Regarding Barbaro, question regarding his training

[Pie™]

The question has been brought up on many other forums- and on the TVG special I watched late last night; and I think, at least once or twice, it was misinterpreted. I want to put it out there, because, initially, it was one of my own concerns when I looked at this horse as a Derby contender -and then, after he won the Derby and went on to the Preakness.

The question- Why was he only worked every 4-5 weeks? Could that have something to do with the breakdown at the Preakness?

The misinterpretation I keep hearing is- did the trainer have something to hide? Was the horse really sick, or did he have some injury that precluded him from running a more rigorous campaign? Or posting more works?

And everyone that I've heard keeps coming back, to the trainers defense - indicating that there is no way he would ever have run this horse compromised -or hidden an injury or illness. And I believe that. I believe that the trainer - truly believed in his training regimen for Barbaro.

But the question still stands -

This is a young horse, that was triained at a very prestigious training farm, but a farm type situation none the less. 5500 acres, 2000 cross country grass fields to ride on, a very relaxed environment, no stress. The horse never ran closer than 4 weeks between races.

I watched Barbaro on Derby day and he was a very relaxed, at home colt in his stall. I still thought he was a bit pampered and with the field size, I went into the Derby thinking that it wouldn't necessarily be the best horse that won, but the luckiest.
I also watched him even closer on Preakness Day. He was edgy. I listened to Jerry Bailey who also noticed this horse was in and out of the doorway to his stall, almost pacing. I watched him in the post parade. Was he jittery and nervous -or was there something just not right? I saw the clip where Edgar looked down and watched the R Hind. Was there something just not right in the post parade? Was the stress too much as evidenced by the early break from the gate?

So, here's my question -the mental stress, the start just 2 weeks after his last start- for the first time in this 3YO's life- was it - could it have been, a factor in the horrible outcome?

How much is there to training a horse, not only physically, but mentally as well, up to the rigorous and stressful Triple Crown Road? The trainer prided himself on not having over trained this horse - not having placed too much stress on this horse. Was the horse then, possibly, undertrained?

Just a couple questions that make me wonder. I know a mistep is a mistep and believe me, I've had my share of unexplainable, bad luck misteps that have cost me a horse or two. So, its not unbelievable that its just fate. But given how this horse was trained -and the hype surrounding how differently he was trained - could it have had anything to do with the outcome?

Its easy now to second guess, but we can learn things from these horrible events by asking difficult questions. Not to lay blame - I know that the trainer was doing what he thought the very best for his horse. Thats what we all do.

My heart goes out to all the connections and to the horse. It was a devastating thing to watch. No owner or trainer should ever have to go through that kind of pain. The loss of one of these great animals affects all of us in the industry. This horse is in the best hands he can possibly be in and now we can only send up prayers.

[Barbaro06]

There will be speculation and more speculation why Barbaro broke down. The video of the post parade will become the new Magruder tape...people will look at it over and over again and will see things, or make themselves see things, that will explain why the colt broke his leg. We can speculate forever on this incident.

What happened has happened. Now we have to move forward and hope for the best for Barbaro.

Peace to all...

[mary syers]

I worried that the change of sport for the trainer would catch him. To run on a tract or run cross country and survive, the horse has to remodel their bones. It takes at least 120 days of stout training and necesarily speed work to remodel a track horses long bones. A cross country horse might have a year or more over fences before his bone is adeguately remodeled to take the 4 mile trip over fences. The event trainer has so much more time. Mary Syers

[Louise]

I never read that, just because the horse was not being raced, he was also not being trained. Matz isn't a stupid man, he knows that bone, ligament and muscle have to be carefully developed. You just don't have to race to develop them. Marathon runners don't train for marathons by running them, for instance.

Since I have been on this forum, I have seen thread after thread about horses breaking down and having to be euthanized. Is it the training in all those cases also? Bad things happen, and a very bad thing happened to Barbaro. Instead of casting blame, especially in a situation where we don't know the whole story, it might be better to just pray for the horse, and for those around him who know and love him.

[Skipitgirl]

Michael Matz rode and trained grand prix jumpers, not eventers.

[Pie™]

I'm sure that, at least speaking for myself, I did not mean to cast blame at all. Nor did I mean to suggest that he was not training between races. I know a group at Fairhill and they have seen works for the horse, so I know that he was being worked. I do also know that working on a cross country grass track in a stress free farm environment is significantly different than the typical training regimen of most NA TB's who train at the track.
My question was only in consideration - could the training regimen have had something to do with the catastrophic breakdown?

This would not be a question in so many peoples minds if the trainer himself had not made such a hype about his intent to never again over train a horse- having made that mistake once before and how he prided himself on the relaxing environment that he provided for this horse.

Moderation in all types of training I think are far more advantageous than going too far to one extreme or the other.

Certainly, my prayers are with the surgeons and the owners, the trainer and the horse that he pulls through and goes on to be sound and healthy enough to have a long life. But again, I say, if we can learn something from this, by analyzing the situation and asking the difficult questions in the aftermath, doesn't it then benefit all of us and even the trainer himself?
I mean no disrespect to anyone involved in this and I realize, emotions run high. This is no ones "fault" and it could just as easily be a terrible mistep, it happens, unfortunately, too often.

[Heidilady]

I don't think you'll learn as much as you think by discussing it because so much "information" is conjecture. We can pose hypotheticals but as to how to prevent Barbaro's injury we just don't have all the facts to make that determination. Pseudo facts will pop up where someone has a piece of info or has heard it from someone in the know but he's not our horse. People saying Matz doesn't work him hard enough, Lukas works too hard. The truth is each horse is an individual and the right training methods differ.

If the proper way to train a horse without them breaking down were known, I figure more people would at least know about it even if they didn't do it. Clearly there's disagreement and that's where we can have our discussion but what training or behavior might've prevented Barbaro's injury won't be fully discovered on this board or any other.

[Sysonby]

The question- Why was he only worked every 4-5 weeks? Could that have something to do with the breakdown at the Preakness?

Are you asking whether he should have raced more often? Because he certainly worked more than once every 5 weeks according to his PPs.

Unfortunately that's probably not answerable. Horses are all different--good trainers tailor their training regimes to the horse and not the other way around. There are also few absolutes.

The thing is, you can do every thing right and it can still go horribly wrong. I know that there is an almost unbearable desire to find something wrong because if you can isolate a problem, you can presumably fix it and it will never happen again. Only if that were completely so....

What happened to Barbaro yesterday was freaky strange and very, very sad. Was it preventable? I tend to think not. How do you prevent a fracture on a rear leg 100 yards from the gate? How many people have ever seen such a thing?

All I can think is that if anyone ever wants to catalogue the extreme ups and downs in this sport, I don't think there are better people to relate them right now than Michael Matz and the Jacksons. From a Derby win to this....in 2 weeks.

Wow.

[Intrinsic Worth]

Lukas knew Grindstone was not 100% sound and aimed him strictly at winning the Derby and never planned on running him afterwards.

Talk about taking risks.