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.