#148 Does It Again

1/28/14 #148 once again rakes his injured front right heel bulb creating more blood.  About the 8th time now, though luckily the new wound was again mostly superficial.

1/29/14 I arrived to another #148 surprise.  Horse is on opposite side of fence. Must have crashed through barbed wire which might create another serious cut or injury or he jumped.  Vid shows that I want to avoid even looking at the horse for fear of what might have happened to him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6FrZEu_w20&feature=em-upload_owner

Something happens every day with this energetic dude.  Judging from their behavior looks like he was probably chased by #17 and jumped in the crisp wind and cold weather.  Cleared the barbed wire fence and the horse dodges another bullet.  Will he live to racing?

Training-- in brisk cold wind horses off.  Will do three 3f riderless springs today. 5th day of these out of 10, and then will regroup to next step. More cold coming by Accuweather.

4 Out of 8

Our new running paddock is about 3.5f straightaway along a fence.

 Out of the last 8 days the horses have done every other day 3f full speed riderless sprint work every other day--about 2 heats per day.  Given our sub-Artic weather, good stuff for January.  Up ticks the fast twitchers, get's horses in running condition, ground is hard and so, good concussive work. The straight away is so nice because the horses race each all the way in confined space led by our good nineteen yr. old having a second racing life.  Will get there earlier soon  to get some vids in better light.

Good training just for learning to race against other horses and enjoying racing.  The horses seem to be having a blast in this new paddock.

21 degrees today.  Declined tacking up to wait till warmer blowing in tomorrow.  #148 once again wacked his front left heel bulb wound before we ran.  Superficial.  A drop of blood on the hind indicates he probably brushed it again romping with his buddies.

Mon. Mis.

On a warm January Sunday we complete our shoeing and get a wow riderless workout in our new running paddock from both horses.  Horses have now gone riderless near full speed three of the last 6 days.  First two days were just one heat in consideration of the layoff and that they went full speed for almost 3f.  Yesterday we did it twice--i.e. 6f total.  #148 rear left hock were he had his operation a year ago had been down to normal--all swelling gone.  After yest. w/o a little smudge of swelling popped up again.  Will see.
Shoeing took unexpectedly long and too dark for tack work.  15 degrees for next two days.

Meanwhile, a granddaughter Antespend who is also #148 upper grandma named Rose to Gold does it again.
We like it when our close relatives win major stakes. Unknown how long this link will be up showing Antespend in the pedigree. And, she was cheaper than #148--$1400.00 as a yearling.  There's still hope for we small fry! #148 cost $2000 in Opelousas.

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/thoroughbred/rose-to-gold/2010?source=BHonline

Worrisome Injury, and "The Plan"

We've developed what we're calling "The Plan" to get the horses to race track.  Elaborate in coming posts.

While the ground stays dry the horses are on an every other day riderless breezing schedule.  Good that #148 has healed well enough to run hard.  Weather has been two days at 15 degrees followed by two days warm with wind at 30 mph.  Wind let up today and for 4th time in Jan horses walked under tack.

#148 injury on 1/25/14

Left click to enlarge. Worrisome, instead of the heel bulb portion that will presumably grow into some kind of scarred over material-- is damage to the coronet band above the hoof wall below right heel of shoe.  Possibility that hoof might die in that area has been of concern.  Should that happen this animal may yet be in serious trouble.  As to the rest--if we can just keep this idiot from raking this injury again, hopefully by around mid February he'll be read to run on sand.

Recommence of Training

Little did I know the 12/31 workouts would be the last until 1/22.  Injury to #148, weather, muddy ground,
then a brief hoof problem with #17.  They've been ridden for about 3 days in this period.

On 1/22 we were able to get a 3f riderless fast run. #17 was over his slight limp.  Probably he had a slight hoof bruise that corrected over a period of 4 days.  Was tempted to do another and declined. No running in 22 days previous. When in doubt do less.  We'll do two more in two days. 10 degrees F today.  Nice weather coming though. Hoping that good forecast is accurate.

A Heat Wave In Tiksi, Russia

I keep Tiksi on my favorites since the weather there can always blow this way (and frequently does.).

This has to be a mistake.  Tiksi temps on Accuweather, as I type, is -45 degrees. However--the extended Tiksi forecast has that place warming up from the high -20s were it's been all month to the low minus teens.  This qualifies as a true heatwave for Tiksi this time of year and gives us some hope that maybe winter is over.

The horses today--#17 and his abscess--it either resolved itself or he never had one.  Might have been a piece of gravel that was causing problems although I thought the limp was much more severe. At any rate, he's without a limp today and never flinched through his shoeing. Hopefully back in business tomorrow.  #148 is healed to day as well as can be expected.  He can be ridden, though we'll avoid running him for another week.

Another Discouraging Day

Way too many of these over the years.

The greeting party:

God is here.  Boring:

Then this:

Day before-- nice solid wound scab.  Today--he's done something to it again.

Obviously #148 was pimping his buddies and hit his wound with his left hind that shows flecks of blood all over it.

To round out what started as a warm January day were we were to get a nice workout, there--and is this possible--is #17 limping on a newly developed abscess. Two horses down in a single day..  " Things can always get worse"--  Royals Manager Buddy Bell after the KC Royals baseball team had lost 19 in a row.

The Perpetually In Motion Horse

On a single evening #148 managed to cover himself with mud so deep and congealed into his thick winter coat that he's covered with little rocks.  Call his coat gravelly--big gravels, and I have the abdominal scrapes I got on rubbing against them on the dismount to prove it.  Unable to remove because there's so many and so deep into the coat.

No other horse is covered with gravels, of course.  Also this evening #148 cut himself on his hind drawing blood and got kicked in the snozz with a glancing blow by another horse.  Almost got his front legs caught on top of a fence fighting with a filly on the other side.  Tall fence, tall horse.  The daily adventures of this entertaining animal. Will he live to see his first race?

Accuweather corrected their forecast. Forget predicted January temps in the 40s. More Polar Vortex blowing  in next week as predicted on this very blog couple posts or so ago.  Missed my calling of weatherperson in that I seem to always call these events before Accuweather does.

In contrast, nice weather in England on this interesting blog that I've run into:

http://stable-life.blogspot.com/

The ground remains muddy although we might be able to commence running tomorrow.  Very little serious training so far this year due to weather.  I've been on both horses at the walk the last three days in the mud for purpose of calming them down.  #148 heel bulb injury is barking at me that if I'd leave it alone for a couple of weeks it will heal.  Might do that,  even though the horse needs to do some running.

Sun. Misc.

It's been way too wet to train.  Hopefully restart Mon. Forecast looking good.

Weather And Forecasts

-10 degrees this morning.  The 12/31 workout was the last we've had due to weather and due to more injury.  Arrive to this on 1/4.

Can only be #148.  We've gone from this about 12/1:

to this  on 1/4 after above incident:

above is also healed from the severe additional lacerations--see post of 12/19. We found the fence were the 12/19 incident occurred--instead of barbed wire it was the no-climb horse fence we'd put up.  #148 was playing with it and mashed a whole section with his bad paw.

And so the saga of #148 trying to kill himself is ongoing.  Luckily the wounds of 1/4 are just superficial and resulted in mere disturbing of the scabs.  Due to this we've been unable to run the horse in the snow, and riding has been out of the Q due to weather.

Our good luck is that the Jan forecast could hardly be better, my forecast is that we will continue to get here in KCMO the same weekly cold blast patterns we have been.  We had that nice forecast on 12/1 too and have had nothing but successive periods of cold and snow since.  As usual, do what you can whatever the weather brings.

Last Workout As Two Year Olds

A protracted account for posterity.

50 degree winter day. High hopes for productive session. Here they are on trainer's arrival.

350 yd walk through deep mud we're in the running pasture.  Trainer realizes he'd put the tack in the car yesterday to avoid cold weather. 700yd round trip to the car in the same mud and carry tack to pasture. Wind blowing at 25 mph. is bad omen.  This is beginning of a most frustrating effort.

#17 then retrieved from 350 yds away were they'd wandered. Saddled and #17 jumping around like there was a pride of lions in the woods--realizing later bogey man out in form of watching herd of cows that shows in the vids.  Horse out of control, tack work cancelled.

Frustrating attempts then to get decent pasture run as the older horse insists on taking them to exact same spot out of range.  Vid starts with 4th effort to get a run.  Couple that were decent at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-ZjdIT4hWw&feature=em-upload_owner

Then, #5 heat and finally, speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2m75CZ3U_I&feature=em-upload_owner

Final heat was almost identical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwJgo4nZqMo&feature=em-upload_owner

And so, last day of 2013 the effort bears fruit in the end with some much needed speed work for both horses.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!