Training

On 12/30/12 we're back at training our two year olds to be.  Over course of last few days. #148' hock steadily improved, all swelling subsided except the horse still sports an apricot size bump over the injury.
 Treatment since 12/26--Horse received a shot of "Legend" --hyaluronic acid, shot of banamine, daily 1 gram bute, and doxycycline anti biotic. With L. Simic's comment we passed on the furzone that might create anaerobic bacteria--main fear in hock inj. is infection of joint capsule!

Horses both galloped riderless in play fashion12/30 and 12/31.  #148 showed usual enthusiasm. #7 showed usual reluctance to gallop fast.  Good to be back in business. We've had to pass riding this week as our good rider developed a back problem Xmas day.  Happy New Year To All!

Vids of last two days:

#148 Hock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=D2RGUQU_Cy4

Shoeing:

World According To Kafka

"Everyone who walks about here on earth feels a tickling in his heels:  from the tiny chimpanzee to the great Achilles."

Franz Kafka

For humor and insight there's Goethe's Faust (Walter Arndt Translation).  If on the other hand you want to jump off a cliff, read Kafka, the strange gentleman in the photo. I'm currently half way through Kafka's selected short stories, to wit: "A Report To An Academy".  An ape who is part of a vaudville act does the reporting of conditions, which include confinement in a small cage were the ape is unable to stand up to his full height or sit down without his back cutting into the back of the cage.  Dog racing anyone?

"Later I was told that I had made unusually little noise, from which others concluded that either I would soon expire or that, should I succeed in surviving the first critical period, I would be eminently trainable."

Got about half way through the ape's depressing "A Report To An Academy" and had to quit reading.  This is going to end badly.

Txs. to Lazar Simic for commenting on the hock, and Anonymous whose comment was accidentally erased.  Training Center--was it Camden, SC?--I got the same impression at the nice facility in Opeloussas--u can train a horse here.

L. Simic commented to treat the hock aggressively.  We coincidentaly had just reached that conclusion. Called the Vet back--Dr. Jackson, Jackson Animal Clinic--on day 14.  Insisted the swelling be drained.  This did little good.  Agreed on aggressive treatment of bute, anti-biotics, sweating with furazone and saran wrap to create heat, vitamin C and glucasomine to aid tissue regeneration, and will X-ray after new year.

Unfortunately, my analysis is that this little barely one inch across wound, a narrow gash from barbed wire, likely will spell the end for the talented #148 as a race horse.  Over the cliff.  This is logical based on analysis.  Post vids of wound soon.  There's a small orange size soft swelling over the wound that is failing to recede.  Why?  Seems fairly obvious to me.  One of the three or four ligamentous bands that holds the hock together has been severed.  This allows the swelling of the joint over the injury because there's nothing there now to hold it in.  In fact there's a little chunk of hard material just under the wound. Doc thinks it may be sliver of bone. My take is more that this is the remains of the severed ligament.

Doc's gut feeling is the situation is minor and will heal.  Mine is pessimism. Will see.

Sun. Misc.

"I swear old age is like a frigid fever,
Of aches and shakes and crotchets bred.
One who is thirty years or over
Already is as good as dead.
It would be best if you were put away."

Goethe, Faust Part II

Shoeing day Saturday on the last 40 degree day that shows for a while. In shoeing the extreme misery index starts at about 30 degrees on down, and so all the feet were taken care of in a 3 hr. span using up every last ounce of the old shoer's available energy  reminding of the Goethe poem. Unknown to me how these professional shoers shoe 5 to 6 per day.  They likely sleep very well.

Nevertheless, feet taken care of for another 30 days and the RR stable gets back to business at hand.  The hock of #148--is worrisome.  Internet search indicates hock punctures are highly problematical.  13 days in our hock still is very swollen.

Solstice

12/19 horses panick at feed tub like flock of sparrows with #148 running right over the blogger.  Luckily he still lacks mass, and harm avoided!  Happensonce a year and this day, with boogey man out,  confirmation that decision to avoid tack work correct.  Our little mini-blizzard followed.  With horses unable to rest well we took 19th and 20th off. Recommence training this aft.  Something to look foward to every year--Winter Solstice on Dec. 20-21.  Days get longer, spring down the road!

Cold Weather Around The Bend

"We must compose ourselves in high assurance,
And let occur what will with stout endurance...:"

Goethe, Faust, Part II

Around here we're bracing for severe plunge in temps and a snow storm that will have me walking back and forth an additional 1/3 mile every day to get to the horses since the vehicles will be unable to navigate past the main road.  And, that's in addition to the nearly mile I walk every day to find 'em and round 'em up on the 70+ acres.  Call this an observation instead of a complaint.  We already know training race horses is going through brick walls.

And, there's the (highly) annoying hiccup of the injured hock on #148.  One week in the swelling is about the same, the hock is warm to the touch, and this is likely good and shows healing in progress.  It's going to be exactly the 3 week thing I'd figured.  #148's injury is just as damaging to the training of #7 since he's now without a horse to run with--Groovin' Wind also sustained an early wire cut.  This results in #7 running by himself and that horse has already shown that running alone he's primarily dogging it.

Right now I'm lunging #7 every other day  (double lunge line), in an effort to keep him running, and riding every day trying to get an open trot.  The riding has progressed to where the horse is trotting though it's far short of an open willing trot.  Partly a rider problem at the moment as my inside thighs are so sore from riding the fat Rollin' Rodney and I'm having trouble thus getting in rhythm with the horse.  Breakthrough coming though, and we'll be into serious training under tack.  Blogger reviewing winter wardrobe.

Sun. Misc.

Below a superb training vid from a fellow that seems to know what he's doing.  Provides more proof--when we're able to get our good horses to the track it's other than they just hand u a purse.  This is in the mode of Mandella's "On The Muscle" DVD.  For reasons unknown, they never made it to Part IV

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs5Yz3qNoII

Training:  #7 was off Friday.  Sat. 12/15 passed riderless work due to rare wet conditions around here.  Walked 10 min under tack out in open.  Last two rides have been totally under control for this fellow.  #7 should be near a break through. My goal is to catch up to Preston Burch by 1/24/13, i.e. doing short fast spurts by then..  #148 hock about the same in terms of swelling, which is good.  Need enough swelling for now to buttresses tissue regeneration around the tear..   Glucasomine and Vitamin C supplementation to aid in construction begins today.

#148 Hock

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

More Equipment

Last post was for benefit of the saddle maker.  Our new super duper $500 exercise saddle in process of construction, here:
http://webertack.com/

20+ yrs in racing and everything has to be replaced. 

This arrived:

Charles Owen 4 Star Skull Cap--world's safest helmet (that I found).  The one review said it was safe and "light". The 4Star fits like a mullet head or kettle on ur head, and the heaviest helmet ever.   Weight is a problem.  Safe, however.

And, this useless piece of equipment arrived:

Shoulder pads.  Great idea, lousy execution.  The pads turn out to be very heavy rubber material.  This little tee shirt with the pad weighs 5 or 6 lbs.  Ridiculous waste of $135.00.  The existence of the Charles Owen Co. is curious.  They seem unfortunately without serious competitors.

Will be opting for this:

Nike Pro Combat.  Guessing 1+ lbs., and this:

Football equipment.

Training:

#7 did some strong riderless work though short of full speed, and was walked under tack out in the open for 10 min. after this week's training interruptions due to #148's damage hock.  #7 for the first time gave me a good feeling and he'll be open trotting shortly.  #148 three days after the wire cut on the hock and one day after the vet cleaned it out is as expected--hock is swollen like a large grapefruit.  Other than good, although unknown at this point.  I've seen those swellings go down in two days, and also seen them calcify. 

Thurs. Misc.

Wed. Aft. was the important day after the vet clean up #148's hock wound.  Would synovial fluid still be draining out?  Answer: in the negative. Draining had stopped and the hock was swollen size of a small grapefruit.  On the outside this is just a 1 inch parallel to the ground scrape, and, how deep can barbed wire go.  Doc said unnecessary for it to puncture very far as on the hock the skin is right over the bone and joint.

Suspecting the wire jagged into the joint about an inch across.  How long to heal?  Doubting anybody knows.  As small as it is, I'm optimistic.  Yet, #148 loses likely 3 weeks that we'll have to make up.  It's a bummer.

#7 was run riderless alone very unsuccessfully. Some exercise without any speed work.  Horse ran off a mile. By the time he was retrieved, dark.  Just bellied tack work.  On the brighter side #7 is looking pretty good.

Debbie Downer Pays A visit

Another bummer as we get reacquainted with Murphy's Law.  Took short time instead of long with new steeds.

. Went to retrieve the horses for training Mon. aft. They were grazing as always way out on the 70 acres. #7 goof balling around as usual.  #148 just walking, and an RR hmmmm. Without lameness though.  The other two horses on the way to the fee buckets were full of themselves.  #148 continued to just walk and somewhat dejectedly so.  Was considering possible colic except the horse dug right into his food.  They'll take a few bites then stop when colicing.  #148 continued eating enthusiastically.  Scratch colic.

On inspection, this:

Swollen up like a grapefruit.  70 freaking acres of open grassland and the idiot runs into a wire.  Cleaned out Tues eve by Vet who is worried  re joint involvement, infection and healing. Most of the synovial fluid leaked out.  I'm optimistic, however #148 will be out three weeks.  Will see.

Mon. Misc.

A little raw out there on the 70 acre hay field today.  RR Stable Q of the moment--rented the hay field for 4 months.  We're into the 10th day already.  Time flying.  What can we do with these horses over 4 months of winter time?  Preston Burch's book on his two years olds indicates something to effect--bad weather to 1/24 the date on which Burch commences 1f breezes. 

We'd like to get on and stay on Burch's schedule although we broke in late Oct. instead of June, will likely be another month before we're open galloping, and we've got youngsters by themselves out in space instead of in company at a race track with a light pro-rider on board.

Our compensation is our riderless work with the cut hay field a tremendous opportunity for that kind of training (see below).  We're doing fast work already, although riderless, and this, at some point will on the training graph allow the Burch and RR stable arrows to meet.  Our horses are behind on their work under tack, though we expect soon, might be right along Burch on basic fitness.

We lost a little time in transition to the hayfield as this required great care under tack to keep the steeds from panicking.   As of the 10th day out here they're pretty much under control, knock on wood, and we were doing the horse's version of trotting on Sat., which mean they start to trot and immediately fix a point at which they stop trotting.  We'll get 'em out that this week, and the big training leap will be getting them into open trot.

Training
Fri. 12/7: Walking under tack only.  Rider still too uncomfortable with them to trot. #7 bucks.
Sat: 12/8:  Best riderless work to date.  Horses ran several near full speed bursts although to me they looked ordinary instead of impressive.  Think this is due to limited speed work to date.  They should get stronger and faster now quickly. Both horses were ridden 10 min. under tack out in the open and did some limited trotting.
Sun: 12/9: Off

Camcorder Test #2

Second try with new cam. 1080 lines of vertical resolution, or 1080p compared to 720p last post. Rider in suit pants forgot the gym bag.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MPg4OOwg2A

Wed. Misc.

 RR stable on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XxshvBBnGyg

Camcorder found.  Decent, though maybe to call this $1000 camcorder vid exaggerates.  Operator error possibly Will play with controls.  Shows one of two fields of our new training area.  Morning feeding.  The feed is Omolene 200 + couple of handfuls of Purina Super Duper pellets that cost $26 for $50 lbs bag, vitamins, lysine, etc. Unknown why Lysine is such a bfd with horses.  Earth to Purina--there are other important (more important) proteins + two large hand fulls of alfalfa dust + water.  What looks like hay in the feed is from the alfala.  Evenings they get Omolene 200 + 5 human quality multi vitamin pills without iron. Will work on super duper nutrition when we get closer to racing, see (shameless plug):  http://thoroedge.wordpress.com/storm/

Will see how they do in their new digs. Both horses were walked under tack today for 10 min. to get their sea legs at the new place.

Tues. Misc

On consecutive days the blogger loses his cell phone and new super duper cam corder (somewhere in the hay field).  Good grief.  With hay field now have 4 months to see what we can do with these boys.  Weather willing should be able to get 'em ready for the race track. Went to new training site this morning.  Plenty of deer though unable to find a horse with a search warrant. 70+ acres.  Got 'em this aft.  A little light riderless stuff in new digs.  Rode older horse who'll be the guinea pig in finding a galloping "route".  Then ran out of sun due to night court.

It Begins...

 A little arm twisting and plenty of cash in the pocket resulted today in a win-win deal between farmer, Mrs. Farmer  and my little stable.  The youngsters were moved onto the hayfield with grand babysitter 17 year old Groovin' Wind, and I gave Mr. and Mrs. Farmer a $2500.00 check.  Cost (all 4 horses--Rodney will stay with the herd)--is $800/mo. Dec. 1 to March 31.  

This was other than a negotiation.  Given the much much larger cost of moving the horses immediately to Celestial Acres in Oklahoma--$200 round trip back and forth for gasoline--I decided to offer so much cash they'd be unable to refuse--$800/mo. for the 4 horses--and indeed up to the final moment I had heart palpitations that Mr. Farmer would come up with some reason to deny.  

As it turns out, they needed the money, and a deal was struck.  Nice people.

And so, we are now, for the first time in my memory, without excuse for lack of an adequate training facility in KCMO. There is nice open ground for speed work we never had at the old place where 2.5f was the maximum distance for speed.  I'll post vids soon with my new super duper $56/00 cam corder of the hay field.  The one reservation will be galloping early two year olds by themselves out in space like that--hopefully a problem that will solve itself.

We're ecstatic.  Place to train right here in town at probably 1/3 the price of being at the race track.  Till March when we'll need the race track.

Horses did a little short spurt riderless in the new digs tonight. Passed on riding.  Safety--finally decided on this helmet as very safest available. Notice the Snell certification and the vids.

http://www.bitofbritain.com/Charles_Owen_4_Star_Jockey_Skull_Cap_p/4065.htm

Sun. Misc.

Japan Cup Dirt--Nihonpiro Ours---White Muzzle by Dancing Brave.  Kudos to Japs who have upper level racing figured.  Unlike USA where all available $$$ stupidly goes to purses instead of marketing, pagentry, etc.  Takes to 2012 for Dancing Brave to show his Blood Lines.  The good one's eventually surface. Impressive how easily horses get over this race track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5UUPY9yHXc

Our horse continue light riderless work + trying to get open trot under tack.  We're close.