This is a short collection of videos of a set of our horses enjoying themselves at the barn at Pompano Park. Horses are: Giant Muscles, Shadow Copy and Catherine’s Bella.
Very special day for a young horse today. Very special day for me too. In the fall of 2016 I purchased a nice Illinois yearling prospect from the Illini Classic sale. As I trained her down during the winter of 2016-17 I really felt she was the nicest horse I ever owned… then a career tragedy struck and she suffered an injury that was diagnosed as a probable career ending injury and most definitely a season ending injury. With only a 50/50 prognosis of a return, I decided to turn her out for the summer and fall and see if nature could put her back together again.
I started training her again the beginning of December 2017 at Pompano Park. I was aggressive with her training as I wanted to know whether I should spend the stake money for the 2018 Illinois stakes schedule. I am really happy that tonight she completed her first qualifying race in 2:01.4. This was the first time she saw the starting gate, the first time in a field of horses and the fastest she has ever trotted.
For those of my friends that don’t race horses or never trained a “trip” here is a video of my trotter Storm Winds training this morning. He hit the track twice, we call them “trips”. The first trip is basically a warm up and I took him for a mile in 2:35. The second trip was more of a speed workout and we went the mile in 2:15. 2:15 is about 15 seconds slower than an actual race.
I post these training videos because I have a lot of friends that are not into racing but may have a curiosity as to what is done to prep a horse for a race. Storm Winds is a trotter. Trot races usually are raced at a mile and a trotting horse needs to trot a mile between 1:53 and 2:00. We “train down” our horses and “Keep them tight” with training workout sessions. We normally go two “trips” – twice on the track with a little rest between. The first trip is a warm up and the second is the actual work where we try to condition for speed or educate them on something they have an issue with.
Today this is a bit of an education trip for Storm Winds. He usually puts his stupid on when he sees the gate. Instead of trotting at the start of the mile he has a history of freaking out and breaking into a wild gallop. But this morning he was excellent and seems ready for his next race. Hopefully next Sunday night at Hawthorne.
The weather was finally good today and we worked this Sunday to train most the horses at the farm. My 2YO Filly Trotter did really well again as shown in the video with her second trip a hair under 2:23.
This filly amazes me, she does everything right. Plenty of speed, fastest two year old on the farm right now, faster than the pacing boys. Long way to go until stakes season and I am hoping that she stays sound and drops the next 25 seconds as well as she dropped to this point.