Assault
 

To get an idea how much tougher the old time horses must have been - here's a look at Assult's worktab from 1946...the year he won the triple crown.

He had 24 workouts between Feb 3rd and March 30th of his 3yo season - 22 of the 24 workouts came between the distances of 4 furlongs and a mile.

He won the Wood Memorial on April 20th, finishing 4th in the Derby Trial Stakes on April 30th, won the Ky Derby on May 4th, and won the Preakness on May 11th.

After four tough races between April 20th and May 11th, he was shipped to Belmont Park on May 12th.

He worked 4 furlongs on May 16th, 3 furlongs on May 18th, 4 furlongs on May 20th, 8 furlongs on May 22nd, 3 furlongs on May 24th, 10 furlongs on May 25th, 4 furlongs on May 28th, followed by a 12 furlong work in 2:32 flat on May 29th.

So, after winning the Preakness on May 11th, he was put through a series of 8 published workouts before winning the June 1st Belmont by 3 lengths in 2:30 4/5ths

After winning the Belmont - he was given an insanely long rest of 3 days before he returned to the worktab on June 5th, and again on June 7th, and again on June 9th, and again on June 11th, and again on June 13th, before winning the Dwyer by 4.5 lengths on June 15th.

Assault managed to stay around long enough to win the Brooklyn Handicap at age 6 and was retired after a 7th place finish in the Hollywood Gold Cup in December of his 7yo season.

I'd love to see a trainer today try and work a horse 8 times in between the Preakness and Belmont.

Good and interesting info. What I'm wondering is whether we've reached the edge of how much we're going to baby thoroughbreds, or if things will get even more ridiculous in the next decade or so..

Scott Lake trained horses work about once every blue moon. It's all about letting them chill - walk and jog them a little - and inject away.

Ever heard the phrase that things have to get worse before they get better?

Well, I don't think that's accurate anymore, as it's a rare thing these days that actually gets better after worsening more and more.

you could probably still get a lot out of today's thoroughbred if you had it from a young age and really developed it to handle a workload.

You can't claim a horse with problems with the sole intention of dropping it and giving it pain killers and whatever performance enhancer and work it more than once or twice between races if at all.

As you know, Lake's barn is packed with claimers. It would be interesting to see stats on barns comprised like his and how often those trainers work their horses.

Or how about entering (and winning) a 10f stakes race in between the Preakness and the Belmont? That's what Citation did.

I know.

I was under the impression that those old horses worked much less often than today's horses - and were raced into shape by building fitness and stamina through racing instead of workouts.

That actually isn't true I'm discovering.

If you tried to train a stable of modern race horses that way you'd probably have ruined the careers of every one of them before you even get a race out of them.

How do you look up the workouts for a horse that ran in 1946?!? :zz:

I'd love to know the work pattern for Kincsem if you have the time. :D

These horses in the old days galloped a lot every day, a couple of miles, so they were fit before they started working. And because they were fit, they COULD work and race more often. Modern race trainers have no idea of what horses are capable of doing if brought up to it correctly. They should all go to a 3-day event on Cross-country day, with roads and tracks, steeplechase, and cross-country to see what a fit horse can accomplish without falling apart.

Did you know that one of her Grosser Preis von Badens originally finished in a dead-heat? And that they raced it off, the full distance, the same day? She won, of course.

I knew she finished in a dead-heat.. I didn't know it was re-run.. the SAME DAY!! :eek:

They let them rest a few hours, of course. They had only stopped having races in 4-mile heats in the US a decade or earlier. Kincsem had it easier.

This was the part that stood out to me. After horses run in the 12f Belmont these days trainers usually shut their horses down for months. Giving a colt five workouts and then running him in a 10f race - all within two weeks of the Belmont - struck me as a bit shocking even for the 1940s.
On the other hand, Assault seemed to have trouble cracking the time of 2:06 for 10f as a 3yo. Now, I know absolutely nothing about track conditions in the 1940s, but unless they were running these races on the Del Mar polytrack, that doesn't seem particularly fast.

I know that Citation won that race. However, today's trainers and owners would never take that chance. Too much emphasis on the horse's value after racing and the horrific thought that a loss might lower that value.

That is a problem with racing today - breeding is more lucrative than racing, which is opposite of what it was in those days. Stallion fees couldn't match what a top horse could make in a year on the track and retirement was for when he ceased being a top horse. The trend started the other way in the late 70s/early 80s; the Breeders' Cup was an attempt to put up a big enough purse to keep the racing alternative attractive and it really hasn't worked because the purses haven't (and couldn't) keep up with the breeding fees available with 100+ mares bred and shuttling. When I started to watch racing, 40 was a full book of mares - Northern Dancer had like 22 foals (of which 11 or 12 were SWs) in his first crop.

BTW Ann those the trainers and vets or those amazing cross country/ steeplechase horses inject like crazy also.

Dont you think that of the thousands of "modern" trainers that one of them would have tested your theory? I always find it amusing what we "modern trainers" are doing wrong. My barn is open to anyone who wants to actually see what it is to train horses as opposed to those who just theorize what we should do.

Some good points obviously.
My question is, what did you think of the job that Tim Ritchey did with Afleet Alex in '05? It seemed like Ritchey took much more of an "old-school" approach than most trainers do. Not only did he give the colt all of those long slow works, he also started the colt's season in a sprint like they often did in the past. It seemed to work out pretty well for AA.
As a trainer yourself, do you think more trainers should use those older techniques more often, or was that just a case of a system that worked well for one particular horse?

Why would you open your barn to anyone? And respectfully how many mordern trainers have learned there craft from great horseman from the "post modern" (whatever that means) times? How many great trainers from 1947 are still around. look there is no doubt some of what you suggest is true but let's face it its a lot easier to medicate and succeed especially when you know no better. if that is all you have known then that is what you do. this business that the breed is different is really a bit far fetched.. Evening Attire's dam has thrown 4 that have races 50 times and 3 that will have raced 70 times.. What breed is she? Should we expect that her daughters will produce fragile foals that can only race 5 times a year because they are part of the new breed?

He did a great job the horse made a ton of money and was syndicated.. When you succeed how can you question the methodology?

The horse broke down and never raced past June of his three year old year. Is that successful training? Is it possible that the horse may have been better and lasted longer if he had not been trained in that style? That he was doing well despite the methods not because of them?

I think you might have somehow misunderstood my post.
I completely agree that he did a great job with Afleet Alex. My question for Chuck was simply whether or not he thought that type of training could be used effectively with a lot of horses, or if it was just Ritchey finding something that would work for Afleet Alex specifically, but might not work for very many others.

its also possible that his injury had nothing to do with how he was trained.

That's a fair point. I guess there are two ways to look at the Belmont Stakes that year. On the one hand, Afleet Alex seemed to have a level of fitness and stamina in that race that one could reasonably give Ritchey credit for. On the other hand, it was the last race he ever ran, and I guess one could also blame Ritchey's techniques for that.
I tend to think the first rather than the second one is true, but I don't really have anything solid to base that on.

The horse made 12 starts 4 grade 1 wins 2 g2 wins and very good derby effort..

Whatever Ritchey did, However Ritchey did it is was certainly in the horses best interest. Half of AA wins are G1 and G2 race? HELLO that is pretty fn good

Horses aren't robots what works for one may or may not work for another..

Likely not possible

I would open my barn to anyone because i have nothing to hide and I find that when I actually show people things in reality they get a much clearer picture than all these theories that get passed around.
Respectfully, I did learn from a trainer that was around during those golden days and much if not most of what I know about racehorses, training and changing techniques is from him. Therefore i would conclude that I DO know better than just to medicate but according to you 'traditionalists' we should still practice such medical techniques as bloodletting. Of course when we want to pinfire a horse like was done in the old days we are told that is a barbaric and ineffective technique.

Obviously Evening Attire's Dam is an abberation. Cherry picking one mare out of 75000 active mares to prove your point is a bit of a stretch no?

Next time you are at the Hall of fame in Saratoga or anywhere else where you can see pictures of old time horses, take a look at the horses from yesteryear. Then take a look at the modern ones.

Possibly but that type of injury is usually a repetative stress injury and obviously he had more stress than the normal horse.

Track record in the Sanford too. Wasn't Affirmed the last horse to win the Sanford and the Belmont?

why?

But if there was not a stallion deal involved, would it have been career ending?

The horse never raced past June of his 3 year old year and this is good? I find it hilarious that Afleet Alex is the best example of a sucessful "tough" training program. The horse broke down. He did not have a long career. What exactly am I missing here? We arent talking about his sucess we are talking about the durability of the modern day horse and horses that make 5 or 6 starts at 3 and break down are poor examples, arent they?

He was back in training that fall and was reinjured. That is not a good sign.

Because it doesnt fit with his theory and there is no way to prove either way?

I think he might have meant that it was "likely" that it had nothing to do with it rather than merely "possible."
But who knows? I haven't really been able to understand anything freddymo has posted in this thread.

Chuck my thoughts are pretty simple. Concolour has produced a few gals which have been or will be bred. I just want to know what breed are these going to be the old TB's or the new TB's? Moreover should we or should the future trainer/s expect to get fragile offspring to train or hardy stock that you can expect to run often and stay relatively sound? Looking forward to this answer..lol

I also have never understood the great amount of praise that was heaped on Ritchey for his methods when they didn't produce anything different than what we see from plenty of others and that's a 3yo champion that doesn't complete his season. Whether the injury was a result of his training or whether it was totally a fluke thing is irrelevant at this point. The horse still only raced 12 times and was done by June. People always talk about guys like Lukas, Baffert, and Zito but their horses usually last longer than that.

In my opinion, these horses today are different. They can't be trained the same way that horses of yesteryear were. They can't be raced the same way either. But at the same time, they probably don't need to be babied to the extent that they are. I think that's the challenge; finding that middle ground. Knowing when to push the throttle and when to back off. I think that if more horses had their throttles pushed earlier and more often as 2yo's, they would be better off for it as 3yo's and 4yo's. But I think it's silly to make obvious changes to the breed and still ask them to do the same things that the past horses did. Would it make sense to start breeding 5'7" guys for the NBA and still expect them to dunk like Michael Jordan and Vince Carter on a 10' basket?

i took a stab at it, but wasn't confident either.

So you don't buy into the theory that it was the stumble in the Preakness that started the injury?