Thursday, September 29, 2011

Nuts And Bolts Of On Track Training

We instruct the jock to do a 2 min. gallop, throw him up, presume girth tightness will be at comfortable level for the horse, equipment correct, and off they go down the path to the race track. At the Woodlands, where I rode, the path was flat out dangerous. Unknown to me what they were thinking when they built it. Rails close in, concrete abutments all over the place, a steep inclining hill down to the race track were an acting up horse could easily fall over, etc. Once a female jock cracked her head open falling on one of those abutments, and that was always on my mind on the way to that track.

Assume though that we have a compliant, trained animal instead of a protester or conscientious objector. This latter sort would be a special situation for which we'd need company, a pony possibly, or one of those rare riders willing and able to control the misbehaving horse. It takes both--willingness and ability.

The technique for getting the bad actor under control is fairly straight forward. You thump him with the whip and generally this brings instant ad hoc attention to the task at hand. Problem is that it takes a certain amount of courage and rider skill to use that method. Myself e.g., I have been unable to get that done. Why? Striking a horse with a whip creates serious unpredictability. You think you know that at the moment of the strike the horse will only take a little jump forward. However, there's uncertainty. In fact at the moment of the strike the horse might do anything, from a 180 to a rear and flip to running into a rail or--in case of the dangerous path to the Woodlands running into the concrete or falling on the steep incline. When the rider starts to raise the whip for a strike in those situations, it creates a bit of mental pause, to make an understatement. My thought was always, just do it , but invariably I lacked the guts. Why? I knew instinctively with my size and skill level there are certain antics I am unable to handle without risk of serious injury. And so, for the protester--company or a rider able and willing. The latter is a rare and difficult find on most race tracks, although they do exist.--let's also add that correct whip use--the thump--is almost the only rider technique available for the misbehaving horse, and if we have a rider unwilling to use that technique there are a few other things available such as "change the path to the track", glop on butt of another animal, have a human on the ground lead the horse by the reins, etc., your imagination. For the serious bad actor with a normal rider however, it's likely that company if you can get it, is the ideal solution.

And, so, our horse has made it to the race track. What's now, next post.

Training:
Wed. 9/28 after two days off we're back in the saddle. 4 x trot-gallop up and down hill. After three days away from riding the first two heats were leg tendon stretchers for our good rider on this wide animal. The horse has been brought now to a "go forward" point. See in next days if we can get it done this time.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Getting The Horse Around The Race Track

Everything that happens at the race track boils down to rider skill and the relationship of this characteristic of "skill" to the variables that dictate race horse survivability. Riding race horses is a delicate driving job where any veer of the steering wheel in the wrong direction can be a career ender. The rider is the proximate trainer of the animal, and it is untrue that you can throw "anybody" up there and have your horse survive as a race horse.

Those are merely general statements. Get down the specifics of what is being referred to by taking an imaginary trip around the track, and let's say today's work is a typical two minute gallop.

Introduce this by noting that almost every experienced rider understands the trainer giving this direction: " warm him up and take him a mile at a two minute clip." The rider gets a leg up and off they go. The trainer will then typically go on with mucking their stalls. The exception to this would be if the owner is present in which case the trainer will accompany the horse and watch the gallop noting at the end how perfectly everything went, just as planned.

For our rider--and let's assume we got lucky today and the horse's jock showed up for the work--the ride begins immediately with the adjustment of the tack. Does the rider insist on blinkers, a shadow roll, martingale, draw reins, a ring bit, every piece of equipment known to man and woman? I give 'em what they want. Security blanket type stuff and it avoids the repeating mantra after finish of the ride: "this horse needs this and that"...equipment--even when u already know it otherwise. If e.g. you want a horse going without blinkers, probably need to find a jock that is other than wedded to blinkers.

Then there's that tightening of the girth thing. Be assured that the maximum degree of tightness that the girth allows will be got by most of these riders, no matter whether the horse is a skinny 15'2" filly or a 16'3" behemoth using the exact same girth. The lesson of this story is that if you want the 16'3" horse to be comfortable out there--as opposed to strangled--by its girth, you dam well better have a girth properly measured on the non-adjustment side so that when the rider adjusts to maximum tightness--well--maximum tightness will be a perfect fit because of the way the trainer fastened the girth on its off side. Fooled many a girth tightening maniac that way in my days. Will saddles fall off or slip? Rarely on most horses, although we need be more careful with the skinny tucked up horse.

On with the trip, next post.

Training: These are the days of the fast dropping sun. Week ago I looked at the clock at 3 min. after 8 p.m. and it was still slightly light. Same deal last night and it was 7:28 p.m. And, I've been fooled by this 3 nights in a row now. They closed a bridge downtown and have had 30 min traffic delays getting to the farm. + the lost front right shoe--3.5 inch nails--and waiting for the new box of farrier supplies. To make long story short, we've been unable to gallop the last three days and two of them were off due to the surprise lost shoe. By the time I tacked it back on last night, all I could do due to light was riderless, and, of course, 1st thing that happens there is the older horse jumps both fences and I'm in there throwing clods at the lazy one by himself. Finally got a little fast work at the end. Racing him has very faint hopes right now. Thinking more of maybe finding some far away 6 year old eligibility.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Training Compliance

Back on subject--performance--and today specifically getting our good horse to comply with our training.

What, why and how--knowledge of technique(how to), knowledge of exactly what it is that we want our horse to comply to(what). " Why" involves, of course, both performance and injury prevention. Posted on this, good grief, in July, and then distracted by subjects of lasix and trainer failure at scientific exercise.

Last immediate post on compliance was here:
http://ratherrapid.blogspot.com/2011/08/riding-around-race-track.html

and, 7/28/11 post identifying the subject of compliance as the horse motors around the track:

1. lead changes in general (#1 for the reason of health and injury prevention)
2. getting the over-enthusiast under control or stopped after the run.
2a. In contrast, dealing with the lazy horse or refuser.
2b. In general dealing with "antics" particularly in a crowd.
3. creating a push button horse on the race track--slowing, speeding up, trotting, galloping.
4. approaching the gate without protest.
5. gate work in general.
6. manipulating the horse in company--often tricky and dangerous.
7. On track turn arounds--e.g. back tracking and keeping horse calm in the turn around that often takes place amid oncoming traffic, getting the desired lead at the start of the gallop.
8. Keeping the horse under control and close to the rail in the trot off.

Many of the above are critical in injury avoidance and important in creating a competitive race horse. Again, two Qs. How do you get (find) a rider paying attention to all this stuff, AND if you find your rider, how to train the horse on track, and what is it necessary to communicate to the rider in this regard.

Before starting on this, there's also the interesting Q of whether the particular trainer is even aware. Will confide from experience that most are somewhat aware, but calculating the odds that your trainer will exercise that awareness with your particular horse is a roulette with probably low odds for your horse. Too bad, as in my experience, race horse success is ultimately in the details.

Training:
Wed. 9/21 10 min trot.
Thurs. 9/22 4 times up and down hill walk trot gallop.
Fri. 9/23 4 times up and down hill trot-gallop.
Last two w/os set stage for more serious work.
Sat. 9/24 scheduling problem. with sun dropping out of sky like rock get there too late to gallop. Riderless piss poor workout. Refusal. One short spurt.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The List And Appropriate Training

Assuming our good owner of the 10 unraced two year olds knows a thing or two about training an athlete, is there a way to communicate this to the trainer and get compliance given "the list"?

To review, here again is "the list":

1. Does the trainer make the mental connection between performance and the training program?
2. Does the trainer have the ability--mental, intuitive, attention to detail, etc.--to carry out the program?
3. Duplicating a rational training program has its inexplicable difficulties.
4. Track experience militates against "programs". Do they ever work in terms of wins?
4. Does the trainer have the motivation, given their emphasis is more on earning a living than creating an athlete.
5. The numbers game and short shelf life of the race horse.
6. Owner proclivity and lack of knowledge.
7. Riders

Much more could be added to this list under category "misc". but the list seems long enough to make the point that an effective injury preventing, performance enhancing training program is difficult in its conception and execution. In human athletics these programs are for the few, and likely in horse racing for the fewer yet. I always smile remembering the maxim of 8 time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman that "everybody wants to be a body builder but nobody wants to lift no damn ass weights". The 2011 Mr. Olympia training is on Utube, and u'd be unable to find Ronnie Coleman training there with a search warrant.

And likely here lies the point for the owner trying to get a horse appropriately trained. What seems so logical on the surface--that most of these trainers can be so easily out-trained with an intelligent training program--digging a little deeper one quickly runs into a parallel logic that militates exactly the other way. There is a reason these dudes and dudettes do what they do, and when our good new and very bright eyed owner fails by inexperience to understand the strength of that underlying logic what are the odds that this trainer of the two year olds is going to do anything but smile, nod in assent, and then do exactly what this trainer has always done.
Back in the old days of Elizabethan England, Queen Elizabeth I used this same technique as our trainer to get along with her parliaments--she'd tell 'em she'd comply with all their requests and then turn around and do what ever she pleased. She was, after all, the Queen.

There would be a trainer or two out there receptive to exercise physiology, although in 25 years I've yet to encounter this rare species. My opinion is that there is only one way to get the attention of these sorts--and that is (?)(?)(?)--you have to produce a horse in this manner of exercise science that actually succeeds on the race track. All athletics including horse racing--by human nature is a copy cat thing--when they see that Preston Burch horse smoking by their exquisitely bred $500,000 auction horse, that is the point where exercise science will get some attention, and, by extrapolation, only at that significant point. Will happen. It's a matter of when.

Burch is both ancient history and the wave of the future. A very nice review of Burch here:

http://thoroedge.wordpress.com/

Training: Tues. 9/20: Off

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

List Continued

Trainer of the 10 new two year olds has an overnight epiphany of being a "Charlie Whittingham" type trainer. Allusions/delusions of grandeur come to the fore with an entire shedrow of aspiring athletes. Next morning the trainer sets up the program and a problem develops immediately. The stable jock is nowhere to be found on the grounds. The stable exercise rider shows up at 8:15 a.m. during the break. An attempt at finding substitutes proves fruitless as it seems the whole backstretch is taking the day off. There are a few horses out on the track instead of many.

Riders as a problem--is the next item on "the list". First, are they available? Second, riders are never never interchangeable. Everybody knows that as meets open there are a jillion horses out there training and as the meet goes on this number becomes less and less and less until toward the end of the meet, except during the renovation breaks you see out there an occasional horse.

Does this happen because the trainers stop the training on whatever theories, or because all the riders are awol. My belief is that this phenomena developed over the years and in chicken-egg terms who knows which came first. End of meet are they without gallopers because all the riders sleep in or because even if riders were present most of our training yo yos would be declining to send horses out in any event. I'd think it's a little bit of both, and I did notice at the Woodlands in 2007--my last meet--that toward the end of the meet there were more horses out there than had been in former years--things changing a little, possibly.

The moral of the story is that training is controlled by riders, and anybody that has ever tried to train a horse at a race track over time understands riders as an enormous problem. If they're on track at all they're always galloping somebody else's horses, you wait for the interminably, and when they show up you're stuck with a cuppy beat up track. I'd say a ten horse stable in general likely has two available riders and during 50% of the meet but one of these is actually present, and there'll be a number of days when neither is on track.

And so, easy, you find a substitute. Not so fast! Assuming one can be found, this may prove the second sort of disaster for your horse. The rider you get will have a different weight, a different skill set and a different riding style than your horse is used to . In my experience substitute riders are disasters waiting to happen for your horse. I am extremely reluctant to use a substitute unless that rider is extremely light, or a jock. Jocks of course can ride, and they are safer, but you're just as likely to get the substitute jock who'se just going through the motions, never warms up the horse despite your instructions, fails to get the leads, is a few lbs heavier than your horse is used to etc. etc. The unknowledgeable person will fail to understand this stuff matters in terms of injuries. My stable has had several of its disasters happen when I felt compelled to use a substitute rider.

Can you get around the rider problem? I've always done it as I do everything at the race track--i.e. with $. I pay more, substantially more, and will generally be able to find somebody hungry with that method. That's been generally for 2 or 3 horses. Would suspect in a stable of 10 that riders at most tracks are a continuing and frequently intractable problem in putting together an intelligent program.

Training:
Sun 9/18 off.
Mon. 9/19: get there a little late and our galloper is found to have lost rear shoe in two days ago mud that I'd thought belonged to the other horse.. Our 3.5 inch nails that I have presently are insufficient for speed work in mud. Tack on shoe, work riderless with a nice wow workout, but too dark to continue. Plan gallop this eve.

Monday, September 19, 2011

The List

10 new two year olds to train in the shed row, and reasons why our good trainer avoids exercise science. The list is getting longer. To summarize to date;

1. Does the trainer make the mental connection between performance and the training program?
2. Does the trainer have the ability--mental, intuitive, attention to detail, etc.--to carry out the program?
3. Duplicating a rational training program has its inexplicable difficulties.
4. Track experience militates against "programs". Do they ever work in terms of wins?
4. Does the trainer have the motivation, given their emphasis is more on earning a living than creating an athlete.
5. The numbers game and short shelf life of the race horse.

and, there's more. Here's a really big one:

6. Owners. Our good trainer of the ten 2 yr. olds has an owner that without a doubt has some "ideas" how they want their horses trained. And, very likely, those ideas have a lot more to do with making a quick buck than they have anything at all to do with athletics. Here you have your trainer of one of your horses embarking on a rational six month training program designed to avoid injury and get performance and the owner appears trackside one day and exclaims, "what the heck is going on with my horses". How come have they yet to race."

Or, for our good agricultural owners--the farmers who supply two or three foals a year, and, since they get up with the cows and are in bed before the NFL games get televised and are themselves with zero experience in athletics--what the heck, are you trying to kill my horse. These sorts have very ingrained ideas on "training", and they expect their their trainer to comply.

The moral of this story is, the idea of keeping the "owner" happy is also likely the interfere with the thought process of what would constitute the "program".

Training:
Lot's of rain around here last 4 days. Horses have trained riderless in mud at speed and we've walk-trotted under tack each day that we trained. Idea of racing the horse hanging on by the fingernails but hope still there.
Sun. 9/18: Off. Rain. Wet, slippery.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Sun. Misc.

Back, and will beg my own pardon as my attention Thurs. shifted from horses by an amazing and unbelievable website of such quality I feel, having read it, compelled to comment. We've been training and will post on that next week. The blog has deviated on occasion from our good subject, and again, while this is on my mind, I want to post on this today.

Three years ago for kicks I'd decided to study history. Hey, this is all on the web now days. I'd started with the history of the planet with an superb website on paleontology, and on and on till now I've finally reached year 2011. Some really good stuff along the way.

Two things in all this incomprehensible period of time really stand out for me. One, for utter putrification because it was carried out literally over centuries under the auspices of religion, is the Inquisition. The other, also having a religious component, and one memorable quote that I'll post next week from this website, is the holocaust for sheer scope of human depravity. They squeezed centuries of horror into a couple of 2-3 years. The whole sordid story here, down to the last sordid detail:

http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

More Whys And Wherefores Of "Trainers"

We avoid making fun of people on this program, er...blog. Although, unavoidable on occasion. Someone had pointed out to me that Bill Belichick's (football coach--New England Patriots) many assistants all failed as head coaches--Charlie Weiss, Romeo Crennel, Josh McDaniels and Co. Each was unable to duplicate the master in differing venues.

This supports the premise last post that carrying on intelligent exercise programs is a trick for the few. If e.g. you wisely recognize yourself as a well proven certified shlub and your also training horses, how receptive will you be to "exercise science"?

And, our owners--"good grief, how can we identify these sorts". Answer: take a walk down their shed rows. If you've got eyeballs you'll recognize them in a heartbeat.

Intelligent trainers--and there are many of them, have many other aspects of their particular exercise choices--factors that influence them and militate against what seems logically obvious.
This is the place for the list:

1. The trainer's mission--the training game by its nature has our good trainer's primary focus hustling their next owner. "Training" the owner's horse is well and good, but secondary to the mission of financial survival at the race track. Why do you do what you do with the horse? This message gets mixed up with the question of what I am doing here in the first place.

2. The numbers game--this regrettable unspoken aspect of the back stretch likely is the primary reason for most of the training program. In the year 2007 at the Woodlands when that long time Nebraska trainer in the shed row beside me at the end of the meet packed up his shed row into the trailer for the trip home every last one of them was injured, the last injury having come in a final minor stakes for his one survivor the day before. Is this necessarily a problem for this fellow? I'd guess he'd been playing the exact same game for 20 years at least and would venture that in the spring of 2008 he still had a shed row with an entirely new group of horses on which to work his magic. The mantra on the back stretch is: bring on the next one. In the past they've always always popped up. Given the length of shelf life, why bother with any particular horse, unless it's winning, of course.

Out of time, continue next.
Training:
Sun. 9/13 Riderless speed work--flashing speed today. Tack--walked 10 min. In weather rider's legs like jelly again and unable to get up out of the saddle to trot.
Mon. 9/14: Off
Tues. 9/14: Riderless lengthy speed work. Declined tack work near dark. Will post shortly on our horse and some vids. Some small hope remains that we can get him to the race track, but that's about all it is at this point.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Factors Affecting Training Programs

If T. J. Smith is leading trainer in Australia 33 years in a row, if Charlie Whittingham wins all of the big local stakes, or if Bob Baffert consistently cleans your clock, why would rational trainers avoid taking a step back from their own training program and analyze what these successful trainers are doing?

In the NFL it's called copy catting, and you may safely bet your paycheck that this year's Superbowl innovation will be next year's league wide protocol.

Yet with horses this rarely happens over the long haul. Instead, horse racing by and large has the same idiots performing the same idiot training year after year, decade after decade. Tom Ivers referred to it as an old conventional trainer having one year's experience multiplied 20 times.

And thus, for our new stable of 10 two year olds, let's assume--big assumption--that our trainer is one who does make the connection between exercise science and performance, that our trainer while understanding the difficulty of more complex training programs in actually winning races (last post), is there anything else that might cause such a trainer to refrain from exercise science and instead continue on the old beaten path of conventional training.? My own answer would be in the affirmative and the list of whys is long.

Briefly comment on the ones that come immediately to mind (there may be many more) without any particular order.

1. Copy Catting intelligent exercise programs ain't that easy. Consider the case of Australian trainer Gai Waterhouse, daughter of T.J. Smith born and raised in T.J.'s stable. Ms. Waterhouse is a trainer of note and seems to win an occasional big race. She is, however, hardly ever experiencing the sort of success of her father. Why? Success in athletics requires an intuitive process that I call an elevated dose of common sense and logic as it applies to sport that in truth is a talent of the few instead of something easily acquired or universally shared. If you possess this ability you will on a fairly continuous basis be astonished by the utter obtuseness of your training/managing/coaching peers.

While this may be a comment on the human condition in general it also has a specific athletic component. I'll leave it there except to note that I can watch a football team for 60 seconds and tell you whether they are well or poorly coached. Most of my peers cannot.

Moral of the story is that Gai Waterhouse may be trying copy T.J. Smith but lacking some of T.J.'s natural athletic talent which he likely ran into early on with his first horse name "Bragger" and with the horse background of his own father, the daughter Gai simply lacks some of the intuitiveness and attention to detail in aspiring to the level of success of her father--even though what she has done is still fairly impressive.(Gai Waterhouse in the photo).

Rest of the list, hopefully, next post.

Training:
Fri. 9/9: Off. Rain.

Friday, September 09, 2011

Connecting Exercise Science To Performance

That the training program may improve performance and prevent injuries is a no-brainer--it can. Will this program improve results in the afternoons?--an entirely different question! Can the good trainer of 10 freshly scrubbed two year olds that indeed makes a mental connection between training and performance expect to win more races in the afternoon?

Let's note first that 25 years after buying the first horse for $7000.00 in 1987 dollars, and many many hundreds of thousands of dollars later--would fear to count it--honest personal anecdote would answer "highly doubtful". And, highly doubtful for numerous different reasons, which is exactly the rub on this subject for every experienced track trainer--unlike trained human athletes there are so many calamities that our good horse athletes are subject to, irregardless of training, the likelihood of getting any one horse on a consistent training-racing program for any appreciable period of time--well--you're swimming upstream against a very strong current.

If, as in my stable, you can avoid horses falling over in the wash rack breaking hips, getting kicked in the nose after 3 wins and a second, somehow getting a nice silver dollar sized wound in a hind fetlock just when she was getting good, getting yourself kicked in the choppers just when you have 7 ready for their first races, etc. etc.--all the non-track "stuff happens to horses" sort of things, there is always an incompetent rider lying in wait to ruin your day. I can count three of mine that were literally destroyed by such riding near the beginning of successful racing campaigns.

The question becomes why bother with a 1.5 year Ivers training program, or knocking yourself and the horse out for several months with rigorous scientific training when all that's going to happen is you may get in 3 or 4 races before something happens. What are the odds of this? Fairly high from my experience.

We had put Jeckimba Bay through Ivers down to the 3 breezes/day at Prairie Meadows and then followed Ivers instructions--instead of resting after a breeze took him for a trot to stretch out and get physiological benefits (according to Ivers) of that and wound up with a sore shoulder. In addition to everything else that happens, who knows exactly how to train a "horse" scientifically?

Lump this all into one little bag and you have knowledgeable trainers that are highly skeptical of "programs". They know instinctively what happens with most horses--they never make it, or substantially under perform because "stuff happens" or because it is so difficult as to be nearly impossible to prevent stuff from happening.

Now--I want to avoid getting carried away with my own personal experience for the reasons that geographical distance from race tracks geometrically compounds every problem and has made our own stable difficult even with the good weather we used to have. We thus additionally turn our attention to those trainers that have by all accounts used more strenuous training.

Who comes to mind in this? Nafzger with Street Sense, Charlie Wittingham, T. J. Smith in Australia, Bobby Frankel in the day was at least doing 4f breezes every 7 days when they started racing, I'd say John Sadler to an extent, these days, and likely a few others. D.W. Lukas certainly has his own, albeit questionably conceived, exercise program.

Given the success of these types why would everyone else do anything but simply copy their programs? This question brings one to the remainder of the "why do they do what they do" question, next post.

Training:
Wed. 9/7: third day in a row for tack work. Rider and horse still getting bearings with new wider horse. Felt a little more comfortable although still in pain from leg tendons stretched at least 4 inches further than ever intended. The horse however did well and we should be galloping by tonight. 13 min trot in pasture including up and down hill. 5 yr. old non raced maidens eligible at Remington says the Spanish speaking fellow that answered the phone in the racing office.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Connections Between Training And Science

Our conventional trainer has his 10 new two year olds. What is the thought process in terms of exercise schematic and getting this bunch to the races?

Two initial Qs in terms of making a "connection" between training and exercise science, one mental which is the thought process of the trainer, the other physical and actual:

1. Does the trainer make a mental connection between exercise science and performance and injury prevention?

2. Is there a connection at all?

In general those in athletics making the connection between the workout and performance are certainly far greater in number than in former days but still relatively few. My own estimate is that about 25% of those actively involved in human athletics make the connection. This means that 75% never make the connection. If this is true, what may we expect of our horse trainers?

Some things to ponder--read any Internet fan board for pro-football or baseball. You'll see almost none of the couch potatoes connecting "managing" or "coaching" with team performance. In baseball a manager/pitching coach can totally abuse a pitcher in terms of pitch count or use on consecutive days--the pitcher is injured--the fans never make the connection. Much less the manager. To them this is "just happens" "part of the sport" stuff.

For myself involved in High School Athletics, I remember our preps for the season as supervised by our "coaches". The mantra then was to "get in shape". That meant a couple of two-three week pre-season workouts involving push ups, sit ups, a few wind sprints here and there. Once practice began there were team push up, wind sprint sessions. Once the season began the coaches would occasionally get back to this in certain practices, but, by and large, conditioning in those days involved showing up to practice or play. There was almost zero conditioning in the scientific sense and little to zero individual player instruction all through my own high school years.

Onto college, and fully participating in college intramurals as player and athletic chairman of my dorm floor for two years I still never made the connection. Ditto in my military basketball days probably played at the small college level. By then I had been in competitive athletics for 12-15 years without making the connection between workouts and performance. Again, the thought process did include "getting in shape" which is sort of a vague general notion quickly forgotten when the games begin.

For myself I can likely pin point the moment of initial "awareness" when I began serious distance running as a senior in college. This is the sport that quickly reinforces in my meager brain, yup--the more you do, the more distance run, the more frequent exercise, the better you get.

The point of my personal experience is that even those in athletics--the athletes, coaches, fan, almost nobody in the old days made the exercise-performance connection. You can be in the sport for years and years and see it only vaguely. Certainly in football there was an understanding that if I did 40 yd. wind sprints every day I was a stronger runner. And, I understood such niceties that my best sprint was generally heat #3 or 4. Yet such occasional minor epiphanies never caused me to really make the connection. Mostly I'd just "play" without any special program.

The second thing for me that caused a definite connection was the exercise physiology class at the University of Missouri that I took as a grad student on my way to a coaching of basketball certificate. Reading that great text book--and boom, there it was.

Given my own experience regards the connection it is completely unsurprising to me that our conventional trainer with their 10 two year olds both fails to make the connection or is even receptive to it. The latter point more regards the rest of this as it gets more horse specific.

Next post--is there in fact any connection between horse performance and the exercise program. Seriously. Consider this!

Training:
Tues. 8/6: riderless speed work + walk under tack.
Wed. 8/7: Horse was trotted under tack in the pasture for 10 min. Having a rider leg problem due to new, wider horse. Better this night, but still painful. Presumably back to serious tack work tonight. Will see.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Whys Of Conventional Training

You're a trainer. You've recruited this new deep pocket owner who, for reasons inexplicable, gives you ten two year olds to train all costing $20-25,000. What now, eh? What's the thought process? Why do you do whatever it is you're going to do with this fresh new bright eyed bunch?

Add this, though--you're a (typical conventional race track) trainer (of the sort we see populating our back stretch.) Whoa big fellow...does that ever change things--and, does so for a number of reasons I'll post on next-- as they come to my mind instead of in any particular order. Confide ab initio after you've read the list, you'll be questioning, as do I, the sanity of this new deep pocket owner.

The basic Q is why train conventionally (as the majority of track trainers do) instead of scientifically by principles of exercise physiology. Here are some things to consider:

The connection between exercise and training, and winning races. Two things in this regard. Has the trainer in their life made such a mental connection, and, possibly more significantly is there in fact a connection as it relates to horses (instead of humans).

Has the trainer made the connection between training and performance?

Let's take note this is more rare than one might suppose. (and, blogger runs of time. finish tomorrow.)
Training:
Mon. 9/5: riderless speed work + one mile trot under tack--new thing crops up of phenomenal leg pain for our rider as this horse has grown so wide it suddenly feels like I'm doing the splits up there. Hope to figure this out tonight.
Tues: 9/6: Off

Monday, September 05, 2011

Whys Of Track Training (Continued)

Your typical horse owner? More muscles in their arms than in their head?

I have yet to ever sit down with a conventional trainer to discuss the Q:
Why do u train the way u train?

Seems a redundant Q to me. I've seen what they do, and have pretty well already figured out they are without any rational reasons for what they do in terms of exercise physiology. Why waste any more time asking some track trainer why he sends his horses out to gallop twice a week and breeze on occasion. The answer most likely: "all they need".

And, indeed, that's true in the sense that it applies to the goals and motivations of these types of individuals. You can load a TB race horse into the starting gate on this sort of training, and, it will run around there. For those few that in the moment in time are competitive, rest assured those few will get a little more attention from the boss for their up coming races. For the remainder, if they happen to be dropped low enough to show something they'll receive the same priority. If they get hurt or continue poor performance, get 'em out a here/and, on to the next one, in most of our stables.

Then along comes Mr. or Ms. "Exercise Physiologist"/rational human being: "Excuse me sir (or madam), I have some things in my bag of tricks that will cause your horses to run better. And, a conversation begins that you may rest assured will result in polite but glassed over eyes from our good trainer. Why? He/she likely fails to care/give a hoot. And, why is that in the case where somebody rational would be thinking that improving performance is what it's all about?

Stage set/nitty gritty next post.

Training:
Sat. 9/3: Off. Rain.
Sun 9/4: 10 min riderless including some nice speed work that I got on the phone but not on the flash card somehow. + 10 min. ride at the walk. Riders legs were barking from overdoing previous day's workout--which given my physical condition is hardly bragging. Lesson renewed, never (and with horses "ever) do more than you're conditioned for. Had to abort because I was unable to get up out of the saddle for the trot. Hopefully better tomorrow.

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Sunday, September 04, 2011

Whys( And Wherefores) Of Track Training

What shows in the photo is new. Pro athletes with muscles growing out of their ears conditioned to the nth degree in the year 2011 in the NFL. Without year round weight room work these players might be sacking groceries instead of populating NFL rosters.

Take note, same photo 10 years ago likely would show lesser degrees of arm muscle development.

This is new. And, has yet to permeate all pro sports. I'd guess 75% of baseball managers utterly fail to connect conditioning to performance and in general mostly lack interest in the concept of improving their player's performance. We still have H.S. grads managing major league baseball teams, and here with the KC Royals we have a manager/gm combo so completely oblivious to athletic performance that I am daily amazed how they keep their jobs.

All this sheds some light on race horse trainers. These good folks are in general hardly the exception to the rule in human athletics. And, there are several additional reasons unique to horses that most track trainers have very little interest in conditioning beyond bare minimums. Specifics, next post.
Training:
Sat. 9/3 Off. rain.

Saturday, September 03, 2011

Sat. Misc.

Way back when while watching my horse breeze Ivers style at the Woodlands here in KC a polite middle aged trainer came up to me, introduced himself, and said "I just want you to know you don't have to do all that to run horses." A point that has stuck with me through the years and bears repeating--"you don't have to do this--go through all this trouble--to run horses."

This isolated incident encapsulates fairly completely the mindset of many on the backstretch which is in their sense the idea of keeping your eye on the ball as to what is the aim of this exercise--getting your horse to run.

It's really a minimalist sort of mindset--getting your horse to the race, and thereafter it's up to the horse, the pedigree and by all means the jock. You want to be some new-comer owner/trainer/or whatever know it all, good luck with this pervasive backstretch mindset

There are two things to it, possibly:
1. the minimalist method of getting them there.
2. the whys and wherefores.

#2 is interesting and will try addressing it next post. I'd like to have a talk as to training method with the trainer of this horse:


Training:
Thurs. 9/1: riderless speed work.
Fr. 9/1: 10 min easy riderless + 1 mile trot under tack.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Misc.

Do things ever changes at the race track? I had these same reactions of Bill Pressey comments last post simply watching horses run in my pre-owing handicapping days. And, then having your personal ticket to the backstretch by owning your first horse what you see in terms of training with an experienced eye does boggle the mind. Interesting that Pressey has these same reactions in year 2011, and in KY of all places.

20+ training years later, and maybe some insight. Will try to put something together with a little more time.

Training:
August passed without much tack work. Horses have minimally done every 2-3 days riderless speed work in fine fashion for last 3 weeks and are rounding into the shape provided by Rodney's limited efforts. Will take stock of were the horse is at and Remington eligibility shortly.