Can't wait for the big showdown...

[Cannon Shell]

BC was sent to me with another MN bred (Ski Bum) last Summer with the thought that they would get to the races last Fall/Winter and would return for MN bred races this Summer. I was led to believe that Ski Bum was potentially a pretty good horse and Bourbon County was a project horse who would probably not be much since he has pretty significant conformation issues. There is a picture on the facebook page of his owner Scott Rake that shows BC as a foal with heavily bangaged legs with duct tape trying to give him support. Of course I have no idea how to import that here, perhaps Drugs can?

Anyway Ski Bum never showed much, made 1 horrid start and retired and just competed in and won a low level show event this past weekend.
Bourbon County on the other hand acted like a good horse from day 1. He galloped so smoothly if you were watching him from the side though if you saw him coming at you you would think anything but smooth. I actually sent him to Monmouth last Summer and thought that we had a shot at making the end of that meet. He outworked everything he was matched against and was up to 5 furlongs when he came up lame. There wasn't anything terribly wrong, no chips or fractures but his knees were still too open and his legs just weren't ready to handle the stress of racing at that point. Dr Rake allowed me to give him all the time he needed and we just messed around with him for awhile at the training center, never taking him out of training completely so we didn't have to start back from square one but not doing any speed work with him, somedays just walking him around the track with Hank (the 28 year old pony).

We started back with him in December and had quite a few setbacks between his wanting to do too much and weather/track issues. We used to take him out and stand him in the snow which he was very good about.
When the end of Feb rolled around and he was in a holding pattern the decision was made to do some vet work on him to try to get him over the hump as we were sending him back to the track soon and that opening day race at Canterbury (condition book was out really early) was the initial goal. He went to Penn and of course had some issues in the gate even though he had been perfect the previous summer and at the training center. We wound up running him in his first race on the 30th that was deemed a flop. However it was a means to an end as he got though it, came out sound and while I was a little pissed at the jockey for going 3/4 wide on the turn when he was supposed to just let him run down the lane (he was about 1/2 mile fit but there were 7 weeks to Canterbury, he was getting worse in the gate and the clock was ticking on how much longer the owner was going to keep him in training) we now didnt have to worry about the gate card, he got a little experience and while he was extremely tired (of course the track at Penn that night was a tiring beach) the biggest issue I had was figuring out how to get him to MN. I called the owner who had nothing but bad luck in the racing business over the last few months and stressed to him not to be discouraged, that the horse was about 70% for the race and not to read too much into the finish, and don't forget to make the early nomination for the MN Derby. I don't know that he believed me but did make the nomination.

We didn't do too much speed work with him after that, just galloping and working on his fitness. He went to MN via KY at the end of April and we let Bernell know what he had done but he took over from there. The horse has a lot of talent, as much as any horse I've trained since Battle Won and could certainly handle open company at some level. I have my doubts that he can get much more than 1 1/16 though against MN bred 3yo's could probably win at any distance. How long he will stay sound is an unknown but in theory he could get better as he hasn't been pushed on all that much and unlike most crooked but fast horses hasn't been injected a million times.