More List

Short digression to post exercise warm down, which is added to "The List".

After post race/breeze galloping out we observe all sorts of procedures out there on the race track. Is there a right and wrong way?  Maybe Bill Pressey can be of some help concerning heart rate.

Most jocks have their own post race thing, and I've found it fairly difficult to get a particular jock out of this, even after trainer insistence.

My concern has been with jocks, post gallop-out, that just "stop", intermanably sit there on the horse for 60 sec.  or more in sort of a self celebratory motionless ceremony post breeze before they finally go back into a walk.  My theory -- at this point the heart and respiration rate are likely still very high, and bringing the horse to an abrupt stop might contribute to EIPH.  Why?

I'd think the rapidly beating and huge equine heart creates a lot of capillary pressure.  This pressure would presumably be disspated by muscle movement.  When the horse is forced to "freeze" by its oblivious jockey, everything stops except the heart and the breathing in a very warm animal.  Withouth muscle movement to dissipate blood pressure u have a huge fast beating pump, the heart, forcing blood into a circulatory plumbing limited in diameter.. Possible u'd get some additional capillary burst at this point particularly if there was some bleeding already that resulted from the race.

I thus much prefer (insist) that, post gallop-out, the jocks turn around and trot off instead of stand there motionless.  And when they get back to the unsaddling area, I certainly like to get the saddle off and commence walking quickly on the same principles.  Winners Circle?  Well--we suffer the slings and arrows of just standing there.

The other factor that's important to me is avoiding tying up, charlie horses over small areas.  Does this sort of thing occur due to deficient post race warm down?  Unknown unless the horse could talk.  Would think that muscle cramping and injury over small areas is a possibility.  And so, again, I want my jocks to create enough movement to prevent.

I never bought into Ivers concept that you need 1/2 to a mile or two of post race exercise to "bring down the lactic acid levels". And, the interminable post race walk on the walker is nearly ridiculous imo, although I engaged in 20 min walking to buffer the keyed up horse.  If u stand there and watch 'em at the walker post race u see immediately when the horse has walked enough.  It's 15-20 min. in my experience.

The other part of warm down for me, was the immediate cooling off at the wash rack.  Off the race track--straight bee line to the wash rack in hopes of cooling the horse enough to avoid killing gut bacteria. Certain urgency in this, if u've been there. 

What is the correct exercise regimen post race/breeze--my thoughts--very little is necessary.  Recently read a post from one of those Testosterone Nation fanatics who engages only in "basic" workouts.  He included that while it's well and good that some preach extensive warm up and warm down, in his experience all the stretching, foam work (weight lifter term) etc. pre-and post did nothing for him except waste his time.  I largely agree with the provisos above.

I have some further experience in that I've watched horses extensively in riderless breezing in the paddock.  What is their behavior after extensive hard fast running?  They walk for about 30 sec. and then just stand there.  Sometimes its a bit more than that, but usually, even after max workouts, they do very little.  Which may be instructive.

Warm Down added:

 THE LIST:
1. Injury Prevention
2. Athletic conditioning
3. Physical condition
4. Nutrition
5. Exercise schematic (protocol)
6. Warm up--race and exercise
7. Race strategy
8. Rider
9. Trainer
10. Animal husbandry--general horse care.
11.Animal compliance and compliance training
12.  Race selection
13. Track conditions.
14. Equipment
15. Shoeing
16.  Peer pressure
17.  Warm down.

The List

1. Injury Prevention
2. Athletic conditioning
3. Physical condition
4. Nutrition
5. Exercise schematic (protocol)
6. Warm up--race and exercise
7. Race strategy
8. Rider
9. Trainer
10. Animal husbandry--general horse care.
11.Animal compliance and compliance training
12.  Race selection
13. Track conditions.
14. Equipment
15. Shoeing
16.  Peer pressure

This is what came to mind today.  Any others?  Our good trainer can count to 10.  Hopefully.

Performance Variables: What Are They

It is helpful to think of athletic performance in a certain organized way. Watching horses race to me is similar to analysis of performance in all sports.  Certain consistent observations can be made that affect success or failure.

And so, we consider the "variables" to performance.  Take a look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_%28research%29

The next step after identifying the variable is to "control" the variable.  As a coach/manager/trainer u like to think u can direct your athletes like puppets on a string.  Up to a certain limits, as trainer, you can.

The first step in this process of controlling and directing our animal athletes possibly is to understand the various factors, objects, characteristics that go into winning a horse race.  I thought the Wikepedia piece interesting because indeed a lot of this is intuitive, logical, even obvious.  As the piece goes on to note, however, some other of it is ferreted out by science and study.  This may explain why (in part) most of our trainers, similar to their human athletics coaches/manager counterparts are so utterly oblivious.  I must say, listening in on some of these fellows conversations about their horses, one has to smile.

At any rate--I will now start listing the variables.  Will have to do this from memory.  The most obvious one first, and such a good e.g. today.

Nehro is hurt.  I looked at his PPs before the Stephen Foster and noted that Asmussen was basically going light on the horse. One among many PPs that I looked at--  4f breezes in :50 followed by strenuous racing--and had the flash thought that this horse was fixing to get hurt, by the PPs--and hence the first performance variable and for horses the most important one:

1.  Injury prevention.

Performance Variables

Way back as a freshman at Rolla High School, Rolla, Missouri circa 1961 I began to learn there is more to athletic performance than natural ability. The initial lesson was administered by fellow classmate, then a junior named Jim Hogan, a superior natural athlete.  I experienced the privilege, as did many others, of Hogan striking me out on the baseball diamond, and watched him with his size, strength, natural explosiveness, man among boys physique dominate the various early H.S. Sports.

Then the lesson--that I still recall.  Early basketball season, Rolla H.S. playing somebody and Hogan was missing among our starters.  He was there on the bench.  Rolla was losing and basketball player me kept wondering why they were declining to insert Hogan into this game where I calculated--as i was prone to do watching sports--that Hogan quickly impact the game.  Hogan came in and just his presence made some difference in the game.  Coach never saw it and Hogan played only a few minutes in each half.

Oblivious coach or some problem here with Hogan was my thought process.  Likely a little bit of both.  Hogan played a few minutes in subsequent games and was cut around mid season.  He tried out for a few more of our teams but never made any more impact in athletics at our school.  My thought as a youngster--if they'd just play the guy he'd have been a star.

Hogan's problems, as it was rumored, he had a questionable attitude, failed to like sports although he was good at it, was a poor practice player, was constantly pissing off the coaches and was one of those going to drinking parties behind the stands after the games.

Hogan was such a great athlete and his failure so glaring in light of his abilities that his lesson never left me.  There is more to sports than natural ability.

This general principle has since been reinforced for me repeatedly and gives some hope for our middling Thoroughbreds.  They can be coached up, presumably, if we know how.  I've done it with my basketball teams, seen the individual improvement as seasons wore on, and with my horses.  Weirdly it's a characteristic of sports that to this day so many completely overlook.  How many trainers ever talk about improving their horses?

What goes into this, I call "variables" of performance.  Call them anything--characteristics, traits, things that must be done to win etc. etc.  First deal imo is to identify them. It's the golden fleece.  After that, go to.

More Race Strategy

Young man's race strategy was interesting.  Recollection of Street Sense, 2007 KY Derby.  Relaxing out of the gate and commence to pass horses at the 6f.  Have always been mystified how few use this particular race strategy in the longer races.  It has so many advantages, as the young man last post demonstrated:

Permits physiology to catch up with the effort (instead of charging out of the gate and immediately piling up massive O2 debt).

Gets the horse mentally into the race starting at the 6f--horses love passing other horses.  I learn this from my riderless training.  They get the biggest charge and oomph out of  "the pass".

Other strong horses in the race comfortably maintaining their :12s never see this coming.

Our horse still has something left for the stretch run because although he made a 6f run to the wire, the run was at only a slightly faster than steady state (:12sec/f) pace.

Four race strategies, possible with variations(???):

Bodemeister--Mr. Wire To Wire

Zenyatta--Lay back, save all the ground, and then a lightening 4f burst to the wire. KY Derby winner Strike The Gold another e.g.

Street Sense--as described above.

Drafting behind the leaders--Pressey's drafting post was interesting.  On dirt tracks this strategy somewhat compromised by "kick back", possibly.  Laying third or 4th behind the leaders with good horses is likely most popular.  

Which famous rhetorician or poet--was it Lucretius perhaps--warned to avoid "digression".  The subject here is race horse performance.  Will try to get it organized on a logical path.

Correct Racing Strategy?

Take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBNMO32_YLc&feature=related

Performance

And, away we go.  This blog has covered a lot of ground--the preliminaries of performance--warm ups and injury prevention, keeping them on the track instead of the hospital ward. 

Somewhere in August-Sept. 2007 I experimented with various warm ups for my horses.  The warm up idea involved both injury prevention and performance.  You warm up for both. And--permit me a short personal anecdote on this.  My theory had been--you warm up soft tissue AND BONES.  I fractured a small bone in my wrist from two falls over the past three months.  I am noticing that this bone in my wrist is initially sore in the weight room BUT after two or three sets the pain subsides.  If I go all out on this bone prior to warming it up, it fractures.  After appropriate warm up of that bone--think horse's legs--it holds together, pain gone.

My warm up section lacks a solid conclusory post and so, if interested, read the August-Sept 2007 posts.  It's a complex subject particularly regards practicality of performing warm ups at ur local race track.

I concluded, after various experiments the ideal warm up is:

2f (:15) + 1f (:14) + 1.5f (:13).  Walk-trot in between.  My horses were most ready to perform after this particular warm up.

Two years of injury prevention posts sum up as follows:  must do, minimally, 4f every 7 days at :12.5 sec/f or faster.

A couple of the important performance variables are thus in place on this blog.  I am fairly confident in them.  Next is a training schematic that gets us, presumably, max performance on race day.

Black Caviar

Anything to be learned?  BC galloping.  Consider what shows?

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/videos/11430/royal-ascot---peter-moody-black-caviar?section=international-video

What stood out for me was the power of the stride.  The horse elevates all fours off the ground. Rare to see at the slow gallop. Is this what Tom Ivers meant when he referred to the efficient stride, although Ivers concept of rounding on the bit--Q whether that exists. 

How many exercise rider at our race tracks ride this perfectly?

Motionless over the center of gravity except for the accordion like thigh bob that shows as they pass, motionless with his hands. Reins held so nose tucked a little under chin, aiding forward propulsion possibly?. I also like the minimalist equipment.  Baffert would install a shadow roll (for reasons unknown).

Likely lots of horses could be Black Caviars. Get 'em to the races and keep 'em at the races(see I'll Have Another) and they become snow balls rolling down hill in terms confidence and physical fitness.  Most probably after a certain number of races they learn they can overcome the little pain involved in sprinting through lactic acid build up. This stride is maybe a little bit natural and also "made", am thinking.  Would the Sheik be wise to hire this exercise boy away from the connections, or, just as well, find one on his own and teach?

Fri. Misc

Short break from posts. TC over.  A few thoughts and then on to Qs of racing performance.

--in answer to Lazar Simic--3 bowed tendons over the years each caused by various errors. 2 on same horse. Both horses won races after the bows.  Neither retained its speed after bowing.

--and there's Mark Valeski retired for the year.  Big surprise.  The Q for me is why some of these trainers are able to maintain licenses injuring horse after horse.  And, yes, you Parboo, if you're reading this.  Possibly the new KY vet initiative identifying at risk horses will help.  My mantra has been to limit entry to appropriately trained horses. Pre-race xrays and scanning for TV races.. Giant Ryan and 8Belles and many others likely  would be alive.

--the KY Racing Commission action on lasix--the dirty little secret of the Jockey Club anti-lasix is the understanding by the certain deep pockets that have for a decade or more been trying to NASCAR the sport that denial of lasix wll push small stables and hence smaller tracks out of the sport.  For clarity, NASCARing the sport means restricting access to persons with a lot of money.  Needless to say, what does Bill Casner care if he has to retire a bleeding horse.  Anybody seen that ridiculous Casner video on You Tube where Casner claims none of his horses bleed.  Anybody ever seen a Casner horse race more than 4 or 5 times?  Might try scoping them after race #10 Bill, and report back.

--there are, of course, many well intentioned people that are anti-lasix.  I was never anti-lasix but I never used the stuff till my first horse bled.  That was at least 10 years after I began racing horses.  At that point, naturally, the light comes on and u start to understand what all that post exercise coughing was about over the years.  I'd like to send one of Casner's horses to the high humidity race track at Bossier City and see what Casner would say.  This is the same nut that campaigned to eliminate toe grabs without reading the studies.  How do I know he never read the studies?  Casner's statements were contrary to their conclusions.

End of rant.  In terms of the effect of the lasix ban on my stable, if there will be another--weirdly I should have a training and knowledge advantage.  Yet, it boils down to this--neither of my best horses could have continued racing successfully without the drug--and this is interpreted that outlawing lasix creates a large new level of risk for the small racing stable, for breeders trying to sell horses or race their own and will have a geometric effect in shrinking the sport.  In the end sanity will hopefully prevail.  Will see.

Tues. Misc.

Pleasure to hear from Lamar Simic, last post, vet/horse trainer from Serbia.  Comment from this part of Europe reminds me of Miroslav Krleza who wrote a book emblazoned into my mind called "On The Edge Of Reason"--as good as "The Trial" by Kafka, which is high high praise. Although, I see that Krleza was a Croatian.  Statute(monument) of Krleza above in Zagreb for perspective.

To answer Q my pre-race Vet exams consisted of trot, palpitation, visual inspection.  Horse generally scratched with slightest problem which causedQ as to how O'Neill thought he could run and expected IHA to pass the State Vet exam.

Nice post by Pressey on Drafting in races today:

http://thoroedge.wordpress.com/

Would be interesting had Baffert worked to point where he could have breezed his colt in 1:22 instead of 1:25.  Different result maybe.  I had--and I had it after all these years--a little training epiphany this morning in terms of getting performance. Maybe I have finally gotten over my stumbling block of appropriate off day work for performance.  Will post on that soon.

52 year old athlete recounts 6 months of training for a meet that he wins. Horse specific stuff in his conclusions.  Another gem from T-Nation: 
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/heavy_lessons

Would IHA Have Won?

Seemed quite an exciting TC season.  Query which is worse:  IHA injury or IHA in the Belmont finishing up the track?  Would IHA have won the race???

The fractions were a bit slow, Union Rags even in victory hardly looked the part of a TC champion. However, did anyone get a look at that track. On Paulick report Sat. Morning-- Paulick and Migliore--take a look at the 2:27 mark on as deep a track as I've seen.  And, again, do have training injuries on such a track? This looks like galloping over an egg carton:

http://www.paulickreport.com/news/triple-crown/video-exploring-the-unique-challenges-of-riding-at-belmont-park/

My take--a healthy IHA given the training would have struggled to stay with the top three in the stretch.  Doubtful one can gallop a horse but a mile over a three week period and expect the horse to go all out over 1.5 miles on race day without tying up breathing or muscles somewhere around 1.25 miles, particularly on this deep track with these turns.  More appropriate training?  IHA likely blows them away imo

IHA training, as Lamar Simic has commented, might well have been compromised by the physical condition of the horse despite O'Neill's seemingly sincere denials.  With the points Simic makes, if you've trained a horse, and considering this carefully, is there any way that IHA comes out of the Preakness off that training with "ice cold legs", or off his Belmont training effort having, as Simic noted had his trainer fail to appropriately adapt the horse to the deep surface and the turns, is there any way that horse around June 1 and before would have had ice cold front legs?  Highly highly doubtful.

Tough spot for the trainer, of course, even if it's a weekend race at Eureka.  It's embarrassing when you're horse starts showing tendon heat.  Reflects on your training and decision making.  In O'Neill's case, having listened to the fellow for 4 weeks now there's likely some rationalization there, or maybe it all falls in the "would fail to recognize the truth if he saw it in Church on Sunday morning category."  High IQ, seemingly sincere--but did that TV feature on NBC Belmont with O'Neill and Reddam looking like the bobbsey twins put one a little on guard.? Unable to link that one, unfortunately.

Let's conclude with the Q how many times O'Neill has likely had to manufacture excuses to his owner victims for injuring horses.  Must be second nature.  I feel another Doug O'Neill interview coming on.  Here's the one from a few years back:

http://ratherrapid.blogspot.com/2008/11/doug-oneill-interview.html

Sun. Misc.

--those higher purses really increased field sizes at Hollywood.  RR mantra--adjust purse sizes to track economics to include Track owned ADWs and Internet adds.  All that these ridiculously unnecessary high purses do is allow a few deep pockets to garner the money.  Call their bluff, let 'em go to were the grass is greener chasing purses.  Soon as they leave, 10 new owners pop up like new born cabbages.

--in the race, in spirit instead of in person.

What's with the lip chain?  Try it on yourself sometime.

--txs to Lazar Simic for his comments couple of posts ago.  Spot on!  Adjust ur horse to the surface. Tendons can of course just pop up or develop over time..  O'Neill might have felt some tendon heat early from the depth of the Belmont surface or length of those turns.  TC on the line--feeling heat/what do you do query.  Difficult though should have been avoided as Mr. Simic pointed out.

--Then, there's this.

WTF! Never ran a jump.  In this day and time where r ur aerodynamic silks son?  Pre-race Castallano comments:

Q:  What is ur race strategy?

Castellano:  "oh, we decide when we come out of gate".  Two possibilities:
1. C wanted to avoid revealing their strategy, or
2. There was no strategy.

--then this

D (in the green and yellow on the rail) has now been spurted forward, pulled back, moved side to side, eaten 1 mile of direct kickback in what at first blush appears to be the worst ride of the TC season, but on closer exam is likely merely the jock failing to get his big horse in position out of the gate. Earth to connections--D is too big to maneuver in traffic.

The hilarious final result was that D in early stretch, instead of going for the leaders hooked up with the horse to his immediate outside. Vid shows D eyeballing that horse instead of up ahead.

--Most likely explanation for D failure--Romans was so freaked out by the :45 and change a week ago that he put the horse under wraps and did very little all week Effective off day gallops necessary to maintain condition.  The horse looked inexplicably weak all the way around the track.  Could also be "little stuff" once again. Failure to discuss strategy with the jock; what is the horse doing laying back on this kind of track in this kind of race.  Racing 101, when u've got the best horse with this sort of field, why would u do anything but go out with Union Rags from the get go.  Romans and Co. now back to the barn to keep on keepin on.

--Romans' failed to handle track excuse.  Something to it.  D is a bit of a climber. 

--Big long striding horse carrying 126 lbs runs down small choppy horse carrying 126 lbs.

 Mike Smith, if u'd have shut the rail, Rags would have shifted outside and still run u down.  This is where the weight tells on the small horse.

--How did Union Rags stay strong on two published works since 5/5?  If that is all it was then this falls in Bill O'Gorman's inexplicable performance category.  Always problematical to take PPs at face value for horses working at private training centers.Which raises the Q--how does IHA get away with doing non-clocked works day after day?  Rules?

--RR virtual handicapping--its a high art that requires perfection.  Failed to cash a single bet.  My excuse, and sticking to it, had I been there and actually was going to spend the $$$ I'd have waited to watch 'em in the paddock and warming up. Likely there'd have been a massive adjustment to Paynter and UR which was dawning on me as the race approached.

--Beautiful coverage by NBC. Congrats to the connections although regards Matz I have to grit my teeth.

Late trend

Just now fully waking up to this one at 2:30 pm. Central time.:

6--count 'em--race/works for Paynter since 4/28.  Has to be the one with the best lungs in race.  Add $6 to win on P as a hedge bet. + another $2 tri--P-D-U.

Belmont Post Time Approaches

Txs. for comments. As the race nears the image of Union Rags as the class horse in this field encroaches.

Superior horse, likely inferior training.  Or, maybe Matz up there at Fair Hill had a sudden O'Neill like epiphany training for the Belmont.  Certainly UR has lost some weight by his on track photos. The horse gives the appearance of looking spectacular.

That's the handicapping challenge.  The stars so rarely align, and so we're left with taking a stand.  Mine has to be that Dullahan is the better prepared horse and will have more in the stretch run.

Also caught a photo of Paynter looking like much more horse than I had thought.

So, where do we put the cash?  I despise losing money much more than winning since when u start losing on consecutive days, losses stack on losses to the point ur wallet is unable to recover.

Hence I like to hedge with the aim of breaking even as a worst case scenario.  The easy logical feature bet here is a Dullahan (D) + Union Rags (U) + Paynter (P) trifecta box as large as is affordable.  However, two 17 hand horses.  Are they too big and heavy for this distance and surface?  My confidence in them is high instead of sure, and so, spread my cash around, even though being a little rusty, as follows:

$4.00 on D to win

$10 on D to show

Exactas: Bet $6.00

$4.00 D + R boxed

$2.00 D + P

Trifecta: Bet $26.00

$16.00  D + R + P

$2 D+P+R

$2 R + D + P

$2 R + P + D

$2 P+ D + R

$2 P+ R + D

IHA Training Postscript

One of the great TC race performances goes down the tubes. What a shame! Congratulate Doug O'Neill for having  I'll Have Another absolutely primed for the Kentucky Derby, had a nice pre-Preakness training period where, instead of putting the horse under wraps as so many, O'Neill continued to vigorously train the horse, likely too much, and then, somewhere along the road, if u want to psychoanalyze the trainer and the methods, O'Neill literally lost his mind.

Here is a fellow that can talk to Billy Turner as to how Seattle Slew trained, comment on Lucien Lauren and the training of Secretariat, acknowledge Max Hirsch and Assault, and fail to get anything at all out of how those horses succeeded.

With O'Neill and his massive failure to understand performance and injury prevention, it went deeper than that.  Anybody that's been on a race track for any length of time knows that if you're going to two minute lick a horse every day you're going to injure that horse.  There was some Q in my mind since at Belmont they basically reserved the speed to just 4 fairly slow furlongs.  This is unknown territory to me and everybody else since nobody to my knowledge has ever beat on a horse this many consecutive days with a 150+ lbs rider on board around lengthy turns.  Maybe the horse's legs could take this since I am able to testify as to those stout stout Arch legs..  As it turns out, obviously otherwise.  And decline to swallow that "rapped himself" excuse since that just never happens. + by my recollect, the horse wears bandages.

My guess is that the injury is worse than advertised. How many horses have a trained with a little tendon puffiness one day and three days later they're back tight and back to training?  In the end I'll Have Another serves to remind that instead of training egg shells we're training egg yolk membranes.  The first part of wining the TC or any other race is to keep on the track healthy.  Somewhere O'Neill forgot that or perhaps has never understood Rule #1.

So, who will take the Belmont? Can they catch Paynter, who, with all due regard to the experts is hardly (look at him) a Bodemeister.  I'd think so. This should be a Dullahan runaway for a number of reasons. Rags has failed to do enough, failed to train at Belmont, has shown some laziness that he'll likely--if Matz can keep that horse healthy--need one more race to get back to form.  I think Rags will tie up short of the wire. Dullahan will be close to the pace and I see zero reason to bet against that good looking horse with the most appropriate training in this field

The rest of the field are throw outs with Street Life and Adonis having slight chances to break into the top three.  Barring unforseen developments those two simply lack the class of the top three.  Ditto rest of the field.  This is one where I'd try various tri-fecta, exacta combos.  I'm almost tempted to drive up to Des Moines and make a few bets I am so confident in the top three.  As always, will see.

Fri. Misc.

Watch IHA nodding on the left lead.  Been doing that all week.  Never nods on the right.  Could be something else, could be the injury. Very little of the Churchill and Pimilico enthusiasm shows in IHA in this week's gallops:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvwmYSjyQis&feature=related

Luckily caught before the big race.   Thoughts, next post.

Sitting On A Big Race?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqOZmWb7xBw


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sStVeosVBqQ&feature=relmfu 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvwmYSjyQis&feature=relmfu

Belmont Misc.

Perused all the general coverage. Want to dig deep into this one and handicap next day or so. 
 Misc. observations:

1.  Close look barn O'Neill. They do a lot right. More later on that aspect. Little stuff.  IHA bath vid.  Unlike poor Zenyatta who's Mexican idiot kept her head perpetually cranked right on a short leash, IHA handler gives enough chain to allow free head movement.  Happier horse. 4 humans to bathe him with O'Neill in yellow cap with assistant in supervision.

2.  More respect for that tub of lard Romans. Avoid over enthusiasm however:

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

By and large a conventional prep.At least enough to permit the horse genetically to show his stuff.

3.  Haskins manages a full 3 min. report. Progress! Twice length of Lenny Schulman's; 3 times Tom Law  at TB Times.

4.  IHA workouts: What does short relatively slow speed bursts over mile a day distance in mostly :16s to :18s and 2 fast races three weeks ago get u in a 1.5 mile race against upper level competition? Superior certainly by lengths toDutrow and Big Big Brown, yet, does this schedule lose more than gain?  Will see. I am skeptical. Zero rest days--fail to get it for numerous reasons.

5.   Union Rags?--what are they doing on non-speed days, but 2 breezes in a month more intense than the usual Matz. Bare minimum stuff to be competitive??? And yet, the horse physically looks far better than before the Derby!

6. Anybody else viable?--next posts.

6.  From yest. food for thought for the aging human (athlete).
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/03/3640410/extreme-exercise-may-carry-cardiac.html

Good Betting Race Coming

The old handicapping bloodhound is sniffing the DRF PPs and the old heart going pitter patter over what looks like one of those infrequent super betting opportunities that come along.  2012 Belmont.  Pocket a $1000 on this superfecta, possibly?????  First another look at the IHA training.

Mike Welsch--DRF report yest.--put the clock on I'll Have Another.  Indeed--exactly as visually estimated last post--quarter pole to wire in slightly faster than :14s (:27 and change).  Yesterday after the wire the colt went 2 more F in about :12.75.

What we see in operation is the worst trainer of many this blog examined closely from fall of 2008 on in operation.  O'Neill has learned nothing and we can--imo--safely chalk the prior training of IHA up to pure accident. Sometimes these conventional trainer dogs ratchet up their work, and that's what we saw with IHA.  Then, like all most all of them, they back off when they need to keep on.  I recall Hardspun's 2008 (I believe was the year):57 work prior to the Derby and a nice Derby.  The horse never did that again for his training idiot, and of course never performed that well again.

We recall Big Brown and Dutrow basically just stopping his training between Preakness and Belmont.  If u were reading this blog the Belmont performance before the pull up was predicted.

IHA of course is doing some work although imo it's utterly inappropriate.  Do u at least gallop the horse 1.5 miles a day for a 1.5 mile race.  What does O'Neill--and apparently the rest of the civilized world--think that 4f a day--2 of the in :14s and 2 of them a little faster--is going to get u in the Belmont?

Then there's that the horse is working every single day--no rest.  I'll avoid conjecturing on that one.  Something to be gained, I am supposing, and also something being lost.

The bottom line is that imo IHA is going to finish behind Dullahan in the Belmont and possibly behind Union Rags.  If this eventuality occurs, the Belmont is going to be a terrific terrific betting race.  Superfecta time babeeee!!!!

4 horses in this race should basically leave the others.  Am doubting Paynter is in the class of the the top three, though he's Baffert trained and therefore expect a good effort.  Some combo of Paynter, IHA, Union Rags and Dullahan is going to be the top 4.  If it's an upset might be one of the nicer--and surer--superfecta opportunities.

I'll Have Another Belmont Prep

And so,

What are they doing with IHA, and what think we Preston Burch devotees?

Journalistic coverage of the event, and, let us try to find the good in everything, no news is good news, am supposing.  There is one vid out there showing IHA almost all the way around the race track on the Steve Haskin's blog and a few snippets in DRF, and one, (I believe that's "one") galloping vid on the Blood Horse.

I've seen enough to identify what the horse is probably doing.  Best that can be told, IHA is exercising a total of 1.5 miles per day including his trot.  Haskins reports, quite incorrectly imo, that IHA on a daily basis is doing :12s down the lane and extending that speed in the gallop out.  With all due regard to Haskins and his stop watch--and, why do u need a stop watch when there's a clock right below the UTube vids?--I believe I know a :14 sec/f gallop when I see one.  The mile+ that IHA has been galloping is basically a half in :20s to :16s--speeds up as he goes, and :14s and maybe a tad faster here and there in the last 1/2 mile.

Will that sort of workout get u the Triple Crown?

Doubtful imo for reasons below.

Open the analysis concerning some thought in jest that Doug O'Neill has been reading some "blogs" and ratchet up IHA training in response, presumably in old time training style of such as Max Hirsch/Preston Burch/Sunny Jim Fitzimmons et. al. Assault and his rigorous workout schedule was mentioned.

Let's recall that into the Derby IHA did a series of nice breezes.And, indeed, there are UTube vids out there of IHA galloping into Derby and Preakness showing far more rigorous gallops than those at Belmont Park.  Add two long strenuous races in two weeks and you have a marvelous fit animal, comparatively speaking, coming out of the Preakness.  To seal the TC, you'd think the trainer would take advantage of the Preakness bounce, physiologically speaking, as the trainer reports zero drop in energy levels, cleaning up the feed, high energy horse, etc.

Given the 8ball situation, naturally u'd back off the week after Preakness with the rational thought to start back up in week #2 that just passed.

Decline to set out what IHA should be doing since there are many different ways to peel the apple to roughly the same result.  Focus on what the horse "is" doing and the probable outcome.

With my own horse Groovin' Wind I'm likely one of the national experts at the :14 sec gallop since Wind for year upon year, that is his speed.  In his runaway days early on that speed would be carried for a mile or two till we could get him stopped and eventually ended in a developing saucer fracture.  When Wind came back, same deal.

The problem as I discovered it is when the horse likes the :14s it's a little difficult to get him out of that.  And, while :14 sec/f is hardly slow, it's other than fast.  This specifically fails to be speed training.  Good for stamina/ highly questionable for speed.

In the case of IHA we're doing this for 3 weeks going into what promises to be a highly competitive race.  The horse will have 3 weeks of adoption of his stride to the :14 sec. speed and from what shows max for about 1/2 a mile.

Certainly IHA is losing race fitness instead of maintaining or improving.  How much can he lose in 3 weeks and how much can he lose and still beat this bunch will be the Q.  The additional Q is what O'Neill will do in the next week.  If the work crescendos faster and longer that might bring IHA back.

The conventional trainer will, of course, criticize the forgoing as they like to repeat ad nauseum that the horse is fit.  My reply is that fitness fluctuates with what the horse does on track and lots of it can be lost in 3 week.

Meanwhile, the horse pictured above looks like he's been doing some work (Union Rags taken a couple weeks ago), and I'd certainly believe Dulahan is poised.  Dale Romans.  Who'd have ever thought?