Derby News

This year my attention has been limited to "peripheral" so far.  I pay attention occasionally and look closely on some days at a particular horse.

Derby video coverage continues to amaze me.  Why does the Blood Horse send Lenny Schulman all the way to Churchill Downs to do 2 min. of video which show nothing.  The KY Derby site this year has very little video up.  Ways to promote the sport?  Good grief.  Get's worse instead of better.

Some observations from what does show this morn:

1.  Rule out Hanson.  His sand rolling vid on Blood Horse shows he lacks appropriate tightness to win the Derby.
2.  We rule out Take Charge Indy, of course.  I dislike saying this and usually try to avoid it, but this trainer from his comments is a certifiable idiot.
3.  And, of course, rule out Alpha for similar reasons.  Look at the trainer.  Also the vid of the 4/28 breeze shows a horse that is unlikely to be up to the task.  Breeze 4f 8 days out.  Brilliant.

However, will look at the clockers reports this week and see what they do. Imo--the gallops into the Derby have crucial importance as to speed and distance.  Why?  Once the horse achieves the fitness it is necessary to maintain it and sharpen into race day.

I did note Union Rag's Sat. Breeze was virtually a mile work with some of the furlongs being done in :14s.  Rags might be a little fitter than his published workouts show.

Homefront

The new herd.  The chow hounds in the paddock would be Rollin' Rodney and Groovin' Wind.  They managed to get themselves kicked off of two successive farms because they were mounting mares and otherwise misbehaving--jumping fences, etc.  Believe we have the right place and herd now.  It was never a problem with the horses.  The people--another matter. Let's suffice that the world of OTB is a strange strange place. 

And, the new herd adjustment has been a comedy worthy of note.  Will try to get some vids of the new "herd boss" which formerly was an 18 hand Percheron draft horse who greeted Rodney two minutes after arrival with a vicious bite and then a thud of a kick to the ribs that was able to hear 200 yds. away.  Rodney, being a slow learner, continued to challenge this horse, to my amazement.  Rodney has proved a completely dominant animal.  He now chases the Percheron, who sports numerous bite marks, around the pastures.  Drought problems in this area.  Minute I stop training it stops raining, as one might expect.

Yes Mr. Anonymous that's a hilarious race call!  Horse aided by tail wind on the back stretch looks just as strong into the wind into the straightaway.  Assuming this was Lumber Boy.  We'll see what Hushion does.  Bill--nice to hear. Hope all is well!  Might be a contest between Matz and Byrne as to who is more out to lunch. Somebody correct me if this is wrong.  When was the last time a horse won the KY Derby without any breezes 10 days into the race?  NFL Draft today and then, spirit willing, this blog will look at the Derby.

To Fulminate

If u're literate and have yet to read Labrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, do before u expire if only for the pure intellect of this Jewish Argentinian likely most brilliant writer of the last century. Above, Borges in 1951. Have a dictionary handy since this involves IQ 180+ where words and concepts such as vituperation, fulminate, impugn, schismatic, parody, teleogy, polemics, syllogism, parody serve as basic vocabulary. What is a fitting end for a high priest of the Aztecs, one of those dudes at the top of the pyramids who cut out the hearts of the sacrificial victims?  We've seen the end of several German Prison guards from the death camps.  Borges adds a first hand account of the mindset of the camp commander in Deutsches Requiem, just brilliantly done. The Aztec was thrown into a dungeon by the Spaniards where we first meet this fellow in the pitch black 20 years later and privy to his thought process.  Amazing stuff.

Which brings me back to the KY Derby.  In terms of spare time, without any horses to train, presently. and 2012 speeding merrily on its way.  I've of late been watching more the NFL draft.  For the comment from yest.--watching The Lumber guy I'd say that any horse capable of a 1:36 mile at Aqueduct ought to be right in there on Derby Day.  Wondering if he's in the field.  If he is, I'd say depends on the training, and what Michael Hushion would do with the  horse from here to the race.  Past history indicates when they race 2 weeks pre-derby the trainers tend to do very little with the horse which turns into, and I hesitate to use the phrase, kiss of death for the Derby prospects.  You'd think the horse got a nice boost from the Jerome performance and with appropriate training thereafter at the point of maximum acquisition (training wise), if you hit that successfully (see Tom Ivers) the horse might experience another bounce going into the Derby except that this assumes prior conditioning was appropriate.

My experience with horses--if you have a sequence such as Lumber Guy future performance may depend on prior training.  To wit--if the horse was fit for what he was asked to do there could be a significant bounce in the positive direction.  If the horse lacked fitness and merely performed well the bounce could be in the opposite direction.  Hushion has teased on many occasions and always failed. I'd fear merely conventional training for The Lumber Guy.

And hence:  To fulminate:  (as used by Borges):  to denunciate, explode, in this case against some of the training I'm seeing for the Derby.  How did those over speed works do?  Unsuccessful in one instance, good in another.  Again, I think over speed success depends on overall conditioning.  Doing more with the horse--jumping ahead--is more likely to knock out the unfit horse than move it forward.  After tomorrow here the plan would be to pay a little attention to the Derby.

More Vituperation

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/videos/watch/282FE508-FE00-4EC8-AC1D-CC70E49BC0FD?section=triple-crown

Listen to this insanity and then avoid putting one dime on Union Rags in the Derby.

Vituperate

 VITUPERATE:  be harshly critical.  Attack someone verbally. Berate, revile, belabor.

In things never stay the same category blogger has a whole new format that (brilliantly) fails to allow positioning of photos.  And so, my little graveyard scene is in the center of the screen instead of at left, symbolic for the Derby prospects of Take Charge Indy.  How would you like to have a Derby horse, and ,4 weeks before the Derby your (brilliant) trainer announces to the world that the horse is fit and ready to go, see below link:

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/69052/take-charge-indy-breezes-at-palm-meadows

In my 30 yrs of horse racing I have seen these words:  "he's fit and ready to go" Derby after Derby and so there's a little historical precedence to the fact that once that pronouncement is made the horse in question is without any chance and moreover will finish up the track.  You may read the link as to the plans for Take Charge Indy.  Despite the advantage of Calvin Borel, I will be amazed if the horse is able to overcome this sort of nonsense.  Why would be obvious to anyone that knows something about exercise physiology or someone that themselves engages in regular exercise.  Without writing a book about this sort of utter obliviousness about training horses, let's leave it that this is such a huge misconception--that the horse is fit and ready to go 4 weeks before the Derby--that it's hardly worth commenting on on so many multiple levels.

KY Derby 2012

Interesting faces yesterday. Time to start paying attention to the Derby. It looks as if Baffert's second string won the Arkansas Derby since Bodemeister is yet to be listed in the Daily Racing For Top 20. Am thus without B's PPs.

Bodemeister probably received the usual Baffert prep similar to Secret Circle. Plenty of week apart breezing at 5-6 f in near 12s for the month before the race. U can look them all up here.

http://www.drf.com/events/kentucky-derby-top-20-churchill-downs

And for the pictured horse Dullahan, big boy looks like, who gave some signs of being pulled up in distress (bleeding--fracture--or, just gassed?) in the Blue Grass another one of those over speed workouts. Take a look at D's PPs:

http://www1.drf.com/workoutsForHorseAction.do?rNo=09031094

As noted last post--overspeed training makes u strong. Opposite for underspeed. For such as Neil Drysdale who practice the greater distances except at underspeed, we rarely see them in the big races in terms of performance, and this ignores the injury causing aspect of underspeed training.

Finally there's D. Wayne Lukas and his Optimizer. Unable to pull up the PPs. Why is the trainer of the 1980s and 1990s these days unable to train a horse? Likely has something to do with the combo that trainers rarely change their stripes and Lukas is under training these days against the 2012 trainers that from what I see in the PPs now do more than Lukas's minimal speed work and probably for that reason alone Lukas is without any chance.

Overspeed

Last post noted the :57 Tuesday workout for Ever So Lucky trained by Johnathan Shephard for Saturday's Bluegrass Stakes. Aside from nearly ideal spacing of the breeze (4 days out) we have what the 800 meter human distance runners call over speed training which translates as training licks faster than race speed.

Very timely for me as for the past two weeks I had been doing over speed workouts on the treadmill in my attempt to run sometime this year 6 miles at a 7 min. per mile rate of speed, which is roughly 8.6 miles per hour for 6 miles. It's moving. Give me allowance to post some personal experience and apply to Ever So Lucky.

My treadmill workouts last an hour and the last two weeks I limited the speed to 3 mph with 15 to 20 speed fartleks thrown in during the hour in this manner 2 min at 3mph then a 1 min. speed lick starting slow and gradually increasing speed each lick till the final licks were in the 5.5 mph to 6 mph range.

This was done for the reason it's been 10 yrs. since I last did 6 miles in one hour and probably 25 years since I did the target speed of 7 min miles for 6 miles which is 8.6 miles per hour. At my tender age it's a Q whether the speed is still there and how to get there safely without breaking my legs.

By chance this morn. I was lazy and decided to go with the flow on the treadmill.

To my surprise I was easily able to sustain 4.7 mph to 5 mph for 15 to 20 min at a time. Almost zero effort. My heart rate at 3 mph was a scant 81 beats per minute. My heart rate at 4.7 mph averaged 101 beats per minute. Before the fartlek training 4.7 miles per hour would dial the heart up to 120-125 beat/min. Big improvement in heart rate, and hence physical effort, in just two weeks.

What surprised me in this one work this morning, and this is the relearning, was how effortlessly the 4.7 -5 mph speed was maintained since prior the the farlek workouts it took medium to hard effort to sustain that speed. This morning it was easy. Why?

Over speed training seems to have two components. It makes the slower speeds easy physically and just as important, easy mentally. By doing the over speed I know in advance my legs will churn fast enough to get the speed(which is slower than my max speed in the fartleks), and the cardiovascular system is taxed much less than it would have been without the fartleks as indicated by my low heart rate.

So how will the :57 affect Ever So Lucky on Sat. There was a Chestnut horse about 10 years ago, forgetting his name--started with a T(Old Trieste, 1998 Derby)--that did a :57 before the Derby and everybody was chirping about it. The horse faded in the Derby and primarily was never heard from again. Died recently. And then there was the Hard Spun -Street Sense Derby where Hardspund did the, what was it, :58 before the Derby and had a very decent performance. The brilliant trainer of Hard Spun, Larry Jones naturally declined any more fast works after that and Hard Spun primarily finished up the track in most of the rest of his races. Amazing isn't it how these TB trainers fail to make the simplest connections between training and performance?

Let's note that :57 is hardly fast for these talented animals. Seems to me if u're suddenly going to do a :57 the subsequent performance will depend on the conditioning of your horse. If the surprise of a :57 work prevents the horse from full recovery by Saturday because of lack of condition, then I'd expect a poor performance. If the horse is in decent condition I might expect a bounce.

Note that for Ever So Lucky this is a one time deal and therefore this one fast work hardly qualifies as sustained over speed training. More likely the work, if the horse recovers, will simply make the horse a little tighter than Todd's Plecher's horses. Will see. Since this is rarely done, should be interesting how the horse responds.

Culture Shock

Ever So Lucky worked :57 this morning 4 days out from the Blue Grass. Perfect work spacing to race, speed workout. Be interesting how this plays out. Nice looking horse also.

I'll Have Another

What are the chances that any horse trained by Doug O'Neill will make it to the Derby or last the TC? Probably small. You know this because you've closely followed the training and conduct of Doug O'Neill or you are a very dedicated reader of this blog.

We're quite ok with another TC contestant broodmare sire by Arch even if this gives a little bit of a sick feeling to the stomach. Around here we're well aware of the power and speed of these dudes, the big stride, etc, and the absolute wild card that I'd guess that Arch horses are quite a bit more difficult to injure than most TBs by the likes of the Doug O'Neills of the world. My own Rollin' Rodney has certainly the strongest set of legs I had on any of my horses and that would be around 20 in number. Who was that one last year with the broodmare sire by Arch? Answer at bottom of page.

On the subject of O'Neill my take is that trainers, coaches, managers rarely change their stripes but of course they can, and on rare occasions do. What do you think prompted O'Neill to the work schedule below:

http://www1.drf.com/workoutsForHorseAction.do?rNo=09012692

We approve of the distances of course, and is it any surprise that the horse with the longest breezes ran down the other one in the stretch? Here's the work tab of Creative Cause:

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

Nothing particularly remarkable or particularly bad. The horse also raced twice before Sat. And with O'neil's work tab notice the approx. 9 day spacing. You can say one workout beat the other. There are other variables of course. Keep an eye on these two as likely one of them should be near the front on Derby day. Last year's Arch Broodmare sire: Uncle Mo.

Lessons From Gymnasium

And, whoops, Street Sense (last post) won the Derby in 2007 instead of 2008. Time flies.

Given the latest status of yours truly as a dedicated gym rat where I spend generally 2 hrs. per day towards my goal of duplicating 6 miles at a rate of 7 min. per mile of my late age 20s, thought it might be interesting to document a few lessons from the YMCA learned or relearned.

So here it is, without particular order these principles of training/exercise physiology will be posted one by one as they enter the consciousness.

Today's thought concerns my lack of progress. After initially noting significant improvement in physical condition and some in terms of bodily appearance in starting my program January 1, now at the start of month #4 I seem to be repeating workouts instead of moving forward. I hit 5 mph for 1 hour a month ago. Yesterday my distance for the hour on the treadmill was only 3.5 miles. Similar with weights. Failing to make progress right at the moment. Why?

Here is principle #1--avoid backing off of workouts/missing workouts/or failing to move the exercise program forward.

The first hiccup in my own program was a week in late February where I skipped a couple of days due to lack of sleep and sluffed off some more in that week due to circumstances. I workout out that week, but far lighter than is the habit. The result of this was taking the whole next week to get back to where I had been--i.e. over the course of two weeks zero progress was made in terms of improving performance, and thus on about March 5 I was physically exactly where I had been on February 20. This was repeated with another bad week in late March and then again this last week when I entertained a visitor from Germany. And although I have worked out through much of this at lesser intensity the result has been to be in lesser condition on April 4 than I was on February 20. A month and a half essentially treading water.

Transfer this idea to TB training and you've got Todd Plecher going through the same routine with his horses month after month year after year. Has anybody ever seen a Plecher horse improve off the Plecher program? My idea on the race track is improvement. Unknown to me what Plecher's ideas are except my own recent gym experience would indicate a Plecher type program is insufficient to achieve improved performance.

Best KY Derby Trainer 2012

What a surprise! Matz's brilliant horse finishes up the track. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, some trainer, who is it, Patrick Byrne wins the Florida Derby. Avoiding images of Byrne since trainer in fact of Take Charge Indy quite likely is pictured at left.

How else do u explain a horse leading all the way in the Florida Derby off of zero recent races? Though the PPs indicate longer breezes than the erstwhile Michael Matz trained favorite, what shows on Patrick Byrne training is other than anything to write home about either. Enter Calvin Borel.

A faithful watcher of Street Sense and 2007 Derby training (or a dedicated reader of this blog) knows Borel takes those 5f breezes and turns them into mile works. Believe Borel learned this from Nafzger and Street Sense, and its probably a pretty good guess that Borel will insure his Derby mount in better fitness than the rest of this year's Derby field. This presumes, of course, that Byrne is able to get his charge to the Derby without injury(remember Borel's Arch Arch Arch), someting we'd be quite concerned regarding the PPs that show with Union Rags, who like a Plecher horse works just on the underside of fracture resistance. And so, a bit prematurely, we award the 2012 KY Derby training award to Calvin Borel. He will have earned it.