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.