Muscles, Eyes, and Other Body Parts

December 30, 2018 11:00 AM
  • Bernard Kroviak, CDC Gaming Reports
December 30, 2018 11:00 AM
  • Bernard Kroviak, CDC Gaming Reports

One has to remember that young horses, like young children, have muscles, most of which are not yet developed. For horses to be ready to race, they need to first develop muscle strength and lung capacity. Doing this takes hours and hours, and miles and miles, of walking, trotting, and galloping before they can actually begin running. Knowing when his horse is ready to perform for the first time is the trainer’s primary job, and some do it better than others.

How does a parent know when their child is ready for a long walk, or a short sprint around the playground, or to even be allowed to lift something that might be heavy? If a short walk causes them no discomfort, and they seem all right with it, a parent knows that going a bit farther the next time will most likely not injure their young one. With horses, since they cannot tell you how they feel, there are signs that conditioners look for. You must be able to read the signs.

First of all, developing muscles can be seen growing larger. The belly of a young horse can also give one a clue, along with a horse’s reaction to training. The manner in which his charge returns from a session on the track tells the trainer a lot about the fitness of the animal. Working with the horse after such an exercise is paramount in determining a horse’s fitness. A football coach would never ask players for an all-out sprint during the first few minutes of an early-season practice; it takes weeks of camp to prepare even the most talented individuals for that kind of exertion. Of course, as a former coach, I understood that, but I had no idea about young horses.

Four months after training began, our two horses still had not yet run, even in training. As hard as I tried to be patient, my expectations and excitement were beginning to overshadow my common sense. I saw their bellies shrink and get firm. I saw that they were not exhausted every day, even after galloping over a mile and a half, and I observed them eating like – well, like a horse – after those exercises. All of these things were signs that our trainer, Andy, said were great for the next phase of their development.

“The next phase?” I thought. “What the heck, all these weeks, all those miles, all those carrots, and all that money and we still don’t know if they can run?”

As it happened, the next phase of my development as an owner was patiently handled by Andy, as well. He reassured me that the horses were doing fine. By that, he said, he meant they were still enjoying their job and were getting close to being asked to run. Relief came over me. Of course, I still didn’t understand the many intricacies of the business. Some people entrust their horses to their trainers and say, “Call me when they are ready to compete.” My being a hands-on owner meant that watching the slow process of young horses readying for the task could be frustrating. I needed to step back and be more patient. But, as the saying goes, “Lord grant me patience, and I want it now!”

Both our gray colt and our bay filly were doing well. The filly was quite a bit taller, with a larger frame, and had a smooth way of traveling. She also was calmer and had a sweet disposition. The colt was all boy: rambunctious, not very focused at times. Fine to be around, but one had to be a bit more careful near him. His stride and body was shorter, and his neck was still a bit thick, a situation quite normal for some colts. Remember, intact Thoroughbred males are called colts until they turn four; after that, they are called horses. If they are castrated, they are then referred to as geldings. (An aside: if a male has one undescended testicle, he is called a ridgeling. This is an important distinction for stallion breeding purposes.) These elements of the anatomy are another aspect of the horse business that I had to learn, too, as I will explain later.

Another anatomical part new to me was the eye of a horse. Horses’ eyes are located on the sides of their head, and their peripheral vision is over 200 degrees. Being descended from animals in the wild, they are perpetually alert to the location of predators. Such wide peripheral vision means that horses can see movement all around them, and it’s natural for them to be constantly looking out for predators.

Of course, as they became more domesticated, some learned trust and were less likely to be skittish, or spooked, by unknown happenings around them. Horses have two blind spots, one directly in front of them, due to the fact that their eyes function independently, the other directly behind their hindquarters. Thus sneaking up on or approaching a horse from behind can be dangerous, as the horse cannot see you and might tend to regard you unfavorably.

The eyesight of a horse is around 20/30, compared to the human average of 20/20, whereas dogs are said to be around 20/50 and cats 20/75. How people know this is a mystery to me, and I have no choice but to accept this as fact, as without my contact lenses I cannot see the big E on the eye chart! This eyesight business is not only important when around horses in their stalls but is yet another thing that trainers, jockeys, and other horses need to be constantly aware of when horses are speeding around the race track at roughly 30 miles per hour.

Some horses are high strung and shy away from everything, not the best attribute of a good race horse. Others are calmer and don’t seem to be bothered all that much by anything new or foreign. Many regard this temperament as classy, and much of it comes from their breeding. Nasty, uncooperative ones are often called common, and although they might be able to run, they are disdained by trainers and grooms who must deal with them on a daily basis.

Back to the eyes. Horses see much of the world in shades of gray, although many can see a bit of the colors red and blue, kind of like TV news channels (sorry, I couldn’t pass that one up.) This fact helped me to understand why our colt would initially shy away from the red flowers that were recently planted in the infield of the race track. Again, I thought, “Are you kidding me? Now I have to worry about the color of the flowers at the track?” Of course, as he progressed in his lessons, the flowers became familiar to him and he no longer was bothered by them.

You can see, I think, that I loved being at the barn in the early morning on weekends. I learned so much and saw things I had never witnessed before. Best of all, I was becoming a real race horse owner, even if my development was not as rapid as I had expected.

Then it finally happened: Andy told me our horses were going to be asked for some speed. In other words, he was going to let them run a little bit, to see if they were ready for it. I didn’t know if they were, but my partners and I certainly were. This sort of controlled speed run is called a workout. Many such efforts are timed to allow trainers to see the potential speed and condition of their horses, and to give bettors the opportunity to see these results and to be better able to evaluate horses before a race.

In the mornings, there is a clocker in the press box at every race track whose job it is to time these workouts and evaluate them. These timed runs are called official workouts, or, in industry parlance, “breezing”. The clocker notes the distance of the workout, the track condition, and the actual time. Then the track publishes the number of horses that worked that day at that distance, and each workout is listed, noting the time recorded by the clocker.

They also are given an indication of the jockey’s effort in that work. It can range from asking the horse to run on his own, which is listed as just breezing, to the jock having to encourage the horse to do it, called “breezing handily.” Ours were not going to be timed; Andy simply wanted to see if they would respond to be asked, and allowed, to run. After months of training, and hours and hours of conditioning, we were about to find out if our horses wanted to run, and if they might even have some ability to do so.

So here we were, mid-May, two weeks after another three-year-old, Thunder Gulch, had won the Kentucky Derby, and we were hoping ours would not only run but also be able to endure the rigors of this difficult challenge. This was to be the first real test of what we had gotten ourselves into, and my excitement could not have been higher!

To be continued…

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