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 Post subject: training regimes
PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:47 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 10:20 am
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From Karsten:

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OK, So some of the old timers put way more mileage on their babies back in the day.... As trainers are a following lot, I suppose that most were basically mimicking what the successful ones were doing (or at least copying without success). So starting from the beginning.... A pasture full of yearlings is brought to the training farm, and old codger Mr X gets to work. What does he do that's different than today? Assuming breaking and basic manners takes about the same time as today, they should be ready to start increasing the miles in about 30 days with a light rider.(Is a very light rider part of the keys to the puzzle back then?) Any idea what the typical schedule would be? How many miles at what rate would be the goal? At what point would they speed things up?


My reply:

As you well know, there is no cookbook schedule of how to prep any horse for the races–now or in the distant past. There are certain trends that can be characterized through the ages and I will try to relate to you my impression of those trends. Few training texts from the last century will spell out gallop schedules for any training program. I suppose it was felt that such discussions were of no value, because they were common knowledge and a waste of print. Training books often concentrated on breeze/work schedules leaving the gallop routines unwritten.


There was a different mentality back in the old days than now, too. Horsemen were often country folk which involved being brought up, working horses as a means of survival. All horses were truly beasts of burden and that motivating concept has been lost from today’s sensibilities. Unless you were raised around, say your grandfather, who actually lived in a pre-auto era, you will never really know this mentality of “man and working horse”. Horses were not babied under any circumstance and many were brutally treated under today’s standards. Discipline and mileage were important training flavors, never to be shirked. A horse would gallop or work on a daily basis, seldom missing a day. I would venture a standard of 2 to 2.5 miles of galloping daily to be the norm back 50 or more years ago. The question of how fast these miles were galloped will never be known, nor should they. Each horse is an individual as was the trainer who managed them, but chances are they were not loped around the track as is often seen today.--loping at a pace that a jogging man could easily keep up with.

Preston Burch (1953 book) usually states that a two year old should be galloped 3-4 weeks at the 2-2.5 mile gallop range before breezing. Usually he would breeze every third day, thereafter. Keene Dangerfield in his 1946 training book seems to have a similar opinion of galloping most two years a month at the 2 mile length before going to a work schedule of every third day. He would gallop the day following a work, one mile, and then resume the 2 mile gallop the following day before another work day. Robert Collins in his 1938 book tends to follow these two trainer’s galloping/training patterns as well. You will not generally see long gallop miles beyond the 3 mile range. For one thing, labor was as precious back then as now. There is only so many hours in a day that can be devoted to one animal. The earliest training book I have, written by the Brit, William Day in 1880 suggests that two year olds should gallop about one mile at “half speed”. Older horses were generally galloped the length of the course they had to run, whatever that may be, twice a day. They would gallop at half-speed for 1.5 to 2 miles; walk for half an hour and then repeat the gallop. I am offering this Victorian British view of training only as a curiosity. They have different training grounds and racing systems over there.

Differences? Personally, I think modern trainers tend to push young horses toward their first start with less galloping and breezing mileage under their girths and they tend to race them into shape as compared to older methods and training philosophies. I would suppose that many modern race track trainers would gallop their horses from 1-1.5 miles with little warm-up preparation. They also tend to give many more days off and to replace their horse’s gallop days with “shed-rowing” (hand/mounted walking) or hanging them on the “wheel” (mechanical hot-walker). Even worse among the gyps, many times these horses don’t even leave the stall. Breezing and work schedules are the most glaringly different when compared to the past. There is seldom a modern trainer that will subject their horses to a twice a week training schedule (a breeze every third day). Most are lucky to be worked once a week, it seems to me. There seems to be a fear of “over-training” and this is translated by modern horsemen into meaning, breezing too often. Not so, in my eyes or the eyes of the horsemen of the past. As the final product, you have a horse with deficient preparatory mileage. In short, an unfit horse that is not capable of coping with the stresses that is often demanded of it in competition.


Oh, yes, the weight question. I suspect that exercise boys that were light (compared to today's standards) were the norm of years past. As now, I doubt if few trainers exercised their own on any regular basis. More importantly, the exercise rider was often being schooled to become a jock and by necessity had to be light. Preston Burch writes "...if you use a rider weighing more than say 130 pounds, you are inviting an unsoundness in a young horse from carrying too much weight.
Quote:
" Keene Daingerfield, likewise, writes in his 1948 book: "Nowadays, you take what you can get, although you don't have to like it. Most exercise boys are a good deal heavier than jockeys, the average running around a 118 or 120 pounds. A boy weighing anything less than 115 is considered a light boy, and some exercise riders scale as much as 135 or 140. These big boys are all right for galloping, but it is not wise to use them to breeze or work horses unless no one else is available."
So compared to today, trainers of 50 or more years ago did use lighter riders on their horses that went more miles.

Personally, I doubt if weight is that important, particularly when galloping. I think the significance of rider weight during gallop miles in regard to soundness is more worry than fact. I was a trainer who rode morning works and I weighted around 150. I never felt that any of my horses suffered from my extra 10 pounds when considering the past's standards for "heavy boys". Jump jocks/riders tend to be traditionally heavier framed which I always felt puzzling. If ever rider weight should make a difference, it should be on a horse that has to jump and land on his front feet. It is all custom and tradition to my thinking. If a horse is properly conditioned with added weight from the start, it will not make any huge difference in soundness. Abrupt extremes are to be guarded against in all things that are racing and that includes weight.

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