Frequency of Speed Work

Principle #5  Avoid skipping steps.  60 days of "gallop", a couple of fast 3fs out of the gate, she's good to go, right?  The "traditional" race horse prep here in the mid west.  Or, used to be.   Unknown to me what the traditional is anymore, although am hoping to find out soon.

Next day, oops.  Pulled suspensory.  That's racing luck.  Or, it rains over night.  Track rated "heavy".  Need to do that fast gallop to stay on schedule for the race even though our horse is unacclimated to anything except a "fast" track, totally.  Next day.  ooops.  check ligament.

Injury prevention and rational training requires going step by step.  The rule here is "when in doubt, back off".  What about training for performance?  Does it hurt to skip a step or two here and there in terms of what we'll get out of the horse on race day--i.e. we do steps 1 and 2 and for whatever reason skip to step 5.?  This is Michael Matz training--5f a couple of times before the Belmont and 1.5 miles all out on race day. Injury prevention insanity.

Injury causation aside, would think skipping steps in terms of performance is more a psychological than actual.  Horses prove time and again they can run fairly well on highly questionable training.  O'Gorman calls this the "inexplicable" performance, and so do I, even if its likely by thinking really hard on the subject an explanation could be provided.  Probably a combo of things involving the relative ease of the bounding exercise for short distances combined with the horse spleen, flight instincts and a few other things.  Horses seem to be able to go 4-6f  fairly fast before they crash on very light training.

Interestingly, I'd guess the if the horse can get away with skipping a step today and avoids injury, that's a faster way to get we're ur going.  Worth the injury risk?  Let's remember we're training not egg shells, but egg membranes.

Onto the subject--how often to do fast work, and my observation that it can be done every 3 or 4 days for weeks and months on end.  That's other than to say this frequent a work schedule is the ideal for performance.

I'm able to relate that every 3 day speed work gets the horse into amazingly good condition and does so swiftly.  The improvement is quick and noticeable.  Yet, I'd noted in the injury posts on this blog that I highly suspect u're able to do every three day speed work for a long period of time and escape injuries.  For numerous reasons posted then, the 3 day interval is probably doing too much and playing russian roulette with ur horse.

Discuss the 4 day interval next.

Fast Work: How Often

The general list.

Animal Husbandry 
Talent
Athletic Conditioning For Performance And Injury Prevention
Race Strategy
Injury Prevention--a category unto itself
Misc.

#1 the principle of Synergy--that each part of the list is necessary for performance. Slack one/performance suffers.

For the moment, this one is being discussed:

Athletic Conditioning For Performance And Injury Prevention

and being discussed specifically with a eye to "training schematic"  Want to come up with a training formula that will optimize performance.  "What's our goal".

In developing a program these principles have been discussed so far:

Principle #1:  Things to consider--stick to the program, horse willing/avoid adjusting on the fly. 
Principle #2: The 4th rep is generally the strongest.
Principle #3:  Faster is better 
Principle #4:  For improvement of muscular strength and hypertrophy observe the principle of "Right Balance of Load And TUT" (time under tension) or--max load held for slightly less than 60 seconds--note for the horse the term "load" means"speed". We increase load (weight) by increasing speed.  "Right balance of load to time under tension (TUT) means, for horse, how far do we optimally carry the speed to achieve( in training) max muscle strength.

As this goes, a summary such as the above will be periodically posted.  Again "the principles" will be posted as they occur to the blogger.  Get right to the heart of the issue--how often do we do speed work, what do we do in between works, and when to rest?

Most of my training has involved breezing 5 or 6f every 4 days.  For two straight months I tried the Preston Burch program of breezing every three days with one horse.  I'm likely a qualified expert on breezing every 4 days.  As to the every three day stuff--since I did it only for two months, and restricted the breeze work to 5f because that was where the horse was at, I know a lot about that program.

Since the blogger has done every 3 day or every 4 day speed work, is this the ideal interval?  Next.

The Right Balance Of Load And TUT

Could just out the optimal formula, except what good does that do?  Avoid picking rabbits out of hats.  Some thought process first.

Approach performance randomly or methodically.  It's a blog.  Do it at random, as it occurs.Little epiphanies presumably will arrive on schedule for purpose of putting together the first principles of performance.

From where will these be got?  Lots of places--my memory from my horse training, exercise physiology,  horse books- Ivers, Preston Burch,  The Airway book--failing to recall the Title, Nafzger's book, O'Gorman etc..  Think I've read them all.  My own present gym work is reminding me of a lot.

Today's principles:
#1--this morning I put my max weight on the bar for a seated military press.  Could barely lift it once on the first rep after warm up.  By my 4th go around it was easy:
Principle #1--The 4th rep is generally the strongest.  This is so important for horses and appropriate warm up.  I've seen it time after time.  If u want max out of your horse, come out of the gate on the 4th speed rep.  If that's impossible because of the outrider, at least try for 3.

#2--the other day I noted that slower speeds after u've attained faster are virtually useless in terms of improvement.  Tested this out again today on the tread mill.  Absolutely true.  Top speed today was 5.2 mph.  Dialing it back to even 4.8 mph was so easy after doing the higher speed for length of time.  Dialing it back to 4.5 mph I'd say the training effect was nil.  Some maintenance maybe. Improvement, no way.  This speaks to doing the horse's w/o as fast as possible, or at least part of it as fast as possible.
Principle #2: Faster is better  Let's remember--speaking here of performance instead of injury prevention.

#3:
There's more and more science these days.  They're looking into everything.  The below link provides a a critical principal of improving performance:  The right balance of load and TUT.  TUT = time under tension (for the muscle fiber).  According to the article--max benefit to increase muscular strength is max load for period just under 60 seconds.  Wow--think of the fast 5f breeze.  6f lasts too long! 4f is too short!
Principle #3  For improvement of muscular strength and hypertrophy observe the principle of "Right Balance of Load And TUT" (time under tension) or--max load held for slightly less than 60 seconds.  Read the link for the importance of staying under 60 seconds!!!

Here is some serious science:
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/getting_big_through_tut

Drought

In KC we've had, what, four or five 1/2 inch rains since last October.   It seems like something has a choke hold on the area and they're forecasting worse and worse.  Trees somehow are still there likely from the 6 years of constant rain before.  Expect all the trees to start dying en mass fairly quickly I've never seen anything like it.  Our horse pasture is completely gone, and luckily there appears enough hay stock for the winter. Just read a prediction of continuing worsening drought for mid and southwest USA.  As per usual, our politicians are right on this.  Back to performance tomorrow.

Gypsy Robin MSW

The MSW race at Keenland is on the lower far right.

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/breeders-cup/contender-detail.aspx?id=juvfillies&contenderno=2255

Can we agree Gypsy Robin is a very nice talented 2 year old filly?  There's the Q of how this performance was got, and the mystery Q, what about all those others.  There's hardly a one of the others doing any real running in the stretch of a 4.5f race.  How do such non-performances happen?

Trainers with a GR new to the shed row tend to stand back in awe that they have a horse that can flat out just "do it".  And, let's confide, that all horses can run a little, particularly the two year old youngsters, and by my experience a horse that can run generally does so for 3 or 4 races before the training deficiencies start to show big time.  That's assuming injury prevention, of course.

Assuming there's legit trainer input in the resulting performance let's also acknowledge off the bat that there are many ways to peel the apple.  It's hardly being suggested that there's only one certain way to get a performance.

I am wanting to draw up an exercise schematic.  Let's assume, in case of GR, that there was a program that brought her into this race, and also a program from this race to the next.  Since GR training and PPs are unknown, I am left to speculation.

What do we do to come up with the training schematic?  Just pull something out of the hat?  Use something that worked with Horse X a year or so back?  Put in a D.W. Lukas tape and copy cat him?

My approach here is going to be to randomly--as they occur to me--make some observations that will in the end dictate the applicable training schematic.  I've put horses through Tom Ivers program twice, used Preston Burch's program and certain variations of my own.  Am currently experimenting with myself in the gym.

There are certain lessons that result from this.  Here's a couple e.g.s that occurred to me just today:

1.  In gymnasium when I run fast and then slow down--e.g. dial the speed up to 6 mph and then back to 3 mph or 4 mph--the slower speeds are really easy.   A corollary is that once the athlete has trained at the faster speeds for any extended period the amount of training effect from slower speeds is almost nil.  U may at slower speed get some maintenance certainly, but in terms of moving forward it does almost nothing to train at 4 mph after training any significant length of time at 6 mph.

For the horse then--which is a better training effort--a 2 m gallop or a :12 sec/f 4f gallop?  Pretty easy answer for me.  Certainly the :48 work.

2.  In my weight training I've noticed the heavy weights is where it's at.  I can do endless reps at lighter weights.  Certainly there's benefit to that.  Improvement, however, requires heavier weight.  The more weight the merrier. For horses this requires speed work, the faster the better.

Gypsy Robin Maiden

4/22/11 at Keenland.  Take a look:
MSW race is on lower far right.
http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/breeders-cup/contender-detail.aspx?id=juvfillies&contenderno=2255

Several things about Gypsy Robin:

Out of the gate like a shot.  This horse has natural speed:  4f in 44.6.  That's 11.15 sec./f, and yet, is this sort of speed doable for most 4 legged creatures?  The final half furlong is done in about 6 sec, and so we see what a :12 sec/f looks like in late stretch.  Nice carriage on this horse and maximum stride efficiency at speed.  Along the stretch all the others have had it. GR is the only one at that point still extending.

And, I really like this jock.  Almost perfect over the center of gravity.  Very timely and appropriate with his use of whip.  In some of her races u'd thing Sanchez was excessively and unnecessarily whipping in late stretch. Some would term Sanchez a horse flogger. Watching  all the GR races, Sanchez pulls out his whip at just the right moment and has his horse trained to respond. This jock has a feel for how to use the whip to get and keep his horse in the race.

And, the connections in the winners circle, there's a lot of them.  For Wesley Ward, the trainer, I look for little stuff.  In this case am watching post race the gallop back and just as I am thinking she's on galloping on her right lead again--the lead they've just beat to death in the race, I watch the jock deliberately change her into the left lead.  Do they freeze the horse at the end of the gallop.  Instead the handler immediately starts walking the horse.  Important little stuff.

This was a nice nice maiden two year old effort.  A 4.5f race early in the two year old year that this horse handles with great aplomb.  This is one e.g. of a performance that might be Exhibit A to the end point of "what's your goal".  How to get 'em there and keep 'em there.  Some speculation, next.

"What's Your Goal?"

Stole that one from a particularly experienced coach whose latest chuck full of info appears at end.

Being without a horse to train I was considering the interesting series of races of Gypsy Robin races link below.  GR is a very fast horse trained by Wesley Ward, who performs well some times; other times otherwise.  An absolutely brilliant race she had at Evangeline Downs is unfortunately omitted.   How this horse got to be would be interesting to know.  Notice a post race shot at Keenland where she looks absolutely in condition.

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/breeders-cup/contender-detail.aspx?id=juvfillies&contenderno=2255

Refer back to these races.  Nice jock work btw.

And, bumped into one that deserves inclusion.  Unique way to make the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hIIT_wGUqc

a lot lot below if u have inclination, to extrapolate to horses.  Lifelong coach, seems to know what he's doing.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/figuring_out_your_life_and_lifting_goals

Exercise Schematic

A diagram. We put down on paper what we intend to do. A schematic usually omits all details that are not relevant to the information the schematic is intended to convey--according to Wikepedia.

For our horses we outline on paper our exercise program from day to day and hope the horse cooperates.  By my experience I've rarely stuck to the details of anything I've written down for any length of time although in general I have carried out some programs on the track mostly involving the recommendations of Tom Ivers and Preston Burch.  Generally the written program gets tweaked from day to day depending on multiple factors including various factors involving our good horse.

One of my rules has been to avoid drawing up the exercise program from the seat of my pants.  If ur trainer is dreaming up today's workout while he accompanies the horse as it is walking to the track, or, worse yet, the typical--the jock arrives to find the trainer mucking stalls.  "What do u want to do with him today".  "We're just doing an easy 5/8s".  Throws the rider up.  Watches horse and rider walk off into the distance.  Recommences mucking stalls.

I'd say most of my mistakes have resulted from last minute adjustments of the exercise program.  On the fly adjustments, I call them.  I have a valid reason, of course.  Trouble is, when I'm done and have a chance to reconsider what "I was going to do" instead,  I then remember all the reasons behind what I was going to do, and the exact reasons why I was going to avoid doing what I actually did.  In general, stick to the program.  In general, avoid adjusting on the fly.

Specifics would be easier to relate were I training a live horse right now.  Will have to deal with this on recollection.  What I'm into here with these exercise schematics is:  how often do we breeze; how far, and what's always been the hardest question for me--what do we do on the days in between.

Performance Variables--Synergy

Synergy:  two or MORE things functioning together to produce a result.
the term synergy comes from the Greek word synergia from synergos, meaning "working together".

My theory regards race horses is that we do as much as humanly possible in terms of optimized care, and if the horse then finishes up the track:  horse's fault.

The other side of this coin is trainers who are slackards either in something or everything, and here a slackard includes refusal or inability to take note of sophisticated though fairly obvious training variables such as e.g. conditioning for the event.  Matz injures another.  As certain as the sun rising in the morning.

Performance variable summarized:

The List

Animal Husbandry 
Talent
Athletic Conditioning For Performance And Injury Prevention
Race Strategy
Injury Prevention--a category unto itself
Misc.


Each of the above have importance.  The sub categories under each general variable (listed in prior posts) are important.  Do any of these general or sub categories have more importance on race day?

I thought the concept of Synergy more as a talking point for illustration than any sort of recommended approach is useful.  The performance variables are synergistic.  They're each needed for the result.  It's therefore unnecessary to rank their importance.  Ignore one, however insignificant, and you start relying on the horse's ability to overcome your stupidity.  You might even win a Belmont stakes or have your horse win the Derby only to fracture it's left hind pastern in the Preakness and subsequently die after a heroic (but flawed) vet effort because for a time the horse overcame what u failed to do..  Happens.  Bill O'Gorman in his book called some of these performances inexplicable, and I'd agree.  I'd thought two 5f breezes between Derby and Preakness quite enough for Union Rags and the 1.5 mile Belmont.  I guess not.

And so--Matz, and who we noted in a post before the Derby pronounced his horse "fit" and unnecessary therefor to do anything significant with him in the month before the Derby as to today's poster boy for non-synergy.

My take--got to have all this under control all the time.  Synergy. Everything necessary.  Ignore anything and it will bite u, sooner rather than later. How many races have been lost because some idiot shoe'd a horse the day of the race?  If we have any sense we understand the problems that causes for the horse.

With this proviso that everything is important, I have decided to start this thing on performance with exercise schematics.  Is there anything we do on the track in the morning that might optimize performance on race day and also keep our horse racing?

Overlooked A Variable

KCMO as the center of the North American part of the universe today as the MLB All Star game is here tonight at Kaufman Stadium.  Above, City Hall with a giant All Star Game banner--left click on the photo and u'll see it.  This is the City Hall that Harry Truman built back in the 1930s. Abe Lincoln there in the foreground.

I was driving along a busy highway last eve when it hit me that I missed a major variable of performance.  What caught my attention was the All Star Game, baseball, and the consistent mantra of couch potato beer bellies that managers in baseball fail to matter, that at most a manager can change the the result of 5 or6 games a year with his managerial skill--one hears this same home spun philosophy over and over and over--winning/losing, it's all on the players/manager has nothing to do with it.  Most of what u see on the baseball boards therefore are proposed trades.  Everybody we've got is crap,and we'd be successful if only we had an owner that would spend more money and a GM with enough savvy to bring in another team's talent.  By these folks the grass is always greener somewhere else.

Which is what I'd overlooked in the variables,  indeed talent for our race horse matters.  Some are just naturally fast and we're way ahead of the curve if we can get one of those speed balls into our stable. This has to do with horse acquisition/breeding and the knowledge and skill we show at Keeneland and in our back yards.  And so, Edit "The List":

Animal Husbandry 
Talent
Athletic Conditioning For Performance And Injury Prevention
Race Strategy
Injury Prevention--a category unto itself
Misc.

Training Schematics

Here in KC--the Q what's wrong with the KC Royals?  Answer--just about everything.  As with most teams with bad managers things go from bad to worse to total implosion.  This is a historical phenomena that we see operate in sports time after time ad nauseum. Same deal with Kansas City Chiefs when Herman Edwards, former Head Coach of the N.Y. Jets was hired.  The Chiefs performance would decline under Edwards by anyone that had seen his miserable work with the Jets, the Chiefs' performance did decline, who'd have thunk? Currently in KC we have the failed manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, Ned Yost, at the helm.  It has taken our good fans a couple of years to figure out that managers do make a difference in baseball as we see Yost screwing up in game after game.  It's more than in game screw ups, of course.

With horses there are similar applicable principles to performance.  The #1 requirement for owner success on the race track better be a trainer that knows what they are doing.  That is to say--other than a trainer that creates a nice party for you on race day, or in another life would be an expert used car salesman, or someone with a high win %.  On the latter, good grief, if u have any ability at analysis.

In my younger days I watched thousands of basketball games specifically with an eye to what separates winners from losers.  Back in those days of the late 1960s, early '70s the most consistent separator was conditioning.  In the sport of basketball conditioning is rarely a separator these days. Most basketball coaches long ago figured out conditioning.  If you read "The Jordan Rules"  you understand quickly the real reason Michael Jordan was superior in his time.  He lived in a weight room. These days, unlike times past, Jordan would have a lot of company.

With horses conditioning is still a significant separating variable. Where does conditioning stand these days in terms of importance in winning races?  Come back to that one.  For this post those things that I term variables of performance--i.e. we can control a variable--were stated on my "List".  The list has been collapsed to its most general categories:

The List:

Animal Husbandry
Athletic Conditioning For Performance And Injury Prevention
Race Strategy
Injury Prevention--a category unto itself
Misc.

The above are the things the Ned Yosts off the world screw up.   We want to avoid our horse getting Yosted. A few more general comments then on to the subject of training schematics for optimal conditioning and performance.

The List In Categories

Divide up this:

 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.

into specific subjects.

The List:

Animal Husbandry (general horse care and physical and mental health):

Rider--good rider can be good for the horse in this sense.  Bad, opposite.

Trainer--same analysis.  If u walk ur shed row and the horses look like stall babies instead of athletes, likely there are significant trainer problems.

Nutrition
      --for health
      --for performance

General Environment:
     --Stall, Stall bedding--is it appropriate and sufficiently deep and dust free--stall door/walls in terms of apparatus and horse vice prevention
     --Fan placement so horse can get away from the air
     --Stable noise
     --Appropriate turnout.
     --Appropriate socialization--do these young herd animals really have to be isolated from each other?
     --Appropriate rest time and sleep
     --Location of stall away from track and track maintenance--ever try to sleep with a tractor
        running outside ur bedroom window
 Vet Care--teeth, worm, shots, general health

Athletic Conditioning For Performance And Injury Prevention

Exercise Schematic
Warm Up
Warm down
Shoeing
Equipment
Jock and jock training
Animal compliance training
Track conditions as relevant to the subject

Race Strategy

Race selection
Shoeing
Equipment
Jock and jock training
Race strategy
Track conditions and adjustments

Injury Prevention--a category unto itself

Track conditions

Misc.

Peer pressure
Track rules and customs

The List As A Long Discussion

3-5 min. post race trotting according to Pressey comment last post.  Seems like a good idea, thinking about this.  That period of time is hardly excessive, easily within the capabilities of our fit race horse and gives the horse a nice and very appropriate period of post race decompression.  Real world ur unable to perform this exercise post race although you could post breeze provided u have a patient very hard working individual on the horse's back.

Some practical problems, however, would cause hesitation on my part.  Post breeze we know neither the condition of the horse in general or such things as the lungs in particular. Do we want to continue to exercise a horse with a mouth and throat and eyes full of sand. My mantra has always been to anticipate injury to the point of presuming injury, and then to stop at the first sign of it.  Think I might be reluctant to worsen lung bleeding by  continuing movement or to aggravate slight pulls, developing inflammation, micro fractures in their infancy.  Given the risks, am unsure the good outweighs the harm here. Given RR Injury Prevention Rule #1--never do anything unless u're 100% sure to do it without injury, on first thought I might prefer to stop, let the horse do it's post race blowing, cool it down asap to prevent gut flora death, etc.  My own post race routine of immediate cool down + 20 on the walker under observation for lameness followed by the injury checks, assessment of cannon bone heat and 20 min in the ice tub asap.

Make one further comment on the above analysis.  With regard to "The List"--and it's nice tangentially to have awareness of various factors--obviously each needs full discussion.  I noticed in my comments on warm up and going back to the year 2007 on this blog when in anticipation of racing that fall I'd developed my ideal pre-race warm up while on back of a horse actually carrying the thing out, that my comments were much more nuanced, detailed, and basically real as opposed to what I am doing now, which is sitting at a keyboard posting on memory and without any horses too train.

This I include as a significant caveat.  Most trainers will take ur opinions with a grain of salt.  They have their own methods likely for multiple reasons that differ from my own thought processes.  It all becomes "truer" if we're talking about training an actual horse and see how the horse reacts.  And, interject--this is the biggest problem with most of the anti-lasix arguments manufactured on the key board.  I guarantee many of those ladies would have a different view the first time they're at the end of the shank of a coughing horse.

With the many variables on The List, what I'd like to feature first is a rational exercise schematic.  I struggled with this all during my training, particularly the slow day work, and, as earlier noted I've had suddenly after all these years a little epiphany and believe I've got it right.  In this one instant at least, the being on the keyboard instead of the racetrack outs.