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PostPosted: Mon Jun 01, 2015 1:15 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 10:20 am
Posts: 515
I want to answer this question that was submitted in a group that I am a member and I answered:

Quote:
I have been a long time lurker. I have gotten my first 2yo to start and try to bring along to the track. She's got a good thirty days of basics (walk/trot canter, circles, figure eights, stops ect.) She walk/trot/cantering about 2 - 21/2 miles per day about 5 days a week, with one day off and one walk day (walk for 20 min) she turned out all night. So we are taking her to a training track to work on the track, no fast works, only slow cantering, and jogging, and will get to see/walk through the gates. My arena where she is working on a daily basis is for dressage horses, ie - NOT deep. The training track I will be hauling her to on a regular basis is fairly deep and soft. Wondering what you guys do to prepare horses that aren't worked regularly on a track for a track surface and how does the change in footing affect how long/hard to work on either surface....Any ideas and experience is greatly appreciated.




Walking and trotting are ok as warm-ups, but unless you plan to enter
her into a walking, trotting or cantering race, it won't work for long. It
is a means to an end, i.e. producing a fitter horse to gallop, but as a
large part of the diet, walking/trotting/cantering won't do. It is
beneficial to give your horse a nice warm-up using a trot or slow canter,
but in the end, you have two speeds to work with in most race horses, a good
gallop and a good breeze. Those are how you will get your animal fit. You
need to be giving your filly good gallops 2.5-3.5 miles a day as a
foundation for later breezing. I seldom miss a day of galloping, rain, snow
or shine. Walk days and turn-out days are for after a race. This is not to
say that I discount that it is good to turn a horse out into a pasture after
his track work. It is. But turn-outs won't produce a fit race horse.

Here is where my philosophy digresses from many on this board as
backyarders, My point of view comes from being a professional at the track 7
days a week and not as a hobbyist. I think it is a must to not miss any days
in the beginning. Yes, I know it is real tedium to have to put work into
your youngster 7-days out of a week. Most backyarders don't think they have
the time and justify it by rationalizing that their youngster needs a rest
or break from routine when in reality, it is really they who needs that
break. You can get by giving them one day a week off, most do Sundays to
give all the stable help and themselves a break. This is particularly true
of harness racing. Sundays are ghost days on harness tracks. However,
curiously, you will find the thoroughbred stables busy 7 days a week, even
if they give their individual horses off one or more days a week. They
still put in a full 7 days a week into their stable! I have worked for
several hall of fame trainers who deemed that missing a day was paramount to
disaster (excepting the Sunday tradition). I tend to agree and I mostly put
work into my youngsters on the 7th day as well until they started racing.
Then in my estimation, they would earn a day off, the day-after-the-race.

There is an accumulative effect that many novices and unfortunately many
modern trainers do not appreciate in working horses day-after-day. You will
see this appreciation in accumulative fitness and discipline in human
running schedules, but not so much in modern racehorse conditioning any
more. Study all the great human runners, you will be struck how rabid they
are in getting work in every single day! Again, it is rationalized in this
day and age that our horses need a break from routine or they will become
sour. I say, BS. Horses love to get out and do moderate work every day! It
is second nature to them. It is what they love! However, taking a horse out
every day is not conducive to most backyarders plus if you have to pay a
rider, it is just plain more expensive!

What does a fit horse look like? I secretly laugh whenever I hear a
runn'n horseman say his horse is "sharp and sittin' on a win"--just because
he was bucking and squealing on the walker or lead shank or trying to tear
his stall walls down. These trainers don't have a clue what fitness really
is. Truth be known, the fit horse is quietly composed like a steel spring
while he is being walked or just resting in his stall.. He never squanders
energy by bucking and playing. You can often see an amusement in his eyes,
but seldom will he act a fool, bucking and jumping. This is a distinction
that is hard to differentiate by many horse people. The old timers knew how.
Giving a horse more than one day off in a week from his routine of solid
galloping/breezing will be conducive to producing that bucking and squealing
horse that is really just a false mirage of fitness.

Now to track surface characteristics. It is always easier to train on a
loose, sandy type of soil and go to a harder track to work or race.. You
won't get so many rear-end problems and soreness. However, do the opposite,
take a horse that has not known anything else but a harder surface and take
him to a deeper, looser type of going and you will often quickly see stifle,
rear-end soreness problems develop opening your horse up to all types of
secondary lameness. A deeper, softer track is much harder on a horse, if he
is not accustomed to working in it every day. It is my theory this is why
we do not see the lowering of track records like we did in the past
(pre-1950). Our modern horses are being worked and raced on much deeper,
softer tracks then way back then. I also think despite modern logic that
"soft" is better for soundness that actually a deep soft track is more
conducive to injury. All you have to do is study all the expensive
machinery, harrows, and other specialized equipment commonly used at today's
tracks and compare to how a track was manicured pre-1950 as a tip-off how
things have changed drastically. Hehehe, it is like the stone age to the
rocket age.

I am afraid there are no secrets or short-cuts. One must really try to
work a horse on the surface he is to be raced in order to become conditioned
to that surface which he will experience under the extreme stresses or
racing. One also must work that horse at speeds and distances similar to how
he will be raced. You can more likely get away with conditioning off-track
in Europe and other similar places where races are run on turf. Going from
the communal gallops seen in Europe or even our farm's pastures to a turf
course is much more forgiving than going from our pastures or homemade farm
track paths to the deep tracks found in most of our modern USA tracks.

If it was easy, everyone would do it and condition top horses.

my opinion only,

doug

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