Trackwork Continued

Horse and rider have arrived on track near the entrance gap for a one mile 2 min. gallop. The rider has assessed track conditions which that are, shall we say it, cuppy in the extreme, but looking down the track about half way between the outer and inner rail there does appear to be a reasonable path somewhat free of holes left by horse's hoofs. The rider at this point computes a number of things at once, some of them pre-planned, some impromptu on the spot.

The first subject of concern is the point on track where the work will begin, and by extrapolation therefore, the point at which the warm up will begin. And, lest any of our inexperienced might suppose these are anything other than critical calculations, let's consider a few things.

First, as our purpose is "training" in the scientific sense--i.e. we have reasons and purpose for what we're doing based both on what's gone on before and what's planned ahead, i.e. our training seeks both to obtain out of this week's workouts maximum acquisition for the horse in the upcoming race in terms of performance, and also--as always--injury prevention of the skeletal and soft tissue sort. To put this obvious thought process in graphic terms, we seek to avoid the situation where a specific sort of workout is directed for our rider, and the result of the subsequent ride is other than what has been instructed. Failure to perform the workout precisely as directed can (and frequently does)l result in a number of undesired consequences from a violation of our basic logical premises to possible catastrophe caused by miscalculating the injury prevention effect of our workout.

Some might say this is "training gone amuck". Too detailed, worrying about stuff that likely will never happen, impossible for horse, rider or trainer to assimilate, etc.

This would be true for indeed breaking things down is unnecssarily complex, but untrue in that all that is being spoken of here is that the rider indeed perform the workout as planned.

Given the recalcitrance of some of our good animals to do as told, or, in other terms, the inability of our riders to communicate what we want to our animals, there will be for the rider at the gap entering the race track a certain amount of pressure. For the trainer watching this from up high the question generally revolves around "what unplanned disaster awaits on this nice day?"

And, indeed, how many times have I sat up there with precise directions as to this workout where e.g. the horse will go 1 mile wire to wire in two minutes, and I'm watching my clock and the rider is doing :17s around the club house turn (instead of the required :15s)--or the rider is making any of a number of the mistakes that I will leave to your imagination.

Some of these faults may by that of the rider, some the horse, and some involve general track conditions such as the traffic. Since the aim of all this is to get compliance from our horse for the purpose of performance, how then will our rider achieve this desired work which is simply following the instructions given, next post.

Training:
Mon. 10/3: riderless, some spurts.
Tues. 10/4: 4 times up and down the hill trot-gallop slow.
Wed. 10/5: 4 times up and down the hill trot-gallop near two min. speed. First serious spook in a while, luckily forward.
Thurs: Off. 30 mph wind. no thanks on our spook ball.