Overracing...

Racing
1

Hey guys,

Just a reminder

that all horses need between 5 and 25 days of rest between

each race. I’ve seen several horses racing lately that have

raced within the last 4-7 days, and that’s just not fair to the horse. One horse today ran

on the 21st, 24th, and then today, the 28th…that’s too much for any horse, and this horse

in question is a 2yo.

If horses continue to be overraced, I will have no choice but to up

the chance of injury for every horse that races, and that’s not fair to the people who are

actually racing their horses appropriately.

2

I know that I have been

guilty of occasionally racing some of my horses 7-10 days after their last race, but usually

they will get 2 weeks off between races. Racing back-to-back is a definate no no, and I

can’t believe three race days in a row :blink: I feel sorry for that 2yo.

It might just

be a new member thing to try and make lots of money quickly, but if horses get the right

amount of rest they usually perform better. I know I’ve been guilty occasionally though, but

I’ll try to avoid it in the future. :wink:

~Lindsay

3

You would crack up if you saw

my little FF file that i have on paper. :slight_smile: It actually works really well and i’ll let

everyone in on my little secret.
I have 12 pieces of paper that represent the 12 months,

all labled with the correct month. I write down every race day and what horses I ran that

day, their race number, equipment used, name of the race, distance, and surface. After the

races are run I write down how they performed beside their entry.
This makes things so much

easier and visually pleasing when I want to see when the last time a horse was run. And I

can see all my horses in mass amounts at the same time…making entering much easier and

quicker. I usually count back about 6 to 10 race days and who ever was run on that day I can

enter currently. Unless your lucky enough to have a horse who performes well when raced

closer together, but you’ll have to experiment with that.
Also at the end of my little

file I have a list of all my broodmares and who they are booked to for breeding. As the

foals are born I check them off…this makes things easier when I’m making sure everyone is

accounted for.
I know this can probably all be done on computer making things just as easy

but i like to have phisical documentation so I don’t have to keep clicking from window to

window and so on.

:smiley:

4

Yeah, I was using Excel to

basically do Holly’s thing. That way I could see who was running that day and make sure I

found all the races I needed to look at. Was helpful because you could sort by horse (and so

see if they were ready to race, what surfaces/equipment were working out best, etc) or date

so you could do race summaries. I highly recommend people track their race entries either on

paper or the computer (whatever works best for them). Especially once you have more than 5

or 10 racing.

And we all understand about racing every 10 days or so, without being able

to give horses workouts to keep them in shape, it’s pretty much needed to race every 10-21

days or you’ve gotta get a prep race in. Workouts were supposed to happen this summer, but

looks like they’ll debut with the new racing program next year. :wink: If Shanthi and I start

now it might actually be finished by Jan 1st (yeah right :slight_smile:). We’re just asking people not

to run horses back to back and certainly not do it more than once (I’ve done it accidentally

as I’m sure most people have). Or if you do fit in 2 races with just a week off between

them, give the horse 2 or 3 weeks off before the next one. Common sense stuff.

And yes,

Jase, we know… Aussie horses are tougher than US ones evidently but you have to deal w/

wussy American ones since we’re the ones coding :wink:.

5

Heh, those tough aussie

horses…

I never thought of doing the thing that you people did, with the charts and

stuff… that’s a really good idea. I’m always messing up my horses’ schedules cause I

forget things and such… oops…

6

ya i use notebooks… have one

for my 2 yr olds, one for my 3yr olds one for my 4yr olds anf one for the 5yr olds…it makes

it real easy and quiock to do entries and to check see which horse ran on which day…

7

spreadsheets and notebooks

are great ideas! maybe i should start using them.

i simply check on the horses’ pages to

see who is ready to race…it works for me. it would make me feel better, though, if i had

everything right in front of me.

and Shanthi, i’m glad you brought this up.

8

Yeah, just to

clarify…obviously some horses can run every 7 days or so since

a few lucky horses can rebound from a race in 5 days or so…but that’s going to be a

very few horses. As a rule of thumb, I generally try and run

all of my horses every 10-14 days, unless they seem to be performing poorly, and then I try

and give them more time off than that. Some of my guys get a lot of time off by default

because they refuse to actually perform except at one certain distance and in claimers :wink:,

but more rest is better than less.

As Andrea said, we don’t mind if you have a reason to

push your horses, as long as you don’t make it a regular habit. I believe Jade runs Strider

7 days before a big race because he performs better that way…that’s fine, but only because

Jade is also giving him adequate rest in between his race sets.

9

Hi,
I am sorry I know it

was one of my two year olds. I just forgot about the racing her and didn’t keep track and

when I saw an open spot in the 2 year old racing group I took it without thinking. She is

done for the year and will not be raced anymore. Sorry about that. Brianna-Edgewood Stud

10

Yeah, I have been racing my

guys hard… But now I have a better way of keeping track and I’ve mapped out all my horses

programs for the rest of the year and have been doing so for the past couple of months. I

printed the schedule and pasted it in a diary then yeah… You can figure it out. I’ve found

some of my horses don’t mind running 7 days apart but I’ll normally give then at least

18-21 days to rest up after a few weeks of that. You’ll notice no stakes horses for me on

the coming Wednesday! :frowning:

11

I am so frusterated with my 2

year olds I could sell them all. However, I have some high hopes for them when they turn

three and maybe doing alittle SC. I also don’t have stake horses jason don’t feel like the

lone stranger.

12

well, i have stakes horses,

just none running on wednesday! im waiting on the results for saturday, i’m experimenting

with High Enough’s 1/2 sister in a 12F race… :slight_smile: fun stuff!