So much for horses needing 4 to 5 weeks rest
 

So now we've had Corinthian win on 3 weeks rest, Einstein win on 2 weeks rest, and Miss Shop win on 1 week rest. Guess we can toss all that BS the trainers are spewing about not being able to bring back stakes horses without at least 5 weeks in between. I don't ever want to hear 4 weeks referred to as short rest again.

I was having this very discussion with Zito a little earlier today and the conversation got around to Jerkens. Nick predicted he would run 1-2 in today's race.

Pretty close.

Any excuse to name drop. LOL

You know me.

In Australia and England they run them every weekend or 14 days when they are on a campaign.

But don't be talking about that in America, those foreign trainers are just wrong.....

Makybe Diva won the Cox Plate at 1 1/4 miles and the Melbourne Cup at 2 miles 9 days apart when she was 7 years old.

I wish these owners and trainers of million dollar horses could agree to run their horses more often. Like the way it used to be. To me horses (at least on the high-end stakes level) are like Major League pitchers.

Eventhough they run less and less frequently, they still get hurt and come down with injuries... and subsequently get retired. Pitchers run on 5 days reast, and rotations are bigger so they don't have to throw as much... and yet pitchers still have the same arm problems.

So does the amount of rest ultimately help them, or does it work inversely? Maybe since horses don't run enough and pitchers don't pitch enough, they don't build up the proper endurance to get through these injuries??? Agree? Disagree? Apples and Oranges Cajun?

I think the attitude needs to change from "my horse can't lose if he doesn't race" to "my horse can't win if he doesn't race".

horses can race into condition instead of popping off 12 .48 second works before a start.

bullshit is what it is

True, but they also seem to get time off back at the farm. Here everyone wants to seem to race year-round.

How many US horses in training get to leave the track (if not injured) and get let down, then get brought back into training the next year?

Time in the paddock is invaluable to a race horse in my opinion. I completely agree.

Plenty do but it doesn't effect the way they are campaigned when they do come back. Actually the horses that stay in training tend to be the ones raced more frequently even when the horses that had their vacation come back.

I suspect it is because most vacations are taken out of necessity (injury), not just letting the horse down.

How often does he run back on short rest? Not very, correct?

Also, what's the deal with Sun King?

No, I'm thinking of stakes horses the past couple years that have been given a break all winter. Most of the top stakes horses that don't go to Dubai wait until May or June to comeback. Then they wind up making four or five starts the rest of the year if they are lucky. The horses that stay in training that stay healthy wind up racing more than 4 or 5 times from May on despite never getting a vacation. In the case of Sun King I highly doubt he will race anymore between May and October than he did last year despite getting the winter off this year and staying in training last year.

His horses run.

As far as Sun King.....I haven't mentioned him in over six weeks. Trainers work too hard for me to bother them about their horses.

Think it is more of a matter of "work" them up to a race, rather than race them into shape in the US?

Tell Maxine and Carlos that I said Hi...

I'm not in Florida. I only see Carlos in NY these days.

Every single study I've ever done shows that the sooner a horse comes back off of a good performance, the better they perform. This whole bounce thing is a bit perplexing, and usually just gives trainers another excuse they didn't previously have at their disposal. It seems to have replaced my personal favorite, "the track was cuppy".

Weight for time off races
 

Why don't they have races that are handicapped for time off. For example, if you run 7-14 days since your last race you get 10 pounds off, 14 -21 days - zero, 21-48 add 10 pounds, 48-96 - add 20 pounds etc.??

Depends on the horse, trainer and effort put out last time. Conquistador Cielo won the '82 Belmont by 14 six days after putting up a track record in the Met Mile (of course against elders).

Actually it was five days.

Howard's Creek won today at TP. It was his 4th race in 21 days. Of course he was beating a rotten 7500 NW2 group.

Yeah, it was. Sorry!:D

Hell, in 1987 Gulch ran in the Gotham, won the Wood two weeks later, ran in the Derby in another two weeks, the Preakness, beat olders in the Met Mile nine days later, and then ran in the Belmont 12 days after that.

I don't think it had a negative affect on him.

Wow, didnt realize that. And he won a breeders cup sprint the next year. What a versitile horse..

Depends on the horse, they are all diffirent.

I know there are some. Ravel for instance is one that I actually believe can't come back quick after a race. I just don't buy these ridiculous theories given by trainers and horseplayers that horses can't come back without less than five weeks rest or else they will bounce. Or the idea that horses aren't capable of running more often than every 5 to 6 weeks in Stakes company. Matz referred to four weeks as short rest the other day and my head almost exploded. As people have cited above, it wasn't that long ago that top horses were being asked to run back quick. Now everyone is too afraid of getting their horse beat that they try to get them the optimal rest instead of just racing the horse. For the few that might come back quick and run poorly how many are not reaching their full potential because they could actually improve by racing more often like horses of the past did?

believe me guys i wanna see the best horses race often too but it just cant happen the way some here appear to want it to! horses are living breathing beings just like us and after running a huge effort sometimes they need more time to recuperate! ive learned so much since working in the barn and ive saw this first hand and am actually able to tell alotta the time now just how much a race has taken outta 1 of our horses by visually observing. for example we had a horse come off a year break, well he ran his eyeballs out first time back at turfway and he was layed out afterwards and was fine physically in the sense with no injury but again was just flat out exhausted for awhile and it took him several more days than it normally would for a horse to return to the track after a race. also some here may not realize especially with these stake horses just how much the shipping takes outta the horse as well

And the highest finishing Aussie-based horse Maybe Better (third to the two Japanese runners) in last year's Melbourne Cup had qualified to get in by winning a race the Saturday before the Tuesday of the Cup. That's a 12.5f race THREE DAYS before a 2 mile race. Or course, the Cup was the culmination of the spring carnival for older horses and Maybe Better was spelled afterward.

Back in the days of Secretariat and Forego, major racing on the East Coast was over in early November (Aqueduct ran to the end of the month, but the big races were earlier). Hollywood Park had no fall meeting except for trotters, Oak Tree was oriented towards turf horses and late-developing 2yos. Most horses who had been part of championship-type campaigns got at least a couple of months off, often more - Secretariat didn't come back until March of his 3yo year (still got in 3 races before the Derby, spaced at 2 weeks, the typical spacing for the time). Others showed up at Hialeah or Santa Anita in mid-January. Late starters, like Majestic Prince who didn't debut until November (I think) at Bay Meadows ran consistently through the winter and spring.

Only the rare horse could keep racing through the fall and winter and still be competitive in the spring classics, horses like my hero Jim French, a gritty little horse who thrived on racing. If only Canonero's plane had gotten stuck a bit longer, Jim-boy would have won the Kentucky Derby, since he ran second to the Venezuelan shipper.

Since you know him, ask him what is up with "my" horse CP West. Dang I really like that horse. ;)

I have run one of my QH's on a Thursday and then back agian on Sunday. But then agian he was going 300yds!

Here's a story of a horse needing no rest , I rode an 870 horse on Sat. and ran third , then I rode it in the first race on Sunday and it won, it got faster overnight LOL.

well back they shipped and not by air but by train or truck. and they ran quite well back then. to me it is easlier to fly then travel by land.