Sat. Misc.

Busy month of June.  Erratic Weather.  #148 still showing some swelling in a small area on the inside front of his hock.  All discouraging in terms of training.  Instead of moving forward the last two weeks as expected,  we've backed off.  Training of last three days starting to gain momentum.  July promises to be a better month.  Will see.

Sun. Misc.

Blog has hit a lull although horses have been able to train this week since we look to be into summer dry season.  Three riderless sessions with both horses to get back up to speed.  Both horses have been tacked every other day.  #148 walks for 5 min. #17 slow gallops over our little course.  Mr. Nob down to159 lbs., always a good sign.

Wed. Misc.

5 straight days of mud and rain in KC have discouraged the blogger.  Horses have done riderless work last two nights. Looks like weather may be turning today.

Training

Busy, distracting week in RR land, and also one of our rare dry weeks.  #17 has thus made some progress this week. Mr. Nob says this horse is a pleasure to gallop.  Push button possibilities.  Some horses are a pain to gallop for sundry reasons--so, as to #17, good to know. 

We'll max out our little course in a couple of weeks in terms of what can be done there.  Blogger has been so snowed under with office work that race track progress has been on hold which is also contributed to be #148s continuing problems.  Status at moment is that I'm hoping to the big hayfield might open for galloping soon, and, as soon as office work is under control race track search will resume.  #148 continues to have a little area of swelling on front inside of hock that is failing to get better.  Waiting to hear from Vet School Vet on this, Dr. Kramer.  #17 is galloping faster now.  Entering sub :15s.

Belmont Results

That was impressive. Palice Malice as next great horse, possibly? Photos show PM has turn downs on his hinds (racing plates) which is interesting.

Blog pick was Overanalyze in the mud.  Wrong on both counts.  That was due to smaller hoofs.  I have doubts a big horse like PM could have gone all the way around there on a deep track.

As it was we all see PM win in hindsight.  Unknown to me why this is being declared as a surprise.On a fast track the picks had to be Orb, Oxbow and PM.  Orb's run was interesting.  Has under training ever been more obvious?  Might say same re Oxbow to lesser extent, although likely PM between those two is just the bigger faster horse.  Prediction that one day a Preakness winner will be trained to go forward off that race instead of coasting into the Belmont on fumes.

Training: Sat. was a rare dry day in KC.  Since 4/1 we average rain every third day.  #17 is galloping faster now over our inadequate course.  #148 after some initial riderless speed early June gets a few days off to promote further healing of a little soft spot he still carries on inside of his injured hock.

Belmont Contenders And Pick

This will be a pick more on feel based on interviews and the few vids that show instead of handicapping the PPs..  Congrats to Blood Horse for actually showing a glimpse or two of the Thurs. gallops.  Q--why do they send a whole troop of reporters and give 2 min. per day of vid that contains 30 seconds of the horses? End of rant.

Contenders:  Golden Soul, Orb, Overanalyze, Palice Malice, Oxbow, Revolutionary.

Only 6 of 'em.  This blogger so far is historically lousy at picking winners although, trying hard to think of a time when somebody I eliminated won. Sticking my neck out here because I eliminated a lot of them.

There are three Plecher horses, and three more.

On race record Orb is the standout.  Yet Mike Watchmaker at DRF reports that prior to Belmont Week Orb's gallops were uninspiring.  He's done one :47 and change in 3 weeks, and I have suspected that they've backed off on his traning.  Has physical appearance of a great horse.  Of these sorts of things are handicapping dilemas made.

Golden Soul--Mike Watchmaker likes him except, again, I am underwhelmed by those short slow works.  He'll probably be up close.  Unable to see how this horse kicks in front unless everybody else quits.

Oxbow--Watchmaker dislikes the way he's been looking, got tired at end of slow work at Churchill.  Latter is unsurprising since it was first time it looks like the horse did anything fast in 2 weeks.  Last breeze 9 days out, good grief.  One thing we do know-a horse that looked that good on Preakness day might carry that into his next race and outrun his training..  I'd have to think Oxbow is a serious threat.  Too bad his trainer declined continuing training him for in that instance the horse would be a strong favorite.  Inexplicable what these trainers do except, must note, possible minor injury or such could have held Oxbow back since Preakness.

Plecher horses:  I was disturbed by Watchmaker's early in the week comment that Plecher horses in terms of being on track had suddenly disappeared from the radar.  Yet, I have to think Plecher has a smart plan in terms of optimal condition for race day, and we have to deal with Plecher's longer faster works new race day appropriate warm up.  Good warm up less telling in long race like Belmont.  Yet, have to think merely act of proper warm up gives all Plecher horses big advantage.

Based on the above which primarily involve training failures, I'd have go with one of the Plecher horses.  This race is a crap shoot, and, given likely muddy track, my pick will be Overanalyze with his smaller hoofs

Training:  both horses did their tack work.  Bellying #148 for now.  #148 was lunged riderless on double lunge line.  Once again escaped and did a fast gallop 3f back to his buddies dragging the lunge line.  The horse can cover ground.

Jocks Race?

Examining Belmont PPs, maybe one of better Belmonts, handicapping nightmare, anybody might win scenario.

Your blogger always prefers handicapping based on what shows in terms of works.  Once upon a time one could see big differences between the "they were fit in March and unnecessary to do anything else" trainers, and the one's that trained well right up to the event.  Almost every year I've documented the TC races the winners in general have something exceptional about their training.

Unfortunately for handicapping, these days speed works are most the same or there are insufficient differences in the PPs that one would guess another variable besides speed work would kick in.  Additionally we have trainers fairly obviously more aware of exercise physiology than in days past and there fore are seeing reported more strenuous non breeze efforts by such as Frac Daddy and Freedom Child.

Any way at all to separate this year's Belmont horses in terms of what's shown on the training?  My brief look so far.

Elminate anything trained by someone named McPeek or McLaughlin.  These dudes show year afte year that they far more prefer avoiding training than training, although with Frac Daddy McPeek possibly had a sudden Doug O'Neil like training epiphany as apparently the horse has been working very hard on track and in fast fractions.Nevertheless win by either of these two is the proverbial blind squirrel finding the nut.

In alphabetical order:

Frac Daddy--scratch.

Freedom Child--The horse won the Peter Pan by 13 lengths against an inferior bunch carrying 116 lbs.  Reports indicate Trainer Albertini has been working the horse, and he's a good looking animal.  I'd love Freedom Child, 3.22 dosage, to win this race and put dosage theory to bed once and for all.  Yet, I'd doubt this horse or this trainer is up to snuff against this field.  Scratch.

Giant Finish--horse likely needed to do more to be competitive. Fear Dutrow.  The vid of the horse shows insufficient tightness.

Golden Soul--Can a deep closer win Belmont off of 3 slow 4f works since the Derby?  Never know what they do on their off days.  Something is right with this horse based on the Derby.  Contender.

Incognito--scratch

Midnight Taboo--Plecher's third string out of a sprinter named Langfuhr.  Scratch.

Orb--One bad race in the Preakness.  Who knows the cause of that fade on the back stretch, and then he came on.  The horse has won everything else.  I had some doubts about Orb's handling since the Preakness. Seems they may have backed off.  Contender

Overanalyze--contender.

Oxbow--Lukas by  his interviews has gone mental again--meaning Lukas is working more on the mental aspect of the horse than the physical. This bodes poorly imo because it indicates Lukas is back to his soft style.  I never figure it.  The man is unable to put 2 and 2 together.  Contender.

Palice Malice--contender.  The horse wins if he's got it all together.  Doubtful imo.

Revolutionary--obviously a very good and superbly bred horse.  Contender

Unlimited Budget--if you're unable to win the Oaks can u win the Belmont?  Scratch

Vyjack--interesting works,  Q with V is why is a good horse in the hands of an idiot, even if he's the rider.  I'd guess there must be supervision from above, and so it's possible that the off day stuff makes this horse a contender.  Two fast works since the Derby one of them 4 days out.  4 days out is "a" ok IF the horse is trained for it.  This horse is, by all that shows including his galloping appearance, way short on this sort of suddenly rigorous training.  Speaks more to certain injury than win.  Scratch

Will Take Charge--same problem as before Derby--can you exclusively train in :13s and carry :12s for 1.5 miles.  Doubtful. Scratch.

Blogger picks next.

Training:  1 inch rain in KC yesterday before training.  Off.

A Little Good Luck

Charismatic after 1999 Belmont trained by guess who.  None of that this year so far on the TC trail, and have any of the TC horses except very early been injured?  Quite unique and very good luck to date!

Suddenly in 2013 we see all the TC trainers with an exception here or there conducting speed works mostly within the injury prevention minimums specified on the blog. Suddenly instead of Plecher injuring almost every last horse in his stable by end of TC we're without a single serious Plecher injury starting with the Derby. Warm ups and longer faster works possibly?

Need more be said?

Training:
June 4:  #148 did some light riderless lunge work, escaped and galloped hard across the filed. #17 walk-trotted under tack with Mr. Nob up for first time in a week.

Belmont

One of better Belmonts shaping up maybe.  Vid works show on DRF Belmont site.  Interesting to me that things that have been noted here and there by such as Ivers, Bill Pressey , and on this site are starting to happen.  They're doing their breezing on Sunday now days--6 days out.  Former religiosity required final breezes to be 7 days out, or, on east coast 9 days out.  Can 5 day out breezing be far off?

And, they're going longer with the Plecher style gallop outs.  More horses  now days  work every 7 days.  There are a few holds outs of course.  Can e.g. Freedom Child doing his works in high :13s compete on Sat at speed.  Doubtful imo.  Will see

I watched the works and in terms of what was asked one of the least impressive was by Orb.  Unsurprising.  Traditional east coast trainer. Probably thinks his horse is tired from Orb's strenuous Preakness.  They can never get over these mental blocks.  Oh, my horse ate up great after the race and was bouncing all over the shed row the next morning.  Two days later this becomes:  you want to give 'em plenty of rest  between races , let 'em recover.

I have predicted in a few years we'll be worrying about doing too much with horses instead of too little.  Exercise physiology will kick in at some point.

Training:
#148 is back at it. #7 managed somehow to seriously scape lots of skin off under his front arm pits and just under front of his chest.  We're getting lucky these days.  Horse impaled himself on something and just comes out of it with scrapes.  Has caused me to confine exercise to riderless for a couple of days.  The two ran lightly together.  Nice to have #148's energy back.  After tomorrow's important court hearing I'll be free to consider what to do with these two.

June 1 Is Here

Had calculated June 1 as lasted point to commence serious training and have highly competitive early 3 year olds.  In my mind it begins today.  However, the obliteration of Celestial Acres creates quite an obstacle to this plan.  Training here in KC--we've just undergone yet another week of water--total 7 inches of rain--last was on the horse Tues.  The blogger has given up his apartment.   We're ready to go.  Unknown how just yet.  There's a planned June 5 scouting trip to Prairie Meadows, and a coming conversation with the farmer about training in his hay field after it's cut.  #148 training starts today.