse less than totally secure feeling. Little stuff.

The Preakness was an entertaining race, although if we checked the time, was S and AK being all alone out there at the end, the result of great training or the rest of the field fading out of sight in slow fractions. Take one more look at this next post. Romans and his training? For myself normally I try to limit post race comments to congrats. In this instance--for myself--I am unable to get over this thing concerning Paddy O'Praddo where once again the sport was put on the edge, probably by questionable training and entering a horse that physically was unready, although there is likely a 20% chance they merely had bad luck.
Training:
Tues. 5/24 Nice riderless speed work with video that will be posted tomorrow + 3 times trot gallop up and down the hill. Nob aborted after getting the first reasonably fast gallop of the year as the horse was a little out of control. Leave it at that one. We're back to were we were April 10 before the hoof problem with the horse.

"Bring It On! He's Ready"

Kathy Rivo quote in TB Times

I like the way she talks. Although I worry about her colt. Had been Animal Kingdom done a 4f breeze Monday would anybody be even thinking about any other horse than AK for the Preakness?

Which raises the interesting, continuing, question. Is G. Motion and his trainer type correct to avoid Derby to Preakness breezing and instead "just galloping" because that's "all he needs". Will this produce a Preakness winning performance? Or, have Ritvo, Baffert and their sorts got it right to do a quick breeze, in Ritvo's case the ideal 4 days out from the race? Tom Ivers idea was that the point of super compensation--time of max bounce--from a breeze is 4 days out.
Animal Kingdom:
Sun. 5/8 off.
Mon. 5/9: off
Tues. 5/10 off
Wed. 5/11 went to track. presumably trotted.
Thurs.: 5/12 trot clockwise 1.5 miles
Fri. 5/13 1/2 m trot 1 m gallop.
Sat. 5/14 1/2 m trot 1 m gallop
Sun. 5/15 presumably 1.5 m g (no Paulick notes this day)
Mon. 5/16: 1.5 m g
Tues. 5/17 1.5 m g
Wed. 5/18: 1.75 m g.
Thurs. 5/19: 1/2 m trot 1.25 m g
Fri. 5/20 1.5 M g

The speeds are unknown but based on the DRF Wed. vid I'd guess none of those gallops reached a sustained 2 minute lick. If you're trying to win the Preakness with a very talented horse, does this work?

Give G. Motion credit for getting his horse out of his stall. That contrasts with Brother Derek a few years back barely making it to the track between Preakness and Derby. Maybe gone, by and large, are the days of completely idiot trainers, with a notable exception here and there.

Yet, suspecting history would show, if I'd done the research, that a horse winning the Preakness without working between Derby and Preakness is close to non-existent. I have forgotten if Rachel Alexandra breezed pre-Preakness. Mostly, I have observed, it just never happens.

The physiological reason for this should be fairly obvious. Can you avoid speed work for 14 days and expect your horse to go all out for the Preakness distance. To think so is absurd and thus the q: what are these trainers thinking?

However, hardly less than Bob Baffert himself was quoted a day or so ago: AK is in a zone, he's a great horse, he'll win the Preakness. Plenty of horses have put in inexplicable performances in terms of physiology.

This Preakness for me--without even checking the PPs--comes down to Mucho and AK. Will be interesting. Dialed In an automatic throw out. If he wins, will be interesting to look at Zito's handling. Shakelford--pretty much the AK story. That colt needs speed work that he'll never get in Roman's barn. Too bad. Great horse. Best guess is Ritvo, if her colt holds together, he is "ready".

Training:
After nice riderless speed work Fri. morn we're hoping for tack work despite rain this eve.

Animal Kingdom Training (cont.)

What sort of training produced the Animal Kingdom Derby performance? What might we expect in the Preakness? One of the horse racing "blanks" to be filled in is, as noted by Bill O'Gorman in his book, inexplicable performances. At certain select moments horses outrun their physical training.

I bring this up again after watching the informative video in the link below showing the AK trainer as a negative, guarded fellow(my impression). How Graham Motion meshes with the prickly Barry Irwin over the long haul should be interesting. Even more interesting, the link shows the full Wednesday pre-Preakness gallop of AK:
http://www.drf.com/news/video-animal-kingdoms-trainer-owner-discuss-preakness-preparations

Tough horse to gallop as he's on the edge of "out of control" early on. Looks to me as though the horse is traveling mostly in :16s and :17s, decent off day speed but what I consider "morning exercise" for my racing horses instead of anything moving a horse forward.
If all you're doing with the horse is this for 2 weeks post race, how much can you expect on Saturday? There's a vid of the Thurs. gallop showing roughly the same workout and speed and other AK vids showing his physique reduced now almost to Plecher stall baby status. Serious red flags by my standards.
Of course if the horse is then thrown into a field of trainers doing the same things, somebody's got to win. In the Preakness however, we have Mucho Macho doing that breeze in the slop--something I'd have avoided and waited to a better day for injury reasons--and Baffert getting a nice breeze in for his horse. You'd expect Mucho Macho Man to be very tough in this race, although, woman trainer, you never know. Maybe she's really this good and this perceptive. Still has to prove that to me. Give her full credit to the point Mucho's my horse, if he holds together.

Baffert's animal--how many times does a horse come back in his next race after a poor performance as Midnight Lute in the Derby where the horse never ran a jump. Something amiss there besides the training, and while ML might indeed come back with a good race, I'd avoid betting this will happen.

Again run out of room to look at actual AK training schematic. I want to look at that and a few others after the Preakness.

Training:
Wed. 5/18 riderless speed play + 3 times trot gallop up and down hill.
Fri. 5/19 36 hrs wait due to rain. Perfect conditions/soft surface for speed work this morn. Several riderless burst and finally positioned older horse about 10 lengths in the lead. Took Rodney all out 3.5f to catch him. Nice work. Might do a little tack work this eve.

Animal Kingdom Training

Can this guy train? Depends on the definition, possibly. We take hats off automatically to anybody prevailing in an important athletic event and in particular the KY Derby whose winning is the stated goal of this blog.

Yet, since we look to analysis instead of praise, is here anything we can take from Graham Motion training that we could use regarding performance of our own horse?

Preface that I've looked at this trainer before and the few bits and pieces that show in his public work, particularly with regard to his training of Adriano for the Derby a couple of years back. That situation indicated to that Graham Motion was just another conventional trainer--expert husbandry to be sure--but in terms of athletic training decidedly underwhelming. With Adriano, as the Derby approached, he just quit training that talented animal, and then Adriano's fade in the Derby was completely predictable.

Similarly as Preakness approaches G. Motion is one of those that thinks the animal is "fit", needs no more speed work, and I have warned against those types of trainers on numerous occasions.

There's a difference now, however in the info available, thanks to detailed training summaries appearing on Paulick Report. The speed at which the off day workouts are conducted is largely unknown, but at least we know the distances.

I'll outline AK specifically next post, and see whether Graham Motion's work with the AK shows us anything.

Training:
Tues: 5/17 Off
Wed. 5/18 More riderless paddock speed work. Less into it this day + 3 times trot-gallop up and down the hill.

Wed. Misc.

Busy non-horse week keeping the blogger preoccupied. Fast Preakness thoughts--sincerely hope Mucho Macho Man wins the Preakness, although as a careful trainer is that 4f breeze in :12s over hard slop what you'd be doing 4 days out from a race with a large underdeveloped colt, or any colt for that matter? Applaud the idea of breezing, but for disaster prevention, need we consider the surface??? Then there's Dialed In being asked by his connections to continue to race without breezing just like all the best claimers at Eureka Downs. Good grief.

Training:

Sun. 5/16: Off

Mon. 5/17: riderless full speed play in the paddock over very hard ground + 15 min. walk trot after 3 days non-galloping to get horse back under control. Even with this had a major spook. Raccoon #1 in front of us puts horse on alert. Raccoon #2 rustling in the bush, boom. Nob luckily manages to stay up.

Tues. 5/17 Off

Sun. Misc.

The blogger site was down for a couple of days. Animal Kingdom training, and a few others next post.

Training:
Wed. 5/11 riderless spurts in the paddock + 3 times trot-gallop up and down the hill.
Thurs. 5/12 4 times trot-gallop up and down the hill.
Fri. 5/13: Off
Sat. 5/:14: riderless--lazy Rodney has disappeared presently. we have instead Rollin' Rod getting the biggest bang out of racing the older horse and sticking his head in front. Will get that on vid when we have some sun. This is mostly play work with numerous short little full speed races that last till the older horse peels out and the freight train of a younger horse passes. Did too much tonight and passed on the tack work. If weather holds we should have a racing condition horse by the end of the month.

Preventing Disaster

"To the chapel let us wander. Greet the parting sun once more. Ring and kneel and worship yonder. Trusting God as heretofore." --Goethe

Horse racing's method of catastrophic injury prevention above--"trusting god". I was interested to see the infamous former Kansas State Vet Bryce Peckam just in back of the Derby gate with his recognizable wide brimmed hat and probably pipe in mouth. This was the vet that scratched my Aylward back in 2003 the morning of his next race after a win due to a slight under the skin wire perforation on his fetlock. Peckam, pressing on the area and the horse obviously slightly ouchy, claimed the horse was lame. We never got into another race during the meet.

And so, I have first hand experience with the KY State Vet who, if anything is overly cautious. Yet all these vet are limited to touchy feely pre-race inspections. And-------here we have ArchArchArch in the KY Derby and how many strides from total disaster was that horse?

Since 2007--Barbaro, 8Belles, War Pass double fracturing as he crossed the wire in the Wood, Dunkirk fracturing as he crossed the finish line of the Belmont, and in 2011 AAA. Think that covers every year except one.

And so the Q, how can the sport possibly survive in this scenario. Sure we've been lucky that 3 out of 5 of these were near misses, although I suspect Plecher's filly that won the Belmont--forgot her name--probably was right in there with them. For a sport that absolutely has to prevent this to the extent possible---

They mostly start as condylar developing stress fractures--the exact area of the horse's leg that has natural heat and thus it's difficult to tell by feel if there's an injury there unless it's already severe. Why any horse would be permitted into the Derby without having this area x-rayed and scanned and those inspected pre-race by the State Vet is beyond comprehension.

Additionally, why are we without requirements that TC trainers record their training and that State Vet examines these records for particular attention to the sort of unusual training that AAA received (see last post).

And yet, what we have is that I have yet to read a single word of concern about AAA.

Training:
Mon. 5/2 Off
Tues 5/3: another nice riderless full speed chase scene were the spurts last until the older horse wheels himself out of it--several 1.5 spurts. Tack: 3 x trot-gallop up and down the hill. Have re-familiarized the horse we're were heading. Weather willing we should be speeding up the gallops by next week.

The Case Of ArchArchArch

An accidental forest fire started by Mephistopheles has just taken the life of an old couple that Faust had meant (fully intended) to live. Faust at midnight is on the balcony of his palace watching the remnants of this fire knowing the ancient pair were dead:

"The stars withdraw their gleam and wink, the fiery blazes dwindle, sink. Still hither fanned by vagrant draft, a veil of smoke and vapor waft.

Too rashly bid, too swiftly done,

What wanders here of shadows sprung?"(Goethe)

Bears repeating:

"Too rashly bid, too swiftly done..."

With our horses we tread that fine line of needing to be perfect. ArchArchArch was entered into the Derby, obviously was injured and somehow made it to the finish line averting another gigantic disaster for horse racing. I prefer to think of this Derby as mere postponement. If they fail to institute some reliable checks for TV races another 8Belles/Barbaro et all will be inevitable--pre race scientific diagnosis/training standards for entry.

In the case of ArchArchArch we'll never know of course if the horse was entered with a developing stress fracture on the condylar aspect of his lower cannon bone. Looking at everything I think it's probable that he was, and this very possibly should have been caught pre-race.

The evidence: the horse collapsed on his front leg--by the NBC video--his very first step out of the gate. Coincidence? I think not. But, there are further clues. Here is the training of AAA in the 10 days before the Derby. Take a look and analyze what is wrong with this picture:

Fri. :59.4

Sat. Off

Sun 1.5 mile G

M 1.5 mile G

T. :52 in the slop--and they said they started 2m lick around 5f pole, then with gallop out.

W. 1.5 mile G

T.1.5 m G

F 1.5m G--trainer announced "he looked good". Famous last words.

S: Race

7 straight training events without rest after one day off from a :59.4, and much of this over a hard wet rolled track. Consider

1. Had the horse been brought up to this level of galloping OR was this a burst of training enthusiasm for the Derby. I think the latter. AAA finished the Ark. Derby very rubber legged--take a look at the post race video--probably conditioned better than that field, but doubtful the sort of constant pre-derby week galloping as above. "never surprise"--Tom Ivers.

2. For a conventionally trained horse, which I am without doubt AAA was, after his Fri of :59.4 (and am forgetting if that was a sloppy track), he gallops--instead of trots--two days later. Note that Animal Kingdom and several others only trot the second day after a breeze. For a lightly trained, conventionally trained horse, keeping pressure off the cannon bones on day #2 after a fast breeze probably permits more knitting together of any bone cells that may have been separated after the breeze. Yet, AAA likely would survive this gallop but for what comes next.

3. They go right on galloping Mon. If there was a developing fracture line or even a weak spot in the condylar aspect where there was a little water developing between slightly separated bone cells--this area receives no rest on Mon. Both the Sun and Mon gallops were on a hardened rolled wet track.

4. Tues: :52 in a 5f work at 2m clip, front cannons slamming into the hard wet rolled track. If there was even a slightly developing weak spot this work would have widened it at the nano level.

5. Here is the big big error--no rest for AAA this day. Right back out for a 1.5 mg over what probably was a heavier pulling type surface that I think was drying by Wed.

6. Thurs. and Fri right back out. i.e. 6 straight days of galloping without rest, race tomorrow.

My thought has always been that you need to rest those cannons after 3 days of being out there, regardless off what you do. If you then decide to intersperse 2 speed works 4 days apart seems to me you especially need to provide appropriate off time. Never happened with AAA.

Our sport of horse racing can be very unforgiving. I am fairly sure such training errors are replete, most of the time the horses survive, but here the Q: the trainer of AAA, good old fellow that he is, exceeded common sense in the pre-Derby training--too rashly bid, too swiftly done--or, of course, it all might have been bad luck. I think the horse was injured going in and they failed to catch it, and possibly yet another lesson hopefully learned. Seems to me you have to do "enough" and also avoid doing "too much".

Training:

Mon. 5/9 off after a 3 day cycle.

Animal Was An Animal

A no doubter Derby and winner heads and shoulders above the field. The last time a Derby winner galloped this strongly to the wire.?

Next post will analyze Animal Kingdom training. Can the horse be defeated? How? Does this possibly refer to Rule #1 as to performance for this Derby--if your horse is to beat Animal Kingdom, is it necessary to train a little harder than AK? A little differently than Ak, or, however we term it.

Some misc. Derby observations:

Shakelford visibly shortens stride at the 3/16 and yet only 3 thereafter are able to get in front of that horse, i.e. the field pretty much mostly all died by the 3/16th.

Mucho Macho Man at about the 1/8 gets caught behind somebody's butt, has to swerve to the outside to regain his stride and is gaining at the wire. Nice job by Ms. Ritvo although unsure that 2 mile gallops the day before the race is the ideal.

Perfect ride off a slow pace by a fairly obviously great horse results in KY Derby for prickly Barry Irwin and cohorts. Congrats to them! The more strong groups in the sport, the better!

Regards Graham Motion, mixed thoughts. Indeed, had I handicapped I would have seen the nice, logical series of speed work for AK starting 3/26 to the Derby in the crucial pre-race phase of training. Yet, this colt ranges near the bottom (see 2 posts ago) of training since 3/12 that puts into question his overall soundness and fracture resistance (FR) going foward. Thus, with AK we're right back to soft training being successful for the Derby. Given that much of this horse's training was packed right in before the Derby (although less so than the ridiculous 8Belles situation), I have some concerns going forward.

Will Ritvo continue to train her horse for the Preakness or completely back off as so many soft trainers do? Ditto Nehro and Shackelford. What will Zito do with his horse?

Zito--guess it's back to the drawing boards as to those 2 mile gallops instead of breezing.

Nehro-- The handling of this horse is puzzling in terms of the game performance that resulted. How does a horse look that muscular on doing one slow 4f work in the 3 weeks to the Derby, and have this much pizazz. Steroids come to mind, or possible steroid substitutes. That's other than to impugn anyone, but this very nice performance makes less sense on paper than any other than I am seeing.

Pants On Fire: bled badly apparently. "we've been working on his immune system." This brings to mind--exactly how have they been doing that, and what degree of knowledge does this display? Anything but actual training for this trainer which was identified on this blog a couple of years back.

ArchArchArch: Both Arch horses out. A shame? What happened? The superb NBC camera shot of the horse's legs coming out of the gate, looked to me AAA collapsed on a front leg with the very first stride, which would have been before any bump with another horse. Was the horse put into the race injured? Bad step? We'll never know, but brings to the fore once again, when will the sport require scientific pre-race diagnosis for TV races.

Training:
Fri. 5/6: riderless trot with a little gallop + 3 times trot-walk up and down the hill under tack. Still getting dangerous horse back under control.
Sat. 5/7: Riderless paddock play with some full speed bursts + walk-trot three times up and down the hill in dangerous wind conditions.
Sun. 5/8: Riderless: in our paddock lazy Rod for now is history and instead Rodney races with and catches the other horse followed by a display. I'll have to get this on video as the scenes are hilarious as to how much this horse enjoys heading the other horse. At any rate, for the first time we're getting very willing full speed stuff from Rodney--last night several spurts and than a 2f romp. Tack work: 3 times up and down the hill trot-gallop. Nob reports the horse seems back under control.

Contenders/ Pretenders

Among the pundits no love for Animal Kingdom??? I agree with Baffert that there are a lot of very good horses, Mo's defection not withstanding.

In "the" big race can you ever ignore the talented horses? One of those types sticks a nose in front and despite questionable training wills itself to stay in front. Strong caveat as to what follows that I lacked time to handicap. Handicapping always turns up some twist that can change things. My reactions to what few flashes of vids I saw this week, and also--for the first time--a complete rendition of this weeks workouts on Paulick Report:

Talents:

Brilliant Speed
Pants On Fire
Animal Kingdom
Soldat
Shackelford--heavy galloper but looks the major league horse.

all get over the ground exceptionally well. Coincidentally all have questionable trainers in my eyes. And take note: horses generally look good and strong 3 or 4 days after they breeze. Post breeze strength tends to dissipate as time wears on without further speed work. A horse that looked good thus on Thurs. may be a different animal by Sat.

How do we separate?

First: scratch any horse whose last breeze was 4f except AAA. When was the last time such a horse won the Derby--probably Zito in the max soft training era of the 1990s. This eliminates:

Pants On Fire
Dialed In
Derby Kitten--who worked zero last two weeks.
Santiva
Nehro
Master of Hounds (?) same outfit that brought us GW.

Next, any horse with a questionable last week of training is out:

Decisive Moment
Comma At The Top
Mucho Macho Man--2 mile gallop Fri.?

10 left standing.

Eliminate remaining woman trainer. To this chauvinist pig (as far as race horse training), gals you'll have to prove it to me. This woman's handling started to catch up with her in last race.

Watch Me Go--out.

Eliminate what I perceive as lesser talents, though this gets dicey here because all these horses can run:

Stay Thirsty
Twin Spired--failed to get a real look at this one.

6 to go. Anything else obvious for the throw out? Now we get to the training charts last post!!!

Shackelford
Animal Kingdom

Both lack bottom in their training. Very decent horses who should predictably lose their starch around the 3/16th. G. Motion/D. Romans--conventionally adequate trainers perpetually bettered, barring blind luck, by more perceptive sorts.

The Contenders:
ArchArchArch
Twice The Appeal
Midnight Interlude
Brilliant Speed

Twice The Appeal is probably the lesser talent and only slightly so. Same style horse as Midnight Interlude with softer training. Have to thus go with Baffert's horse. I fear Brilliant Speed who looked a weak galloper in the Blue Grass, but might be by my eyes the most talented horse. Can he best AAA who was rubbery legged following A. Derby and has the albatross of post #1?

My take--if 50 yr. old John Court gets a perfect ride, look out. Court being a nice guy but less than the brightest bulb out there, and, to me, just fails to give off athletic instincts, thinking a Court perfect ride is unlikely. AAA moved ahead with his nice training.

What fails to show with Brilliant Speed in chart last post is that he breezes in :13s, hence the weak galloping. Am unable thus to choose him over Baffert's horse.

Midnight Interlude is the pick here, hedged though as fearing one of the talents above will stick a nose in front and out foot him to the wire.

Derby PPs

Does training make a difference in performance? You'd like to think so. In training terms however, there are many ways to peel the apple and thus frequently, surprises are the order of the day. With this rousing preface, here are the Derby PPs summarized as they appear since March 12 (noting the DRF free PPS fail to contain the second line of PPs going back to first of year, hence we look at how they've trained 45 days pre-derby, which is 1.5 months.):

Horse: Speed furlongs traveled/average # of works-races per month

Midnight Interlude: 50/5.3--Any surprise Baffert at top?
Nehro: 47/5.3--also other than a surprise but they've really backed off of late.
ArchArchArch: 46/5.3--Jincks fires rises to the occasion.
MuchoMachoMan: 43/4.7--The lady is trying. Insufficiently from what I see.
WatchMeGo: 38/4--Bordering on my personal minimums.
Santiva: 37/4.7
Brilliant Speed: 36/4.7--Note that he breezes in :13s, i.e. under fracture resistance (FR) speeds.
Comma At The Top: 36/4--editorial comment below.
Twice The Appeal: 35/4-- Stocky horse near the minimums.
Derby Kitten: 34/3.33--Without any speed work 2 weeks pre-derby. Has that ever won?
Soldat: 33/6--slightly more by this trainer.
Stay Thirsty: 32/4--uninspiring for an lesser talent, i.e. no training effort to move him up.
Animal Kingdom: 30/3.33 severe training deficits start to show up here and below.
Shackelford: 30/3.33
Uncle Mo: 27/4
Pants On Fire: 27/3.3--What can be expected from this?
Decisive Moment: 26/2.7 --Or this?
Dialed In: 21/2.7: Zito's long gallop routine puts this horse on the serious FR list. Will it work?
My guess--no way, although racing style minimizes the physiological challenge.

UNCLE MO: they've got him at a perfect weight. Is off feed, which they say is an infection. More likely it's merely the usual lack of gut bacteria that cause this common problem of off feed, but it does present Q whether there'll be sufficient glycogen to get the horse around. And, an interesting training pattern for Plecher is finally uncovered. Breeze--rest--rest--2m gallop--gallop--race. More comment on that later. It does have some good logic to it! Has Mo done enough from what shows in the PPs? My take--if so then barely. It could go either way. The safer prediction is he fades around the 3/16 pole.

COMMA AT THE TOP: Pressey's horse. There's a vid of Comma early this week in his stall with the horse and trainer, his shaved head glistening, bursting at the seams. Horses that do a lot of work do not look like this. If you look at Comma's routine, particularly this week, you understand why the horse lacks speed in the stretch. Additionally, while the racing schedule far exceeds the field and the experience will be a great aid to the horse, physiologically--what you did last October will have little influence without appropriate training close to the race. On the premise that winning the Derby requires covering all the bases, I think this trainer is coasting with his horse. I expect to see a good effort by Comma, but when he reaches down for his anaerobic reserves query whether anything will be there?

Training: And, what's this? The farm dog.?









It's Racco, the very well fed raccoon, out a little early to observe the proceedings. 5/5 it rained and we took day off to give sore hoof more chance to heal.

"He's Fit And Ready To Go"

Famous last words. This time uttered by Eddie Kenneally about his Santiva. Anytime you hear that phrase or anything approaching it, best thing to do as fast as you can, cross that horse off from the contenders list. Kenneally from Waterford, Ireland in the photo.

As birds enjoy flying, horses enjoy bounding, see video of Uncle Mo galloping Thurs. morn below this post. Unknown whether I have seen a horse get over the ground this easily. And, on a side note to the TB Times from which I stole the video--if you post a vid of Mo lasting 16 seconds, how difficult would it be, it being Derby week and all, to post the whole gallop, just asking?

The MO vid is also the very first glimpse I've caught of Plecher's off day galloping. The vid obviously is at 2 min. lick pace, and I'd sure like to know the length of it. Uncle Mo's prospects?
A horse this talented might run away from the field if he's possessed of the necessary breathing apparatus (and past racing indicates he is) and cardiovascular fitness, aerobic and anaerobic endurance etc. Looking at the PPs and will post my opinion of this on Uncle Mo.

Regrettably, my Arch horse named Rollin' Rodney bears zero resemblance to what I am seeing from Mo. In hands of a different trainer, Nafzger e.g., might we have had our TC winner?


Training: Then, there's this(Robby Albarado yest. I guess as punishment for beating his wife, or, was it the other way around?) to remind our own good rider, as if he needs reminding, that it is possible to get oneself dislodged from a horse and get your face stepped on. We know this from personal experience having been kicked in the throat a few years back just soft enough to survive the experience. With our own Arch colt having once again briefly panicked last evening, we get a daily reminder. How is rider in his 65th year handling this? Sorting it out. Approach the same I guess as it always has been which is to feel your way along with each horse and on top of every controllable risk with that horse. With Rodney we're going to have to take the approach that if you're going to play with the big boys then you need be prepared to take what they dish out. Know that before you get on the horse. 5/4: riderless in the paddock for 10 min. The older horse escaped and thereafter unable to barely get Rodney in a gallop. He has the game of "avoidance" mastered. Toward end of this he tweaked his injured hoof severely on a shard and was limping, scotching our planned gallop. The tack work was 3 times up and down the hill trot-walk.

MO

Is Soft In?

AAA breezing Tues.!

All sorts of interesting stuff. We're without any Nafzger's this year or Nafzger style training with Street Sense. And, we have Soldat by K. McGlaughlin galloping 1.25 miles on what I consider crucial pre-Derby days: Mon. and Tues.

Will look at PPs tomorrow. Probably will see -- most horses training in close to identical fashion. These days -- breeze once every 7 days and gallop 1.5 m most days, some a little more and some a little less, logic indicating the horses of the even softer sorts will pay a penalty.

And, there's Kathleen O'Connell coming to the barn at 4 a.m. Mon. morn. to get her nice horse Watch Me Go ready for his breeze. Does any keen observer of horses understands their max rest time is between 4 and 6:00 a.m., if you leave them alone? I had a woman trainer in the year 2000. Same deal--she'd come to the barn every morn. at 4 a.m. to do her stalls. Her #1 motivation in life was to get out of the barn by 10 a.m. Before discovering this I'd wondered why I was seeing so much yawning in my shed row.

And, there's Baffert with Lenny Schulman mentioning all the qualities of his horse except talent and speed. Maybe Baffer's key comment--he hasn't missed a beat---is one we might take notice of, since Baffert stands out as always, with these sorts of soft trainers, as doing a little more.

Without ado, here are the last couple of days summarized from the barn notes for the horses that interest me:

Mon/Tues

ArchArchArch: Mon 1.5 m G/Tues :38+. I speculated Jinks Fires knows how to get a horse ready.

Midnight Interlude: 1:01/off.

Animal Kingdom: Sat. Breeze: Sun: Off Mon. 1 mile trot. 1 mile gallop. Watching this horse.

Dialed In 2m/1.5m (can a horse that rarely breezes win the Derby? Doubtful, but interesting Zito at least has enough sense to have him out on the track).

Uncle Mo: More evidence of Plecher's disconnect between training and performance: Sun: 1:01.6. Mon. trot 1 m--something I'd avoid. maybe a little intermittent trot riderless--Tues. walks. Mo continues his light workload. Unknown how this horse possibly can win.

Mucho Macho G 2m/trot 1m-G 1m. She's trying. Woman trainer wants to be known as a trainer. Why? Little stuff I fear will do the horse in.

Comma At Top: Breezes Sun then 2 days of nothing. Pressey's horse. The key here has to be off day galloping as very little shows for this horse on the work tab.

Pant On Fire: Sun: Breeze. Mon. Off tues. 1 mile trot. Trotting the second day after the breeze may be reasonable in terms of injury prevention. I'd have to want very strong gallops with this schedule on Wed./Thurs. We'll see. Like the horse, but will likely get beat by his trainer.

Shakelford: Sat. 58.8. Sun Off. Mon 2m Trot. See above re the trot. If u're going to trot, yest, 2 m unless u have some cannon bone heat.

Nehro: Mon 51.2./Off

Twice The Appeal: Fri 1:15+ Sat. Off. Sun. ? Mon. ? Tues reappears for a 1 m trot. So much for Borel training him.

Training:
5/2: Off
5/3: 10 min riderless paddock play with short spurts. Horse moving gingerly on exposed laminae so we decline scheduled gallop. 10 min walk under tack resulted in hillarious scene for which we needed the camera. Horse walks up to depression in grass were older horse had just rolled, Nob on his back. Rollin' Rod seeing this pressed down grass immediately goes into roll mode himself and will not be dissuaded. Nob almost hits ground again when process of getting the Rolling one up off his knees resulted in several bucks. Significant as our first incidence of misbehavior under tack.

Derby Misc.

The Derby gallery.

Anybody besides me wondering why they're breezing horses 5f and galloping out to 7f in the slop at Churchill instead of shipping them to breeze at Keeneland?

Of course these shippers need a work at Churchill, and, before the biggest race of the year you are sort of stuck with proceeding with your breeze to get any kind of performance, hang the weather. And, if you're additionally wed to the idea of breezing 6 or 7 or 8 days out, then you go ahead.

But, what is the injury effect of breezing this distance at these speeds with the front lead legs slamming into the sloppy rolled track like sledge hammers with very little recovery time to a long race that none of these horses have been conditioned for?

Having myself galloped horses on the Ky tracks with their Ky red clay surfaces there's less risk at breezing in the mud than many other dirt tracks. Even in the most stringently wet conditions the KY tracks are still fairly reasonable and gallopable.

Nevertheless, there is still geometric increase in concussion at speed over such wet surfaces even in KY. You could see it and hear it in the vids yesterday. And there's Baffert right into this, but this year coming off of dirt at Santa Anita instead of plastic but full out breezing his heavy horse over this stuff.

And, there's the argument, what if the track comes up wet again Saturday. My thinking would be that this is only double trouble if you've just breezed over this. Numerous potential physical problems. Check ligaments never take kindly to lengthy speed work over mud. And, needless to say the chance of producing a developing stress fracture are high anytime you try what I have seen on the vids the last two days.

An abundance of over caution perhaps. Otherwise. To me, common sense. I would have gone to Keeneland.

The one who got it right probably was Assmussen. As much as I see zero value in 4f in :51 6 days before the Derby with Nehro in terms of performance, this is the only type of work to do at Churchill in my neighborhood on this sort of surface. The blog has already somewhat quantified the increased concussion between doing the :13s and :12s. It's geometric. And then you try to make up the performance deficiency later in the week and hope to come out of the Derby still having a horse. We'll see.

Training:
5/2 we were off. Start galloping tonight. Our weather has given signs of normalcy this year in terms of precip.

Uncle Mo

Derby

In a hurry today. Workers that caught my eye:

Animal Kingdom
Uncle Mo--stretches his front lead leg a touch further up and out. Interesting, but looks more the Plecher stall baby than showing any sort of strength.
Archarcharch--but, do horses last working 8 days out ever win?
Pants On Fire is a really nice horse, in another barn.
Brilliant Speed--ditto. great horse that needs another barn.
Dialed In--nice looking horse, aggressive. On Monday however, he's out there just jogging.

Others:
Twice The Appeal--unknown why Jill Byrne failed to like the w/o. The little clip that shows is a strong powerful fast horse. Borel will get this horse ready this week.
Mucho Macho Man--another last training 8 days out. Fails to look like a Derby winner to me.
Watch Me Go gets over the ground. Bears watching.
Schackelford--no way. Has to bear the twin crosses of Dale Romans as his trainer and that he's a bit heavy on a weak front end that shows in his galloping.
Twin Spired--looks average decent horse.
Training:
5/1 10 riderless fast spurts. limp gone. a little gingerly here and there on the hoof. 3 times up and down the hill--walk-trot. We'll commence with gallop work Tues. Hoof will be fine.

Derby Week

Which horse has caught the RR eye so far. Some vids here and there are starting to be posted.

#1, and again, Uncle Mo as man among boys. I saw just a little flash of slow gallop and a floating highly efficient stride that may be the nicest I have seen. The horse seems perfect weight, and unknown why they'd try to put on another pound.

Which brings me to the subject of talent. In athletic contests I tend to obsess over the most conditioned athlete. We need take note however that on occasion we get a winner who simply has more ability. If you have any interest take a look at this BB vid, roll it to the end, and watch a player that's always in lesser condition just take over the game in a truly amazing display named Zach Randolph: (much better view here:http://www.nba.com/video/)

To those "subjects" of the last post I did forget an important one: "Talent". It's edited now, and added.

Sitting in a "coaching of basketball" class at MU Columbia in the early 1970s taught by legendary Missouri Coach Norm Stewart, the coach had been in a foul mood in the early semester. Then one day Stewart came into class smiling ear to ear. From the gallery: "coach why are you in a good mood today". It was preseason college basketball time, and I still remember Stewart's answer: "I found a guy that can 'do it'". The reference was to recent transfer and soon to be All-American guard Willie Smith.

Experienced coaches recognize talent immediately. I've always watched Zach Randolph as a perpetually out of shape athlete, but, give him a basketball and he just 'can do it'. Always has.

Similarly possibly we have Uncle Mo, galloping out 7f this morning. I wonder if we'll see a vid of that. Bears watching!

Training:

We're back at it.

4/29: 40 mph winds. Nob declines to get on (see next day), but winds dried things out. Horse was put in the paddock to test his hoof for 10 min. Limping lightly, but it's an exposed laminae limp instead of abscess limp!

4/20: Same paddock experiment, but limp completely gone. He winces once in a while when he hits something. Horses were enthusiastic to be back at it and got in some short speed work. 10 min walk under tack with a little trot at end. On the dismount the horse panics and almost does a 180 in exact spot where Nob was thrown two weeks ago. Had Nob still been on he would have been thrown into our horse trailer. We survive another day with Rollin' Rod.