Can Anybody Beat CA Chrome?

Perfectly put together horse?  Little more scope possibly. Even more size, maybe in an ideal world.  Personally would do without the white stockings making imo horses more vulnerable to fracture type injuries.  Everything else seems close to ideal--forearm cannon ratio, pastern angle, pastern length, bone thickness,back line and barrel length with head and neck in near perfect proportion.  Powerful enough hind end.  Distance between jaw seems more than adequate for breathing, etc. etc. 

 Horse overall looks like he can run and run fast. Confirmed by Chrome's vids showing unique and ground eating highly efficient galloping style.

Pedigree:

http://www.pedigreequery.com/california+chrome

Chrome has illustrious ancestors everywhere except for sire and dam, which btw also makes this such a great story.  Total of $10,000 combined in cost of stud fee and mare.
Other than the double Mr. Prospectors possibly combined with the one Danzig for unique speed, and the double Numbered Account, there's little here to particularly strike the eye compared to many others.  Precisely from were Chrome get's his looks--he seems to me sort of combo.

Training of Chrome--my brief glances have been skeptical even if Art Sherman is exactly where I myself aspire to be.  I ought to admire this dude, and do to an extent except I see little things that ultimately can make a difference that disturb--and, some are really little such as what appeared to me the horse's mild distress on the trailer Monday combined with the lack of human intervention to make him more comfortable to breezing the horse off of a pony warm up (see last breeze at Alamitos) causing stiffness of form in the initial part of the breeze.  Several times in his races the jock fails to put the horse on his left lead in the gallop out.  Again, little stuff except that these failures tend to cause injuries.

The training itself--what little that shows--seems superb and near ideal.  Those 4f breezes are actually 7f style with the gallop outs.  Sherman claims the horse on off days gallops 1 3/4 mile which might be a near ideal distance for the other work that's being done.

 One can guess that the horse with his many races is a snow ball rolling down the hill in gaining strength and experience. We can compare this to the Wise Dan situation where race builds on race and the trainer is sitting back there doing "what works"--at least "what works" to date.

I'll look with interest what is done with Chrome over the next couple of days.  Without looking at the rest of the field--what shows overall is a strong fast horse able to go hard for the distance.  Barring injury--and some few injury red flags are there as noted--it would be hard to imagine Chrome being anywhere except right in there near the finish line, and fairly easy to imagine at 2014 KY Derby runaway by CA Chrome.

Derby/RR Stable

My casual glance at the Derby so far, and particularly the Sat. breeze vids--

Look #1:  The trainers are all doing the same thing--reporting 4f works while essentially breezing a mile. They all do it once a week. They all have talented horses.  Would seem my experience would permit me to sort this out.  Maybe I have been away from the game too long.  I know nothing.

Look #2:  Ahhhh....the nuances.  California Chrome very strong, all the way.  Up on toes, all the way.  A horse that fast, who is strong perhaps by his many races, has to be tough.  And yet, Q--If Art Sherman could train would we have heard more of him by now?

Wicked Strong gives the impression of being the best most talented horse.  However--he finished his work a little tired albeit with a heavier rider.  Q--can a trainer unable to figure out how to keep a horse's tongue in his mouth train a race horse?  I've watched Jimmie Jerkens before.  Forgot my criticisms although my memory--he puts his horses up and does nothing with them after their works.  Unknown.  Looking at Jerkens physically-- put my $$$ elsewhere.

Uncle Sigh--I've liked this horse all the way and also realize he runs for a trainer unable to teach a dog to bark, although the Gary Contessa interview shows an intelligent fellow who maybe has stepped up to plate with this horse. Uncle S carries a heavy exercise rider in this work and is strong all the way. Distance a Q.  Sneaking hunch Uncle Sigh will be in there.

Samarat--very coordinated athlete. Same trainer handicapp as Uncle Sigh.  Need to see more.

Medal County--When Dale Romans speaks, I listen.

RR Stable:
#17 Couple days from galloping in the new paddock--looking around right now and need to avoid spooking in new digs.
#148  Mr. Nob says that he just tries to avoid looking down.  The horse is doing nice figure 8s at the walk and now responding to rider aides, which is progress. Should be trotting shortly.

Weather continues a problem around here.

Photos From 4/22/14

Arrive to this.  Whose Shoe?  Wild Guess.

Yup.

Only minor damage.  Luckily.
Right after riderless workout:

How do they look with Preston Burch style training?  Here's Assault, and notice that he's far short
of being particularly muscular, tight or tucked up.

And, that is Preston Burch holding Assault, I do believe.
And, our boys,similar.  They have the form instead of being overly muscular going every three days:

#148 was recovered and energetic on Wed.
#17 was still tired Wed.

Burch Training/Preliminary Results

As it's been in Missouri for quite a few years, the story of our training attempts revolves around weather, which has been so bad the last two winters we lost large chunks of the year.

2014, cold and frozen as it was, actually goes down as better than 2013 for the reason we've been able to do riderless fast work at least every three days since 2/25 unlike 2013 where we had two feet of snow into late March.  Today's workout will make 60 days of consistent riderless speed work, and with experienced racers we might be 45 days of tack work from a race although we'd have to consider bone soundness.

As it is--with spring/summer finally upon us--the goal now will be to transition riderless work to fast tack work. The aim will be to reduce the riderless speed work in terms of volume and substitute tack work instead until we're all into the tack work.

Before embarking on this, a few conclusions from the riderless work, which I find interesting as confirmations of similar work done in prior years:

1.  Appearance of the horses after two months of speed work:
My experience--in Burch style work, which is only 10 days a month of galloping--horses are less muscular looking than in with more regular galloping.  I'll post some photos next few days.  They look conditioned enough without having muscles bulging out of the ears as they might with more daily style gallops.

2.  Burch style every three day schematic produces an enthusiastic/into it type horse--see vid of our last workout at bottom of last post.  That was Heat #5 of the day, and the horses were still tearing around there.

3. Another benefit of the Burch style---they get "speed" on their minds. We moved that last work from the paddock into the 18 acre field (to get more distance out of the workout), and wondered whether they'd lope along or gallop fast.  The result was that even the warm up was fast, and every one of the heat went in mostly :14s or faster.  We've done zero slow gallops in 2014 and I'd wondered if my horses even know how to gallop slowly anymore.  Conclude they probably do not, and for racing this seems a good thing.

Easter 2014

New neighbors

10 min later, just before mounting and covered with straw and still sweaty after post exercise roll.

4/19 riderless work below--Heat #4, mostly in :14s.  Needed more distance than the usual 2f and so, the big field with its rough ground:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhXb8KJm1t8

More on Preston Burch Style Workouts

Condolences to our deceased fly buddies that passed away  two nights ago in our 28 degree weather.  Tragedy.

Burch breezed generally every three days, and trainer may do what he/she thinks appropriate on the two off days. 

On this schedule the horses have been "into it" physically and mentally every workout on their riderless breeze days.  There is one other very significant benefit to Burch's scheduling.  Illustrate with our recent experience

4/12--riderless speed work--the vid last post was shot at conclusion of last heat.  4 x 2f mostly in solid :12s. #148 puts in a wow workout.  

4/13: rest due to rain

4/14 rest due to mud.

Of course we're royally pissed by the off day bad weather that scotched our tack work. HOWEVER, on the Burch schedule our inability to train those days "fails to matter."  This is the other beauty of Burch's schedule-our horse's conditioning is unaffected by training interruptions on the off days.  And thus, in this instance, on day #3 we were able to get right back to work, as follows:

4/15 4 x 2f with the two youngsters racing each other every heat, and am pretty sure much of this went in sub-12s.

4/15 was years best workout.  Another wow job by #148 that we would have like to have on vid.
4/16--more weather with 30 mph wind that prevents tack work.  On this day we decide more riderless galloping--first time we've done that back to back.  Horses totally unenthused this day--although they did some work in :14s.

Sun. Misc.

Post exercise festivities on 4/12/14:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mV7xHV_g-w

Rollin' Rodney and company visit just before our 4/9 riderless run.  Tack work for our horses 4 of last 5 days.  #17 ready for more serious work.  #148 difficult although  meeting of  minds with Mr. Nob has been reached, possibly.  Horses continue  every 3 day riderless fast work. On 4/9- enthusiastically-into it -though we get only one heat that might be called fast in :13s as this day they mostly outsmarted the trainer.

Wood Memorial/Santa Anita Derby

Am following this year's TC at a distance, although was curious what might have caused that nice performance by California Chrome.  If Chrome's elderly trainer Art Sherman could train, would we have been hearing more of him?

Worth paying for DRF PPs to check this one out.  Nothing unusual showed.  Except possibly that one can get a performance with speedy 4f works Bobby Frankel style if we keep them racing.  I'd think the PPs are only part of the story with Chrome.  Does he e.g. motor around there at high speed every time he goes out there with similarity to I'll Have Another a couple years back?  These trainers get inspired when they finally get a good horse.

As to the Wood, other than that imo a lightly raced colt like  Social Inclusion has zero business being in the starting gate for a nationally televised race--why does TB racing allow this and take a chance on connections like these???--SI PPs actually show more works and races over a period of time than any other horse in the race.  That showed in the race were the horse was gunned by the jock one too many times to last the distance, possibly.  Jock lost the race for SI imo. Still worrying for this horse's safety which I dislike posting in event such thoughts would come to pass. And, one could nit pick in such a way every horse in the starting gate.  With SI, for reasons unknown, something smells causing me fear for  the horse.

Training:
4/4 Horses do another 4 x2 riderless with several full speed bursts.  No vid, of course, which guarantees a fast result.  4/5 back on after a week of horrible weather:

Newmarket

Love this photo stolen form another blog showing what it's all about. Thick grass, questionable footing, what's underneath for the hoofs to trip on?  Something ahead/boogey man/woman possibly? If horse goes straight and true what's better than to be on board?  If horse would duck and jive, bolt to rear, where's center of gravity of rider, can she hold? Things that go through the mind every sec. when one is up.  Lovely young lady riding at Newmarket.  Photo gives exact feeling of what it is to be on a race horse.
Training:  Weather, in contrast to England, continues virtually untrainable.  30 mph wind days alternate with cold rain and mud.  Horses continue doing their riderless work, looking good and getting in better condition.