Lava Man back in training?

[cabvmd]

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).

[cakes44]

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.

[letswastemoney]

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

[Bobby Fischer]

Originally Posted by cabvmd

“They did stem cell therapy on Lava Man’s ankles,” O’Neill said.

wow

[Riot]

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.

[Kasept]

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

[TalkToTheHoof]

Originally Posted by Kasept

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

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

[Kasept]

Originally Posted by TalkToTheHoof

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.

[Riot]

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.

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Kasept

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

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

[Kasept]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

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.

[freddymo]

Originally Posted by Kasept

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

[Scav]

Originally Posted by Kasept

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.

Thata boy Byk, call them OUT!!

[LARHAGE]

Originally Posted by Riot

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.

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.