Horse At The 5F

In the picture is worth a thousand words category, enlarge this one.

For the experienced numerous things will strike u. The filly in the middle wears a bit with rings as cheek pieces and without caveson, the outside filly wears a "ring" bit with caveson. Why?

If u look at the shoes, I must say if I were riding these horses at speed I'd be a little(very?) concerned about lack of traction and slipping on that grass with this sort of shoe style. Horses do slip and fall in grass races. Seen it happen. Do they have level grips (John Henry shoes) in Australia?

Notice the outside jock has his boot in a plastic stirrup that is less likely than an aluminum stirrup to release in event of trouble, and the girth strap is flapping on this horse.

What's going through the minds of these jocks at this moment? I'd guess that the thought processes vary with the particular mindset of each rider varying from pea hearted to dare devil. Do jocks, as urs truly exercise rider, calculate their own individual exit with every foot fall of the horse. Unknown. I've yet to ask, but you see some of this in the intense concentration on these rider's faces. They are looking at the ground in front of them with an eye to the company on each side, staying upright and safe on the horse while simultaneously doing their reign and bit work to keep the horse moving at max speed.

While professional jocks such as this give an aura of confidence the fact that all three of these horses in the completion of the present stride are about to stretch out those front legs and slam them with tremendous force into the ground should give a rational rider some pause for thought with each and every stride--is that front cannon, the condylar aspect, the sesamoids going to hold up for one more stride particularly (in the USA) with the deficient warm up and likely training deficient in achieving fracture resistance. Probably good that most jocks are other than the brightest bulbs on the planet.

For my mythical animal who, having changed to the right lead at the 5.5f and sits right before the 5f pole at the start of the work, what's going through the rider's head and the horse, and how does the rider get and maintain that 2 m. rate of speed, next post.
Training: Off today.