Thurs. Misc.

One of better horses ever. Montjeu. Look at this conformation. Are those shoulders a tad upright. I've rarely seen that sloping shoulder the conformation experts always mention.

Shorter pasterns(than, e.g. Union Rags). Is it that longer pasterns may be necessary for superstar runners on dirt to permit navigation on a deep surface? Large rear end, large shoulder area, short cannons compared to length of forearm. As always the most important factor making this fellow a great horse likely is breathing ability. With horses the good die young, for reasons unknown. RIP.

Horse Plans #2 And Other Things

Despite my reservations I'd bid on the yearling last post, indeed, hoping she might go for $1500-$3000.00. Pollard's Vision. Hey, it's possible. Was it Turfway Park Spiral yest. won by a yearling sale grad $15,000.00? Unknown where all those million dollar babies are. You'd think if one spent a million bucks they'd use enough sense to train the horse appropriately. Obviously from mounting evidence over the years it's otherwise.

In the RR stable universe we are currently without horses and without money but with thoughts to get back to the race track and some amorphous plans to get it done. There's presumably a sizable settlement coming in the hear future. As luck would have it they just moved the trial date to 2013 and so I fear any settlement would come after the fall yearling sales. Possibly I could scrape up $1500-2000 by then. Unknown if that will still buy a decent horse in this market.

The other part of the plan, as noted previously, would be to move the new horse directly to a training facility-race track with my personal presence. And we note, whoa there, if that is to be done there must also be a source of income until the horse starts racing. Big stuff that's interesting to consider and far more difficult to accomplish in real time.

Would I rather have a million bucks in the bank and just buy my way back? Really I doubt it. I've never been into buying success in athletics. Seems more interesting and entertaining to me to do it brick by brick as one can. I do have a sister with 3 million bucks in the bank due to a fortuitous marriage that potentially I could tap for some cash. Personally I prefer to go it alone and by myself. Individual preference.

As to whether I can bring the plans to reality--will see. For sure it will require an extraordinary amount of energy. It's a hobby however. Is there anything more enjoyable in this world than selecting a yearling through a careful selective process, considering how to develop that yearling into a race horse and where to do that, and thereafter giving it a go at the twin requirements of injury prevention and performance enhancement? I look at all these people buzzing about planning their parties and their outings and vacations, going to concerts and high society events. None of that is as interesting and engaging as developing a new race horse, although for most it requires a fairly dramatic reset of one's goals and daily life.

Horse Plans Post #1

Would you bid on the horse this horse? Left click to enlarge and take a bigger look. I passed. The horse has nice balance and proportions. Superior probably. The front forearm to cannon bone length are nearly perfect--i.e. shorter cannons than forearms. Pasture angle is near ideal and length of pastern seems to fit the horse although to me they have an appearance of length which gives me injury concerns, a concern of mine probably to be disregarded because many great horses have this same pastern conformation.

I passed because the horse looks wispy to me. Thin from the width of the head to the front legs that look a little odd to me in the way the horse is put together to a weak hind end relatively speaking. Croup distances (loin to tail) look a tad short. The horse might be able to run but she lacks power???

I chose the photo wanting a yearling sale sample photo to illustrate my intent to buy one, and ran into this one. By chance and total coincidence, after I made my evaluation of the horse, the tag line on the photo when I copied it said "Blind Luck". So, I assume this is a yearling photo of Champion Three Year Old Filly Blind Luck who lasted all of 18 races for Holendorfer, and, observe that her race record shows she raced almost once a month till she broke down undoubtedly with Holendorfer's superior than most training methods. She's a Chestnut, Pollard's Vision--Lucky One--Best Of Luck.

And, can we have a little chuckle at that pedigree? Am without any idea what BL sold for, but Pollards Vision (a nice race horse) yearlings average about $16,000, and that's after Blind Luck. Another blow to the Sheik. And, there's an Ak-Sar-Ben connection that's creates warm fuzzies in my old heart since one of the granddaddy's is Ak-Sar-Ben favorite Imp Society, a huge thick chestnut that beat about everybody there except Gate Dancer. You never know about these pedigrees, eh?

Now, and again this is quite a coincidence, BL was also the horse that got me kicked off the Paulick Report. In response to a Jerry Holendorfer breezing vid where BL started a mile breeze off a pony at the 6f without any other warm up at all, I posted that she would likely be injured by that work. Paulick was offended because he'd just made this coup of getting Holendorfer to give him this vid, and first thing that happens, some idiot poster posts that this is what's wrong with the TB business, the Holendorfer's of the world. If I'd had more than 3 hrs. sleep that night I'd have understood the need to be judicious to criticize that vid. It was good that Holendorfer permitted it to be posted, and I should have understood that even though as it turned out I was absolutely right on in my evaluation of what was going on. The horse was never heard from again, except in the breeding shed.

And, I must say I'm a little disturbed about my mis-evaluation of this yearling photo, at least in terms of the horse's success, if you want to call 18 races a success. Number of races--that's the way I like to evaluate. Can they run, and how long will they last?

Tues. Misc.

A busy and distracting week behind and this blog is back. Many problems with the retired horses. Avoid that whole story for the purpose of talking about racing instead of OTB and the personal pets now perfecting their new pasture lifestyles.

Anybody including me have any doubt at all that Baffert's horse would run down the other one in Saturday's Rebel Stakes? My thought process watching the stretch run with Baffert's horse momentarily fading was that there was zero way in which that other horse would keep his stride to the wire because, although never looking at the PPs, I was absolutely positive that horse, whoever the trainer was, was unprepared for the distance, and that Baffert's horse undoubtedly was prepared for the distance. Sure as tootin' Baffert's horse maintain his stride and the other horse faded as predicted. Always great when ur thought process comes to pass, eh?

My other thought was, and there's Lukas horse finishing second. Oh how the mighty have fallen. What logical explanation is there that in the '80s and '90s Lukas was winning everything and now ur unable to find Lukas in a winner's circle with a search warrant. A detailed explanation for this is embedded somewhere in this blog. Suffice to say Lukas's former training methods, to which he has returned by the latest accounts, fail to work against a trainer community that has ratchet things up quite a bit since the 1990s/early 2000s. For those new--relate for certain that in those times of softer training TC horses almost never breezed once a week. I also enjoyed Lukas playing the Zenyatta copy cat whereas he used to be the copied.

And, there's the Pressey comment last post. Take note. It's something I observed from day one in racing. West Coast trainers train and East Coast trainers Coast with the Kiaren McGlaughlin Training--why do more when less will do. In those days it was the the West Coast was at least breezing 4f once a week ala Bobby Frankel in the 1980s and the East Coast was hardly ever breezing at all. Both East and West have increased their intensity with East still significantly backward in their methods. On that same note--observe that what shows (who knows what they're doing with him otherwise) Union Rags is skating on the edge on insignificant work to prevent injury by the definitions previously established on this blog. As with Barbaro, if this continues it's fairly safe to say that unfortunately UR likely will fail to make it through the TC. Again, this has to be qualified that I have zero idea as to what Matz is doing on the off days, and perhaps that Matz is still doing the 2m miles with 4f at the end thing, which would change my opinion. Stable plans coming here soon.

Wow Performance?

In the who are these guys category, how about Creative Cause in the San Felipe who motored through all the deep diveting on the outside, and hopefully he made that through without an injury. Notice the faster more consistent fairly logical workout schedule:

http://www1.drf.com/workoutsForHorseAction.do?rNo=09013643

and also, how much stronger that horse looked than his last race. Some competition for Union Rags, possibly? Also noticed post race in the back stretch shot, though vids can be deceptive, CC has, unlike UR--though take note of comment last post--shorter cannon, longer fore arm that I tend to favor.

the race record page.

http://www.drf.com/horse/creative-cause

Union Rags And Ideal Speed Training

Interesting conformation above on Union Rags. Passing the eye ball test from what I'm seeing on the race track as possibly a special horse. Perfect balance, head, neck and body with legs possibly a shade long. Compare the more perfect Big Brown vids. The horse might grow into the legs and lengthen the back slightly as he ages.

The training is another matter, and avoid comment for the moment on the particular trainer, the infamous, if u've read every word of this blog, killer of Barbaro. And yes, training horses for injury prevention does take more than a smiley personality that assumes/presumes everything is perfect because the smiley is in charge. Would hope to avoid a repeat in year 2012.

Again, I could do without the white socks particularly high into the cannon bone area. Shoeing horses you visibly note the weakness in white hoofs compared to black hoofs that are much more solid. White pigmentation for reasons unkown to me makes the hoof tissue crumbly and for myself I'm unable to escape the notion that if the pigmentation causes weakness in hoof collagen that a similar weakness might permeate the bone collagen. This is further reinforced that through the years through informal personal observation I've noticed very few colored like Union Rags last very long on the race track. Somebody will do a study some day. One white sock I'll take, maybe two if its in the rear and the sock is below the fetlocks.

What particularly strikes me about the conformation of Union Rags are the perfect pastern angle. For injury prevention reasons I might prefer a horse that overall has a little less length to the pasterns, but with this horse the pastern length seem almost dictated by the length of forearm and cannon. I have further noticed that many special horses seem to have the slightly longer the ideal pasterns but also note that there are also some such as Big Brown, a nearly perfect specimen, that lack this problem in that Big Brown had length to his legs also but with a little more perfection in terms of the relationships than you see in the young horse above. It is of course possible the UR will grown into his size as well as lengthen the slightly too short a back as he grows older.

We can understand with a young horse built this way that the conformation by itself makes this horse very injury prone and you'd have to be particularly careful in training this sort of conformation in a youngster.

I wanted to dwell on UR for the reason that almost simultaneously with myself having a little epiphany after all these years on what may serve as a very good speed workout there was a post in Blood Horse on what Matz was doing with Union Rags that was identical to what I had just come up with.

For myself the training question is as follows: What can be done safely every three or four days in terms of speed work that also might be a significant performance enhancer.

Would like to explain that I believe in speed in those workouts, meaning that I believe that the more you can get into sub-twelves instead of doing say :12.5s or thereabout as Todd Plecher does, the more optimally the horse will be able to perform on race day for a number of physiological reasons. And, briefly segue into lesson #3 that I am now learning/relearning in the gym. What separates the elite athletes I am seeing at the YMCA? One thing for sure is that they do more work, and do significantly more work more efficiently in their training than the rest of the crowd. They lift more weight partly because they have the musclo-skeletal make up to do so. They run faster for longer on the treadmills. They might be inherently lazier and less motivated than some of the weekend warriors, but in the final analysis they get on there and they do significantly higher quality of training than everybody else.

The above reaffirms my thinking of breezing as fast as possible as often as possible. It's a speed game and there is significantly different bounding motion for a horse doing 11.5s compared to 12.5s.

When you do speed work there is also the increased risk of injury to consider. While I have proven that you can do 6fs in 1:12s every 4 days for months on end without hurting an appropriately prepared horse I have to note that every one of those workouts is always a nail biter in terms of fearing injury.

And so, through the years I have struggled with what might be the ideal sort of speed workout. Just as I came up with this thought there was Matz doing it with Union Rags. Fairly simple really:

A 1 mile 2m gallop with the last 4f being a breeze. The day UR did it I think he finished in :47 and change for the 4f. When you work up to it with a horse of this ability--I'd more favor a :45 and change.

What I love in regards to the above workout is my conception that this can be done safely every three days. Additionally, over time as the horse increases fitness in terms of injury prevention we can visualize extending this to 5f at the end. 2m gallop finishing with 5f in :58.

Avoid for now a lengthy discussion of pros and cons. For this post I wanted to get this idea out there. More I consider, the more I like.

Big Brown below.

A Few Thoughts About Performance

Since Rodney's retirement I have been reacquainted with the gymnasium. In our case here in KC its the Quality Hill YMCA where it costs me 50 bucks a month. I'm up to 5 mph for a whole hour on the treadmill. The goal will be 8.6 mph for 6 miles. 8.6 mph is 7:00 min miles (it takes 7 min to run one mile) for six miles distance. That was my running speed age late 20s/early 30s. One time in those days I did 6:30 minute miles for 6 miles, and will relate that that is moving. Just short of competitive distance running.

Doubt I will try for the 6:30 miles this time around. If I get one to go 6 miles at 7:00 min/mile that will be fast enough geezer time. What I did this morning was 12:00 min miles for an hour. A ways to go.

Thereafter it's an hour with the weights. Living in the gym, believe that's what it's called. I started on 1/1/12 and am now at the beginning of month #3, and, must say, the experience has been worth every minute spent there.

In terms of horses in the gym I am relearning some things that can be applied quite well to performance. Training horses there are always question marks and there are also some things that are just immutable. If the trainer fails to observe, the horse will fail, perhaps other than this race but the failure will come sooner instead of later.

It starts with observation of the RR rules, and heaven help your horse if u fail any of these at any time.

1. Never do anything with a horse unless you're 100% sure you can do it without injuring the animal.

2. Always better too slow than too fast.

3. When horse takes the wrong lead at speed, always abort.

4. Always abort if horse exceeds planned speed.

5. Avoid stupid stuff on track, rough riding of any sort, trotting sideways, clumsy stops, etc.

6. Always work for stride length and stride efficiency.

7. Never proceed when there's the slightest suspicion of injury.

8. Always conduct an appropriate warm up.

9. Always avoid surprises, including

the same work, heavier weight.

surprise increases in speed or distance

changes in track conditions

frequency of workouts, etc.


10. Plan training in advance. Never plan on the fly or spur of the moment.

11. (Total) Rider control.

Poo Poo any of the above--bye bye horse.

These are of course the injury prevention rules from way early in my horse days and early in the blog. If I thought about them, there might be additional one's to add. For now, however, there are two things from the gym that I want to relate.

First, I am convinced, absolutely that the best interval between hard training events is 36 hours instead of 24 hours and that this would be particularly true for horses. I have seen the success of this sort of regimen over and over at the farm, and am now getting the exact same sensation at the gym. The 36 hours between hard workouts gives sufficient recovery time whereas the 24 hrs. fails at sufficient recovery time. You sort of must be strung out on a hard work out yourself and try it to fully appreciate or otherwise just take the word. How many times do horses do back to back hard workouts. In my stable we did them. Better and safer to do them at 36 hr. intervals. 48 hr. intervals is too long for an optimal training effect imo.

The second thing is more of a personal training epiphany after all these years. Next post.

Sun. Misc.

In the "never thought I'd live to see the day" category how about Ron The Greek's racing strategy in yesterday's Santa Anita Handicap?

Come out of the gate moderately to avoid taking your horse's air away and permit the horse to physiologically get into the race, take off entering the back stretch after this significant warm up, pass horses like they're tied to a post with a brief sprint on the backstretch,and then slow it down into the final turn to permit horse to catch it's breath and start final run at about the 2.5f.

That's always been my plan should I ever have a decent horse in a long race, and here in 2012 I get to finally see it on the race track. Yes, it worked (to perfection.) Why does this seem the ideal race strategy? The strategy contains two 2.5f runs with chance to catch breath in the middle instead of a lengthy 4f run where the horse goes rubber legged toward the end. Combined with easy out of the gate to avoid quick muscle lock up and breathing distress due to inappropriate warm ups, this is what you do. Street Sense did a version of it in the KY Derby in that he started his run entering the backstretch, although SS probably did a long slow steady job instead of two bursts as did Ron The Greek yesterday.

Best horse in the SA Handicap obviously was Ultimate Eagle of whose performance I thought so much I feature him in the vid above instead of the winner. When u run a 1:34 mile u've got a very superior horse even if, guessing, it seems UE's connections thought they were in a sprint race.

And, hmmmmm, let's see, for the runners finishing 1-2-3 in the SA Handicap we have horses by the great stallions Mizzen Mast (Fee $12,000), Pleasantly Perfect ($10,000) and Full Mandate ("Stallion Page Cannot Be Found").