Lava Man back in training?
 

http://www.thoroughbredinfo.com/showcase/notebook.php

Ridiculous if this is true..

From the end of that segment:

September 22, 2009 Update: Because this news is now breaking across the internet, I would just like to clarify that the above information was received from a very reliable source. Some fans are questioning whether Lava Man has returned to be a stable pony, rather than a racehorse. Although that would be a worthy career alternative for this gallant horse, we shall see what the official spin from his camp is now...

Well, he had a reported 3F workout today at Hollywood Park. :(

not sure what's so awful about an eight year old going into training. maybe he hated life on the farm as some retired horses do.
now, if he's unsound, lame, doesn't want to race and would have to run vs the lowest of the low level claimers, then i can see a reason for outrage. otherwise, it's a racehorse doing what racehorses do.

Guess he never made it to Old Friends, I know they were making a big deal about getting him... I was actually hoping to be able to see him when I was in Kentucky earlier in the summer but his arrival was delayed. Now I see why.

I was wondering what happened with that arrangement..

I too thought Lava Man was going to Old Friends.

Offical post on Blood Horse instant Up dates off of my e-mail inbox.


Lava Man Back on Work Tab for Doug O'Neill
By Tracy Gantz
Updated: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 2:49 PM
Posted: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 2:30 PM
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Lava Man, the former claimer who earned more than $5 million, has returned to training at Doug O’Neill’s Hollywood Park barn. The 8-year-old gelding worked three furlongs in :36 flat Sept. 23 at Hollywood, his first official work.

O’Neill, who claimed Lava Man for owners STD Racing Stable and Jason Wood, said Lava Man came into his Hollywood barn shortly after the Del Mar meeting closed Sept. 9.

His work on the Hollywood Park Cushion Track was the fastest of 24 at the distance for the morning. “He worked unbelievable and cooled out fantastic,” O’Neill said.

Lava Man (Slew City Slew --Li’l Ms. Leonard, by Nostalgia's Star) was retired in late July 2008 after a sixth-place finish in the July 20 Eddie Read Handicap (gr. IT) at Del Mar.

“The intent was to retire him because he was off form,” said O’Neill. “He went to Alamo Pintado, where they did a lot of diagnostics on him. They thought they could do some things to help with new technology.”

The Alamo Pintado Equine Medical Hospital in Los Olivos, Calif., works extensively in the area of stem-cell therapy. O’Neill said Lava Man underwent treatment, led by Dr. Doug Herthel, Alamo Pintado’s founder. The gelding has been residing at Rich and Gaby Sulpizio’s Magali Farms not far from the hospital.

“They did stem cell therapy on Lava Man’s ankles,” O’Neill said. “Dr. Herthel said that he has the ankles of a 3-year-old. His ankles look phenomenal.”

Lava Man has been in training at Magali for about the last four months.

“They’d been two-minute licking him, and he had a lot of miles on him before he came here,” said O’Neill. “Tom (Magali farm manager Tom Hudson) said that once Lava Man was put back in training, he was so much happier than when he was just hanging out at the farm.”

O’Neill said that he will be taking Lava Man’s training one work at a time, with no specific goal as to when the gelding would return to the races. Dr. Herthel will be visiting O’Neill’s barn periodically to follow up on his star patient.

“If and when he comes back, it will be a great moment,” said O’Neill. “Rest assured, he’ll have been gone over a zillion times physically, and only then would we bring him back.”

O’Neill added that he would donate his usual 10% training commission to the California Retirement Management Account so that retired Thoroughbreds would benefit.

Bred by Lonnie Arterburn and Eve and Kim Kuhlmann in California, Lava Man won 17 of 46 races from ages 2 through 7 for earnings of $5,268,706. His stakes victories included three Hollywood Gold Cups (gr. I), two Santa Anita Handicaps (gr. I), and one Pacific Classic (gr. I).

I have nothing against bringing him back. He never was great on the fake stuff though, even if it was in California. There are only so many Cal-bred stakes on the lawn.

As long as he sticks to the Cal Bred program stakes and doesn't get thrown to the wolves in open graded company anymore then maybe he'll do okay

3F 36.00 BULLET:eek:

He hasn't done enough

What gelding has? :rolleyes:

I think anyone on this board is lying if they said they wouldn't want a gelding like him in the barn.

It's awesome that he is back in training. If the horse is healthy, and still a willing participant, why do all you do-gooders think the horse is better off being a lawn ornament then a pampered star athlete ? It is also great for the game....star appeal/name recognition is good publicity, and he doesn't have to still win grade 1's to be effective. No one expects him to be as good as he was when he was 5, but still more than competitive. Just like the seniors tour of the PGA. If he can still win for Clm 50000 it's worth having him back.

I do not know the owners current financial situation but many wealthy people are no longer wealthy. Winning a few hundred thousand dollars with him might be a lot of money to them right now.

If he were to just be a good stakes horse he might make them a few hundred thousand dollars by just getting in the gate 5 times a year. With the current older horse division being so bad he might even be able to win a grade 1 somewhere which says more about how bad the older horse division is than it does about him.

you wish you had him in your barn.

Umm..duh..of course...so?

Right. Sounds like they are doing the right thing with him. From DRF:

"Both Kenly and O'Neill emphasized that Lava Man will return at top class, or not return at all.

"Either he competes at the highest level, or nothing," Kenly said."

--Dunbar

wow

Stem cell therapy is pretty cool. I remember there were a few young horses from one consigner at Fasig a couple years ago who came with a card informing the buyer of stored umbilical cord blood from the horses' birth as a embryonic stem cell bank.

An overview:

http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/ceh/do...-4-bkm-sec.pdf

As an aside, last year I went to the human "stem cell research" clinical ortho at University of Kentucky, but alas, they were not yet in a position to help my torn meniscus. Dara Torres, the Olympic swimmer, had to go overseas to get stem cell treatment on her knee. That result is pending.

Go Lava Man! Glad he's back.

They're aiming a bit high lol. I'm not against him being back but....asking an 8 year old for the "highest level or nothing" is a bit much.

Lava Man would be lucky to be competitive in G3s at this stage of his career

Next years Cal Cup Classic would be an honorable goal

older horses than him have taken down graded stakes. it's rare since most horses retire far sooner. but eight isn't exactly over the hill.

I think they just want to take on Zenyatta.

???

For those unconcerned about the situation as presented by STD Racing, Wood and O'Neill, recall this: Itty Bitty Pretty

There has to be a race at Turf Paradise he can win.

I mean, he is after all a mediocre to poor synthetic horse who couldn't travel.

NT

While I too think Stem Cell treatment is awesome it is still a frightening thought to run this horse, one of my best friends had stem cell therapy on her reining horse at Alamo Pintado 2 years ago, he had 4 bad suspensories and could hardly walk, today he is serviceably sound.... for a trail horse, and his ankles never looked near as bad as Lava Mans have, and he is a 4 year old.

From this article, it looks like Itty Bitty Pretty (owned by STD/Wood and trained by O'Neill) was laid up from May 2006 - May 2007, when she suffered an injury during a (comeback) workout at HOL and had to be euthanized.

Does anyone know why she was laid up -- was it due to injuries or? Any similarity to Lava Man's lay up, besides the length of time?

http://www.drf.com/news/article/85104.html

Think it was a fracture, and the connections said they were going to retire and breed her...

Then she turned up on the worktab...

Then she turned up dead.

Come on Steve. This is bad. This is as bad as Shirreffs referencing Eight Belles in defensing his not running Zenyatta against the boys.

The EXACT SAME SET OF CONNECTIONS had an injured stakes-winning filly who they said they were retiring. That proved to be a lie. In other words, there is a previously established behavior pattern at work here. In this case, they lied to Michael Blowen at Old Friends, and the public, repeatedly about when they were sending the retired Lava Man to Kentucky.

The fact that Itty Bitty Pretty was put down on the racetrack after breaking down catastrophically after being brought back is incidental to the behavior pattern.

Let it go Steve..Lava Man is a gelding he hasn't done enough and there is no reason to believe that O'Neil, who is NOT doing this for money, would F with Lava Man. I hope the SOB runs his AeSS off. Go Lava Man

Thata boy Byk, call them OUT!!

I agree O'Neill wouldn't intentionally endanger Lava Man. But I also thought that about his handling of Itty Bitty Pretty. And then she was dead on the racetrack... O'Neill, who already has a checkered resume, is opening himself up for a ton of criticism by agreeing to train him back. That's his decision and I believe it reflects poorly on him. But this set of connections has lied to the public once and shown poor judgment in a similar scenario. That is established and irrefutable. And the racing-interested public should be reminded of it broadly.

I just hope he does not get hurt. He is one of my all time favorite horse.

Carlsbad started at Turf Paradise, not a bad filly.

Itty Bitty Pretty fractured a splint bone coming out of the Oaks (not an uncommon young horse injury) and the bad injury after coming back from the fractured splint removal layoff was a tibia. Those are not connected.

Lying to Old Friends about getting Lava Man, or not keeping Old Friends informed when the connections changed their mind about retirement, is pretty low, indeed, if that happened.

But I don't care if some owner-trainer combo initially says a horse is being retired right after an injury, but then is brought back after the injury is reassessed, healed, and goes through rehab. I wish more horses would be rehabbed and brought back to racing whenever possible for them.

I think predicting disaster for Lava Man because some other horse somewhere had a different injury and didn't come back 100% doesn't make any sense; and predicting disaster for Lava Man because a previous horse owned by the connections had a career ending injury doesn't make sense, either.

I'm glad to see Lava Man back, and I hope he does well and we get to see him run.

I agree. Making that connection between the two cases in that way insinuates that Lava Man will suffer the same fate. That's as ridiculous to me as Shirreffs bringing up Eight Belles and insinuating that Zenyatta can break down if she faces boys simply because Eight Belles did.

I don't know Steve, someone comes to you tells you they want to make your horse feel better. You spend a ton of money getting him to feel better with some new treatment and you see the horse improve 500%. It's not so unbelieveable that the horse loves to race and train. He is a racehorse he always seems to run hard willingly on the track right. So you start him back doing what the horse enjoys you see him thrive. What's the biggie giving him a shot to be what he was? Clearly the horse isn't going into claimers so in all candor what is the big figgin deal if Brett Farve doesn't want to retire yet? I would venture to say that horse is way better off mentally being in training then just getting old in some paddock.

As for if this will somehow excelerate is demise or death. Come on, nobody is looking to kill Lava Man and working 4 f's and breaking a leg is a likely as tripping in the paddock after a truck blows his diesel horn andf spooks him.
Who wouldn't be thrilled to see him race well again? You don't think the horse would rather be running his heart out instead of growing fat and old in some field?

I also don't believe for a minute that this is just about the horse..There isn't any doubt the owners would like to earn from the horse regaining his form but I don't have issue with that either. Wouldn't it be a win,win,win scenario if he would be the old Lava Man...Public, Owners, Horse?

It doesn't insinuate Lava Man is a fatality candidate. It doesn't insinuate anything. It relates that the same set of connections have proven to be liars and shown to posses poor judgment when making a prior similar decision.

And as an aside, Riot failed to mention that after injuries in one place, horses regularly favor or overcompensate which can produce stress and injury elsewhere.