It is the human condition to view the past through some type of skewed prism as some how better or stronger or more moral than the present day. Have you noticed that? The children we were in our day were much stouter, stronger, more robust ambitious, hard working individuals than the current generation of video game playing weaklings. Eh? As far as horses are concerned, the same has always been true, too. The weakness of the thoroughbred has been written about and proclaimed for years, if not centuries. We have just not been around to hear or read it.  If we had been, this charge would simply be a “ho-hum” and fall on deaf ears.

As long ago as 1835, this was written in THE LITERARY GAZETTE:

“We often hear it asserted that the British thoroughbred horse has degenerated within the last few years, and is no longer the stout and long enduring animal that he was in the bygone century (1700s), particularly during the last twenty years of it.

“The real truth is–and even careful observers sometimes draw wrong inferences from it–not that we have fewer good horses than our grandfathers, but that we have more bad ones. The number of worthless horses kept in training for a time is legion. We attribute this fact in the majority of cases to the ignorance and avarice of the breeder. Carelessness in the selection of sires and dams, and greediness in filling the pockets with heavy fees at the expense of the strength and vigor of young and promising stallions-these are the reasons why there is so much useless blood-stock in the country, and these are the causes that will, if continued, do more damage to the breed than any amount of two-year-old training and two year-old running.”

This was written in 1869! Sound familiar?

An editorial in the WALLACE MONTHLY of 1889 suggested that thoroughbred was degenerating because of the trend of reduced running distances.

Later in 1899, this was written by James Ewart in his book:

“As a matter of fact, the English race-horse, compared with even the Arab, is like a hothouse plant that only manages to hold its own when forced and nursed with unusual care, and after all, except for covering very short distances at a great speed, the majority of the hundreds annually bred are of comparatively little use. Breeders flatter themselves that thoroughbreds have since 1689 increased on an average eight or nine inches (from 13″2 to nearly 15″3 hands), but they forget this was partly due to the introduction of Arab blood, and that the size of a horse is very much a question of selection, food, and favorable surroundings, If the increase in size and increase of speed have, as is alleged, been accompanied by a diminution in the staying power and general fitness, the gain can hardly be held to compensate for the loss. That there has been a falling off in the thoroughbred may be inferred from “the smallness of the percentage of even tolerably successful horses out of the prodigious number bred at an enormous outlay.”

http://www.drf.com/news/beyer-bafferts-training-could-help-bodemeister-buck-history

    I suppose the key paragraph would be:

“He was flying leaving there,” Smith said. “He was two (lengths) in front
leaving the gate.” Smith and trainer Bob Baffert had talked before the race
about such a scenario, and Baffert had no reservations about letting his
colt go to the front. Some second-guessers have criticized Smith for letting
his mount go so fast in the early stages, but he was making a reasoned
decision. Bodemeister had raced only four times in his career, and Baffert
had not had the luxury of experimenting to learn whether he could be
restrained to sit behind other horses. “I didn’t want to change his style,”
the trainer said, knowing that the Derby is no place to experiment.”

    You know, this rather blows my mind! Baffert didn’t want to change his
style? Trainers are suppose to condition their horses to the style of racing
they will encounter. Why on earth was he not conditioned to come from
behind, to be on top and every where in between during his early works? Why
was he not trained in sets? He should have been trained to be comfortable
doing it all in the mornings. That is one of the luxuries of having a large
stable in that one can train in sets and replicate racing conditions. It
appears that Baffert had worked him at least 26 times before his first
start. Surely, he could have attempted to teach him to rate and find out how
he was from off the pace long before the derby? Apparently, it never crossed
Baffert’s mind?

Another journalistic piece may be as telling:

http://www.drf.com/news/beyer-bafferts-training-could-help-bodemeister-buck-history

    Reading between the lines on this one, it appears that Baffert felt the
horse needed a lot of speed work. He seems oblivious to the importance of
race strategy. This  harkens back to his quarter horse background of all out
racing from start to finish.   I suspect Baffert really does not understand
the classic distances where horses just don’t win, if they leave the gate
like a sprinter. Rating is a must even with speed horses going a route of
ground.

     Actually, I think this is the crux of the whole matter. Bodemeister is a speed freak who is one of the few that can carry that speed much further than many, many horses. The win in the Ark derby at a mile & an eighth blinded Baffert and Smith. Put that kind of a horse with an old quarter horse trainer, and he reverts back to his roots. He thinks this speed can be carried even for a mile & quarter. What’s another little eighth of a mile? Unfortunately, it makes all the difference in the world, particularly if you are going faster fractions.  Sure, he may be proud of the horse’s efforts, even amazed, but in the end, he lost. Smith said. “He’s such a free-running, talented horse. It cost me at the end, but he ran dynamite.”  I am afraid “dynamite” don’t win classic distances!

I just uploaded to YOUTUBE, the video of the  Santa Anita morning work on
April 7, 2012 of Bodemeister being caught in a fast moving set of breezing
thoroughbreds. This amazing footage supports the fact that Bode would have
been good in the Ky Derby from coming off the pace.

Watch it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-37h4h05fs

 (18×24 posters for  $15.00, write dahart@centurytel.net)

If

(as inspired from Rudyard Kiplings 1909 poem)

If you can keep your head when all around you

Owners, grooms, punters lose theirs, blaming you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be bullied by expectation,

Or being lied about, yet never dealing in lies,

Or being intimidated without surrendering to intimidation,

And yet never look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;

If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can race with Triumph or Disaster,

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear hearing the truth you have spoken,

Twisted by your detractors to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you have built your life on, broken,

Yet stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tack & tools;

If you can make one heap of all of your winnings,

And risk it on one promising colt prepped to come across,

Yet lose and start again at yours and his beginnings,

And never breathe a word of that loss,

If you can guide your horses’ hearts and nerves and sinew,

To serve their well-being long after being race called-upon,

Conditioning them to persist when nothing is left to run through,

Other than the Will which says to them and you: “Hold On!”

If you can talk with the press and keep your virtue,

Or walk with the wealthy without losing the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men and horses count with you, but none too much,

If you can train the unforgiving mile & a quarter race,

With 120 seconds worth of honest run,

Yours is the racetrack with everything in its place,

And more over, you will be a horseman, my son!

  

©2012 Ahart Publishing UnLtd. 

 I finally came to the logical conclusion that any publicity of our poor sport is probably better than none at all. It sure beats watching lawyers, doctors, police procedurals, serial killers, etc, etc. I was first peed of various what I viewed as unrealistic portraits, over-use of stereotypes, but decided, again, it is better to have the sport in the public’s eye, than not. I do love the gritty, non-Disneyland air to this mini-series. Plus, it is about time this sport was not encased in a kid’s fairy tale. I watched WAR HORSE and it was pretty bad, exactly what I would never want to see in any racing movie or series.

    Well, it is HBO after all! You will get gratuitous nudity and sex and profanity and that is certainly what David Milch is known for in his credits. He did HILL STREET BLUES, DEADWOOD, and NYPD BLUE. I listened to him on a recent NPR interview and was very much taken by him when he said, us racing folks had an “alternate reality”. Wow, that was never so true! I had always felt that way about the profession, I had chosen. If ever there was an “alternate reality”, the racing backside was it! Hehehehe. Our whole life is built on an animal that can get from point A to point B, the fastest. Some alternate reality?

    As a horseman, I must admit this series does amuse me at times on what Milch passes as racing. Maybe I am wrong here, but here are some of my pet peeves of the past two episodes;

Episode 1

1)  A Calif horse owners license was displayed  with a big HORSE OWNER label printed on it. I have never had a license like that. Most state licenses have one’s occupation or license category in small print, but things may have changed by now? It is Hollywood and this was an demonstrative illustration device.
2)  Yeah, I know it is HBO with Milch, but adding a certain degree of sexual innuendo into a vet doing a rectal palpation is a bit much. I guess it doesn’t hurt that the female vet wasn’t half bad looking when she made that comment to her trainer/customer, but still. . . . In real life, if we were treating a horse with colic, particularly a $2 million dollar one as in this series, sex would be the last thing on the vet’s or owner’s mind!
3)  Some one better give Nick Nolte instructions how to give a rider,  a leg-up. Not good technique! However, I must say the other portrayed trainer, a South American one, did a nice job with this.
4) Nick Nolte plays a supposedly grizzled old Kentucky hardboot type of trainer, but he is far too emotionally involved with his promising horse to be very realistic. A true trainer that has been in the business that long would be full of fatalism and none too sure of himself or his horse until that horse actually brings forth the goods. However, it makes good TV to have a trainer so invested and emotional.
5) Too much emphasis on gambling, but I don’t really fault that much. That is how most of America knows racing…..through its gambling. I just wish Milch was not so obsessed with the degeneracy of horse gamblers. He wrote in some real “losers”.
6) I hope they got the horse break-down out of the way for the season as one happened in the first episode, but as things go, it was pretty sterile and peaceful. However, the state vet that put the horse down no more hit the jugular than the man in the moon. The horse was far too peaceful after suffering a broken leg and magically was on the ground with its head laying in the jock’s arm as he died. Hardly true to life.  And what is it with vets in this series? They all seem to need stethoscopes swung over their necks like their human counterparts!! Is this a medical badge of some type? Vets seldom use stethoscopes and don’t need them at hand at a moments notice.

Episode 2

1) I have never seen an exercise girl breeze or gallop a horse with her thick locks of hair down waving in the breeze. Probably not too practical, but looks nice on the screen. That was what the Irish gallop girl did in this episode. Of course, she wants to be put on the good horse in the afternoon which is a nice side to the whole story and more real to life, but the old kentuck trainer has other ideas so far and it appears the famous alcoholic jock played by Gary Stevens will get that mount.  I like this angle of the story! Most of the time, the name jocks do win out.
2)  Nick Nolte is at it again, apparently having a fairly big stable at Santa Anita, but devoting his entire time to grazing and rubbing his “big” horse. Not very true to life. Also, a scene where he was rubbing that horse down with a rub rag. He needs schooling on technique! You don’t rub a horse like he did. Kind of reminds me of those TV actors that try to pass themselves off as masseuses. You can tell they know little about massage. He is also pictured using a stop watch of the type seldom seen on track. We tend to use the ones with a 60 second time face dial, his was shown using a 30 second version–very awkward, little used.
3) Maybe feeding carrots is a big thing in Calf, but not so much in my experiences on the track. Even the price of carrots was discussed in this episode and we have a trainer giving his horse “hand treats”. I doubt that is too typical of most professionals.
4) Yep, there is a lot of “educational actor lines” designed to enlighten the audience. This is common in many films. I was always amused at many fighter pilot war movies when the entire dog fight is explained over the intercom. Same thing happens here on and off, but this is no biggie, it is Hollywood and may help educate the clueless viewer.

On the whole all of the above inaccuracies are minor. Not important to the big picture. I am just happy we have a first, a horse racing mini-series that will probably not necessarily have a story book ending, but be more true to life. Such is life. It is certainly entertaining and does bring some glamour to our business in an odd sort of way

This year’s Belmont is an example how the only horse in the field that had won a race on bad going, did it again. This brings to mind one of my favorite mud racing stories of all time and involves a Missouri bred horse winning the Kentucky Derby under Boots Durnell. The horse, Elwood. 



By 1903 he (Boots Durnell) was racing during the summer in Chicago and heading to California for the autumn and winter. He was stabled in San Francisco that year when he heard one day that a horse sale was to be held at a local boxing ring. He and some friends decided to attend, but not with the idea of buying anything. According to Ransom, “the stock was ragged and the breeding rather poor, but finally, out came a slender colt, a bay yearling son of Free Knight out of Petticoat, by Alarm. Petticoat was a granddaughter of the great American Eclipse and her dam was a daughter of Leamington. Something about the youngster fascinated Boots, although it was not his looks, and he bid $100 on him. After three more bids, he was knocked down to him for $300, and he led the little fellow to his barn.”



Mrs. J.B. Prather of Faustiana Stud in Maryville, Missouri, had bred Elwood. The horse was not named at the time of the sale, and Durnell bestowed his mother’s maiden name — also his own middle name — on the colt. Elwood raced in the name of Boots’ wife, Mrs. C.E. (Lasca) Durnell.

At two, Elwood raced in some $300 claiming races, but he was not successful enough to attract a claim. He made seventeen starts and won only once, although he finished second in two little stakes, the Youngster Stakes and Competition Stakes.

The highlight of that California campaign came when three-year-olds were asked to go a mile and a half as early as February 27 in the Ascot Derby. Most of Elwood’s races had carried purses of $400 or less, but the Derby had a purse of $2,000. He finished second to Bill Curtis, beaten by four lengths on a muddy track.

His next start came nearly a month later, on May 2, in the Kentucky Derby.

Several elements of the lore of Elwood’s Derby tend to be questionable and contradictory but charming. A story recorded by Ransom was that “One day in … 1904, Boots’ brother-in-law phoned him from Kentucky and said ‘if you have any kind of a three-year-old handicap horse, put him in a car and ship him to the Derby. It has been raining for days and the track’s a quagmire. No one here has been able to train their horses.’ Boots hung up the phone, disconsolate, for he had no such horse in his barn. He yearned for that far-goal of glory, the Mecca of every breeder and race horse man [obviously a statement assigning the Derby’s later status retroactively]. He shrugged off the idea as an impossibility … However, when he walked back to his stable and ran speculative eyes over the awkward carcass of Elwood, his optimism rose. He suddenly remembered a workout when the horse was just flying in the mud, jumping and kicking like a bronc. He had a real mud horse.”

Ransom tells how Durnell, low in funds, traveled with Elwood, bedded down himself in a box car he shared with the horse. Elwood seemed stiff and sore after the long trip, and that, along with his origins, summoned snide reference to “the Missouri mule.” Durnell had difficulty finding a rider, and Frankie Prior agreed to take the mount only because he wanted to ride in the Derby.

The version attributed to Durnell is full of emotion, detail, and bravado:

“They finally got away in the deep slop and as they swung into (the) backstretch, I could see nothing of my awkward plater and I knew then the real heights of my folly. But wait. As the flying pack plowed into the gooey stretch, from far back came a mudplastered woeful sight, a horse eating up ground in great surging strides, and up there on his back was a ludicrous Ichabod Crane. Down through the long and boggy stretch the strange apparition continued his long furious jumps, simply running over horses at the end and coming out to open daylight at the wire. Somewhere along the line and with stunned disbelief, I might have sensed the real meaning of that long, awkward stride and who it was, with hoarse bellows of encouragement; I shouted the unknown horse home.”

Greatest Kentucky Derby Upsets

 By the staff of Blood-Horse Publications



Master of Hounds in Louisville, Ky

(1) MASTER OF THE HOUNDS (#1)

(2) SHACKLEFORD (#12). . . . . . . . This horse did well in the Derby and Preakness and should have the guts to continue in the Belmont, but due to his classic lack of training which is typical in the  USA, he will probably be sorely tested by the Belmont’s distance. He won’ t have the depth to pull it off. Few USA horses have that training depth any more to do the mile and a half well,  let alone take the triple crown.

(3) RULER OF ICE (#3). . . . . . . . . . This is my long, long shot pick. I just have a hunch he may do well. His beyers are not that impresssive, but so what? A mile and a half is a different animal. He starts close to the rail and should get a good trip if the jock and luck is on his side.

(13) Concealed Idenity. . . . . . . . . . . he is a long shot to put it mildly and I never  bet the chalk. He has raced five times this year with his last start being a win in the Tesio on May 7th at Pimlico.  His last work was on May 18th

(5) Shackleford. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . he has four starts this year with a 4th in the Ky Derby.  No works since the derby, but that ain’t that uncommon.

(4)  Flashpoint. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . he is a hunch bet. His  last raced on the 3rd of April in the Florida Derby with a 4th. I am betting his new trainer can improve on Dutrow.

My, how time flies! Ky Derby time again.  I got lucky last year and picked the winner. Let’s see if I can do it again?

Since I am no longer a track denizen but have to rely on hunches and what I read at the DRF, I am at a disadvantage. What does it take to win the Derby? First and foremost, one needs a fit horse that can handle the distance. Then one needs luck! Luck is the hard condition to guess in any race. As every horse trainer knows, we are at the mercy of the Gods of Luck whenever we send a horse out to race. A 20 horse Derby field just makes luck even more pertinent and trying to find a Derby winner is more of a crap shoot. Jocks, I don’t pay much attention to. At this level, they are all about the same. One exception and that is Calvin Borel. Borel knows how to save ground and save a horse, presuming he is allowed to. Most of the time, he isn’t and this Derby day may be no exception. His style is getting too well known for his own good. It is unlikely that the other jocks will let him move on the rail like he has in the past. He is certainly on a horse that could do it, if the Gods of luck are present. I do admire the way he rides!

Which of these 20 are fit horses that could handle the 1-1/4 route? First, I like to see how many starts each have had this year. This is important. As any old timer will tell you, there is nothing like a race to get a horse fit. You can work most any of ‘em every week, but they will always get the most out of an actual race. Of the 20, only 1 has had 5 starts this year and that would be TWINSPIRED (#10) trained by Michael Maker. Six entrants have had 4 starts in 2011 and they are ARCHARCHACRH (#1), PANTS ON FIRE (#4), DERBY KITTEN (#9), MIDNIGHT INTERLUDE (#15), NEHRO (#19), AND WATCH ME GO (#20).   Eight horses have had 3 starts in 2011, four horses have had 2 starts in 2011, and only one horse had one start in 2011, the European.  Modern horses tend to be babied and few race over 3 times before the derby in that year. I contend this is not conducive to starting a fit horse. This was most certainly not how horses were conditioned over 50 years ago.  I like to see a 2011 seasoned horse go into the Derby.

How about current works? I want to see a horse that has had a good breeze very close to the derby day. Few modern trainers like to stress their horses close up. Too bad! Just proves, they don’t know how to prep a fit horse.  Geeze, look at Pletcher! He doesn’t even seem to like to gallop them hard during derby week let alone breeze them! What a whizzo! As the Daily Racing Form writes, he had Uncle Mo spend three relatively inactive days in the barn after his May 1st work at 5f and only on Thursday, decided to send him out for a paltry 1-1/2 mile gallop. Mamma-mia!  Few trainers seem to even want to stress their horse with just daily gallops anymore! Mile and a half gallops seem to be the norm. Most humans go more than that and not think a thing about it as their daily routine and yet derby trainers seem to think anything much over a 1-1/2 gallop is detrimental. How can these trainers figure that babying their horses so is a a good strategy?  COMMA TO THE TOP only jogged this Thursday and has done precious little else this week. Zito is another trainer that does not seem to know how to work horses. He has DIALED IN working only two half mile breezes since the Florida Derby win, over 30 days ago!  Only one horse worked May 3rd (5 days before the derby) and that was ARCHARCHARCH in 4f in the slop. Five horses worked on the 2nd, 6 days before Saturday. They were BRILLIANT SPEED in 5f, SANTIVA in 4f, MIDNIGHT INTERLUDE in 5f, NEHRO in 4f, WATCH ME GO in 5f.  I won’t talk about the others here.

    How about the post positions? As usual, everyone seems to hate the one hole and prefer to be way on the outside. This has always been a mystery to me. I like to see good horses down close to the rail where they can avoid being pushed out wide. Granted, one does not need some early speed to take full advantage of the rail, but even if you don’t get away well, you still can get to the wood fast and save ground. Thoroughbred trainers and jocks often have a much different view on that topic.  Trainer Fires is not the happiest with ARCHARCHARCH’s number one draw, but he feels he can live with it. I guess so! I say it is all bull shit. Jocks are scared being down on the wood and trapped down there scares them. They are more likely to get hurt down there unable to avoid an accident. Plus, they are an impatient lot. They find it hard to wait for an opening that will appear in many cases, if one just waits for horses to split. Calvin knows this well. Jocks talk to their trainers and since most trainers don’t or never did race ride, they believe shit and this myth grows. Take it from an old harness horse driver, the closer to the wood you can leave the gate the better off you are at saving ground. No way around it.

What if it the track turns up bad? Strange things happen in the mud!  Favorites lose consistently and long shots come in. Also, Borel often can rule the day, if he is on a horse that can handle that type of going. Jocks tend to perceive the track down on the rail as not good when the track is off. Borel can take advantage of this. Jocks because they like the middle of the track on an off track, will leave Borel alone to do his dirty work on the wood. What derby horses seem to be able to handle the mud?  ARCHARCHARCH, STAY THIRSTY, DERBY KITTEN, SANTIVA–all maybe.    PANTS ON FIRE AND SODALT, absolutely!

I tend to like Archarcharch, Twice the Appeal, Derby Kitten, and Twinspired.

My selections:

1)  ARCHARCHARCH. . . . . . . . . I am choosing him because I like his odds and he won the mile and an eighth Arkansas Derby and was one of the few horses that did a work very close to derby day. I like his post position and if given a half of a chance, should get a good position along the rail to save ground and won’t be caught wide like a good portion of a 20 horse field.

2) TWICE THE APPEAL. . . . . . . Ok, I can’t discount BO-rail! I generally don’t put much value in the jock, but Calvin may be the exception. He may find a way to exploit this horse’s talents by saving ground. He often can!  I don’t like the fact that this horse last raced on March 27th, nor do I like his last work being on the 30th of April, but that is pretty common in this field.

3) TWINSPIRED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . My last pick which is purely a hunch bet. He about won the Blue Grass only 20 days before Saturday–one of the few horses entered in the derby that has raced so close. I like that. He last worked on the 30th of April which is further away than I would like, but it was a longer 5f breeze which is better than a customary 4 furlongs. He has is the most seasoned with five starts this year.

    As any human knows, it is much more tiring to run over a deep surface
than a hard one and this should equally hold true for the equine hoof. True,
a hard surface may be harder on bones and hooves, but I contend, not so
much, if you train your animals over that type of surface from the very
beginning. Bones are remarkable at remodeling and engineering themselves to
cope with what they train over and that includes hard surfaces. Hooves when
protected with plates and daily care can also handle hard surfaces. I might
also add as a trainer that I have had far more problems going from a hard
surface to a softer, sandy surface than I ever had in the reverse. This
scenario will open your horse up to all types of muscular and ligament
stifle/back problems, etc.

    One other point. For those of you that have hung around the backside
when the trackman for what ever reasons allows his track to get harder than
usual, you know that race times in the afternoon or evening always was
reflected with increases. A simple fact: a harder track improves race times
while a deeper track slows them down. That means less effort is needed on
the part of the horse to travel that piece of ground. When this occurs, our
modern trainers will raise bloody hell for a softer track! This happened at
Prairie Meadows a few years ago as it does at many other tracks from time to
time.

    I contend that one reason why more track records were broken in the
first half of the 20th century was because of harder surfaces. Having
interviewed a number of old time horsemen, they never seem to recall that
their horses were any more likely to break down back then than our modern
horses are now. Scanning through past period literature, one never reads
much about breakdowns or the public’s concern at breakdowns like we do now
in the news. Perhaps the sports writers of long ago had different
sensitivities, but I doubt it. A breakdown is a breakdown, past or present.
If a horse was prepped over a hard surface from beginning to end, you will
see no more bone problems than you would today with the majority of
racehorses running over softer surfaces. Perhaps even less!

    There is more to the surface of our dirt tracks than a hardness or
softness factor! Dirt often breaks away more easily which is definitely a
negative factor and shod or unshod hooves will react the same. Many dirt
tracks are not as smooth as you may think, too. You get the factor of the
horse’s hooves not landing level. Harrows produce ridges, previous horse
traffic produces all types of unevenness.  Both shod and unshod hooves would
land unevenly on such surfaces. I remember a number of times of taking my
horses to the paddock from the barn area and having to get there by going on
the main track. AKSARBEN and Hawthorne were two such tracks which required
that. Even though I galloped my own and my horses seem to travel ok over the
surface, I was always amazed how uneven and rough and difficult it was for a
human to walk over the average dirt track’s surface. Of course, had we done
this same walk over a smoother hard turf course, there would have been no
comparison to the less effort involved in just walking over these two. Speed
and deep going kills, shod or unshod.

     Below is an an old photo showing three teams of horses pulling harrows conditioning a track before mechanization. Do you really think this produced a softer track with more cushion than our sophisticated equipment would today? If you do, let me sell you a sterling silver horseshoe.  You can bet that the characteristically harder surfaces of these long ago tracks were one reason why more racehorse records were broken on a more consistent time frame than they ever are now.  This may also be one reason why there were probably less break-downs, too, in the long ago past even though this cannot be proven.  A harder surface takes less energy to travel over! The key is to prep your animal from the very start on hard surfaces. The harness horse people do it all the time, and they don’t nearly have the incidents of break-downs as we do.  

Back to the Belmont. You would think that a classic race of the stature of the Belmont would attract a large number of distance horses, but this seems seldom to be the case. Yes, you will occasionally get the Europeans sending over distance horses that on paper look like they could easily handle our mile and half, but you just don’t get American three year olds that have raced that distance in their short careers. Three year olds racing much more than a mile is more a rarity than the norm in this country, even if one is pointing that horse to the grand old Belmont. Modern trainers don’t even breeze these three year olds very long distances either. It is back to the modern mantra of hoping a “fresh horse” can stumble or wheeze across the wire ahead of the other equally tired horses. They figure these three year olds can take on the mile & half by simply last racing in a 1-1/8 or 1-1/4 race plus a little genetic ordained staying lineage. Bull shit! Any sensible trainer should know one should not jump one’s horse training schedule a quarter to three-eighth of a mile with no additional preparatory work! No wonder there are so prevalent of breakdowns in our sport.

Take a look at the 12 horses in this year’s Belmont. You have only three horses that have raced 5 starts in 2010 (less than a race a month), five entries in the field have 4 starts, and four with an outrageous meager 3 starts. What horse can be fit to race a classic 1-1/2 miles by racing only 5 times, let alone 3 in 2010? Precious few with no equally demanding breezes. I have to at least give it to John Sadler (Dave in Dixie) for working his horse a mile in 1:39.3 on the 27th. Certainly rare trainers ever seem to work that far before a big race in this day and age. However is a mile work long enough for a mile and a half race with his last race way back on April 3rd? No!  Not only that, but this mile work was a long 12 days away from the Belmont. Nice try, John, but no dice.  It seems 4 and 5 furlong breezes before the Belmont is the rigor of the day,  mostly a week before the event. It don’t get any “better” than that in modern times.  So again this year, you have a field of talented three year olds , not the top, but good enough to be nominated and dropped into a rich race by the big stables hoping to get a classic race feather in their caps. None are fit for the distance and you are essentially hoping your horse will hold on long enough to out struggle the others. It is really impossible to bet a race like this as form will never hold true for any of them. PPs mean little as was true in the previous two triple crown races.

Amanda Duckworth (ESPN) wrote in her Jun 3rd column:

Perhaps more than any other Triple Crown race, the Belmont more often than not comes down to one thing: pedigree.

She has got to be kidding! She obviously knows nothing about the backside and training horses. She tries to prove this absurd statement by showing that the longshot Birdstone won the Belmont in 2004 with his sons, Summer Bird and Mind that Bird also racing well in that long race.  Since when do sons or daughters of winners really mean anything? Think of all the sons and daughters that lose or race miserably by great racehorses.  Race track theologians are often shy on personal practical experiences and Ms. Duckworth seems no exception. Never underestimate a tough trainer that can prepare a tough racehorse for a route of ground. Sunny Jim Fitz and Woody were some old time trainers that knew that lesson well.

My selections? Certainly Zito’s horses look competitive, but I dislike Nick and his training methods, plus I don’t bet the chalk. I like Billy Mott’s Drosselmeyer.  He’s raced all year over a mile which isn’t too bad, if only four times and he has placed well each. I just have a feeling he may do well.