No Wood for Circular Quay

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by miraja2

I know! Have you ever seen such a sure thing?
In a related - and slightly more serious matter - I have no idea how good of a trainer Tim Ritchey is overall, because I don't follow his tracks carefully, but personally I loved what he did with Afleet Alex in '05.
Remember when he brought him back in that 6f Mountain Valley Stakes (or whatever it is called)? Ritchey said something to the effect of "well I was planning on giving him a strong 6f work so I figured hey, might as well put him in a race!" What a novel concept!
Then there was the business about all of Alex's long works that Ritchey said he used to build up the horse's stamina. It seemed to work out okay with his victories impressive victories in the Arkansas, Preakness, and Belmont. I don't know squat about training, but don't these two ideas (bringing your horse back in a sprint, and using long/slow works to build stamina) make more sense than only running your horses every two months with some 5f works in between starts?

It seemed to work well for about 100 years