How are horses trained?

EC1

EC1

On a break
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May 7, 2007
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late 1960's early 70's
I must admit that I never really given this much thought but thats because I don't really know what trainers do to get horses fit for racing.

Do they all have different methods..is there a set of rules that most will stick to?

basically..a lot of you are closer to racing than I am..and I am quite ignorant of training...how are horses galloped..how long how often etc..how do you know if you are over training under training?

I read of one trainer who has an uphill gallop and times horses..when they run up in a certain time he knows they are ready...would this be a likely scenario for instance?
 
Some seem to make it up as they go along in my experience. I've even heard of some (albeit morons) galloping horses on the morning of races.
 
Given the number of different locations in which they train, and the vast differences in the various facilities available to those trainers in those locations, it is all about each trainer making those facilities work for them.

More than one way to skin a cat and all that.
 
Where's Shadow Leader? She has direct experience of work-riding and working for trainers. And jinnyj is a trainer. One way to find out how trainers train is to attend any local trainers' open days when they have them, and have a good look round and ask lots of questions of the staff.

It's more complex than just belting horses up and down home gallops, though. There's feed, feed supplements/special diets, weighing, scoping (checking for nasal mucous), temperature-taking, noting changes: everything from their dung to their breathing (listening for any odd noises), treadmill work, swimming if there's a pool, loose (riderless) schooling for jumpers, use of the spa, heat lamp, etc. for recovery, and so on. Not to mention looking through the race calendar and sorting out suitable courses and distances!

I had a tour of Gary Moore's ramshackle place just above Brighton r/c a few years ago, with a group from the TBA. The feed room had a list on the wall noting which horses should receive certain added foods, which shouldn't have certain things (no salt lick for one of them), and which needed supplements such as folic acid and iron. Trainers constantly monitor their horses for any drop-off in performance which might be down to anaemia, bleeding, intestinal ulcers (which are very common in racehorses), or have to build them up following injury, using remedies such as Bleed-Guard, Cortaflex, etc. So there's a lot of monitoring to be done, along with regular exercising.

Many trainers have weighbridges on which to weigh their horses, to attain their optimum racing weight. Thus, Paul Nicholls will announce that DENMAN is a bit on the tubby side, being X kilos over his best racing weight, and working to try and reduce the extra.

Shadow could give you an outline of how the strings work in the morning, and prep for racedays - it would be very interesting, if she has the time (and inclination).
 
Very good, informative post, Krizon. I believe a lot of training is not simply getting the horses fit and well, but also about the psychology of it all. Getting the horse to the track is one thing, but getting around a horse's quirks, getting around things which put them off, things which cause them problems and things which cause them distress at the track, etc. An example would be some trainers saddling certain horses in the stable yard, rather than the saddling boxes at certain courses, and so on. Training is such a complicated business from my experiences of it and it's all about maximising your horses' abilities both physically and mentally.
 
First, take a horse, add grass and water and wait, checking periodically.

When risen, add oats a bit at a time until the horse is just coming to the boil. Add idiot to horse and serve. You may want to try several idiots to find which is best to your taste.
 
Basically continuing from Kri's excellent post this is how it usually goes on a weekly basis for Flat horses in my experience. (once they are fit!)
The stable will be divided up into lots depending on how many staff you have to ride out and what the horses are doing i.e. where they are in relation to a race. Therefore those with the most impending engagements will go out 1st lot, those with less, 2nd lot and so on until your last lot which may be crocks and those just having a walk/trot or a spin on the horsewalker.
Monday - 1 canter
Tuesday - 2 canters
Wednesday - 1 warm up canter followed by fast work
Thursday - easy day - either trot or 1 canter
Friday - 2 canters
Saturday - as Wednesday
Sunday - day off - most yards try to stick each horse on walker for 20-30 mins. If a horse is running early in the week, they may also go out for a canter.
Each canter is usually 4-5 furlongs - work depends on how far they run over but you usually work them slightly short of their distance.
Each day will start by horses walking to gallops incorporating a warm up trot to get muscles prepared for cantering - rather like an athlete does exercises prior to running.
Many yards will put horses on the horsewalker during evening stables as well to prevent boredom as well as letting them stretch their legs. They may also be led out for a pick of grass, time/labour permitting.
As Kri says each yard is different and many use swimming pools/treadmills as well.

Smaller trainers are more able to accomodate tricky horses and you can vary their routine and the gallops they use if it suits. However many horses just like the same routine every day and it upsets them if you go somewhere else.

If you have a horse who is fairly lightly built you would find most trainers only tend to do fast work with them once a week. Its all a question of knowing each horse individually and listening to your staff opinions. Flat horses especially change physically so much from yearling to 5/6 year olds that you are continuously adapting their regimes to suit their maturity. You need to know when to back off when it is going through a growing phase and when to crack on when things have levelled off and the horse can take more physically demanding work.
I will let Shadz take over on the NH front!

BTW - GS - you can canter your horse the morning of a race with no ill effects (I wouldn't do fast work) - some horses seem to settle better if their morning routine isn't disrupted but you wouldn't want to do too much!
 
Some of them don't even mind a 1 mile gallop immediately before the race
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Gamla Stan said:
Some seem to make it up as they go along in my experience. I've even heard of some (albeit morons) galloping horses on the morning of races.
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Both willie mullins and jim bolger who i have worked for, have on occasion given horses various amounts of exercise the morning of a race.
Sometimes it is necessary to give a horse a good blow to clear out his airways if he is a particularly stuffy horse or perhaps a gentle canter to loosen up a stiff horse or a particularly fresh horse.
deciding which horses need what is what makes a good trainer. getting horses fit is the easy part of training, keeping horses healthy and happy is the difficult bit
 
Honest Tom said:
Some of them don't even mind a 1 mile gallop immediately before the race
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:lol::lol::lol: "He's just sprinted 2 miles, sure you want him to run in a five furlong sprint Dandy? Yeah, won't do any harm...."

Apologies for my ignorance regarding gallops in the morning. Can understand schooling but a full gallop seems surprising.
 
Thanks for all of that, jinny - I always learn summat from the forums, and I had no clear idea of the usual exercise set-up, but now do. Gracias!
 
Colm's generally go out every day and do the same work, just a different paces depending on whether they are racing or in light work/returning from injury. He has a three furlong semi circle gallop with uphill last 200 yards. Covers this three times, first time nice and easy, second time at a faster pace and last time at a decent clip up the hill. Each lot takes about 15 mins. Brings them away the week before the race for a mile gallop. Might do it twice before a race if they are stuffy.
 
I noticed something recently that no doubt everybody else has been aware of for sometime now. I've only been involved with racehorses for 10 years and in that time trainers I know have gone from taking their charges up the gallops twice, to taking them up three times, on the days that they cantered. I guessed that perhaps fitness had been taken to yet another level ..... and then this season one yard I visited was going up their gallops four times.

I cannot pretend to be any kind of expert, but it did not surprise me when that yard did not achieve many results this season.

Obviously trainers have to keep their horses as fit as the next guy or they cannot compete - but surely there is such a thing as being too fit, and leaving your race on the gallops?

Has it become normal to do four flat canters instead of two or three?
 
Another training factor, as Shadz well knows, are the weights the horses carry at exercise. Their work riders are confined to a weight maximum. Many adverts ask for someone able to do 8st 7lbs, and not more than 8st 11lbs. The exercise saddles are a bit more substantial than racing saddles, so horses are usually exercising with more weight than when they first start out in their careers. Thus a horse weighted at only 7st 12lbs in a race would have already been carrying, say, an 8st rider with heavier work clothing, making 8st 4lbs, plus a saddle weighing 3lbs, a total of 8st 7lbs. So even if your low-weighted fancy goes off a pound or two overweight, don't worry too much, as he'll already have been hauling more than that up hill and down dale!
 
Can someone explain in more detail how a horse can improve physically and technically by galloping, and what percentage of involvement does the trainer have in this for example will he suggest using a stiffer gallop at more speed....

This is why a like smaller yards especially over jumps who probally haven't got the best assets or the best bloodstock so there's not much room for self development in horses to aid their progression but when you see one that is highly progressive then its just to be admired and credit to connections.,
 
Basically a horse needs to learn to gallop initially. This may seem like an odd comment but it needs to learn how to organise itself in a balanced way and get the maximum effect out of its stride. When you first canter a yearling, they often throw their legs all over the place so it is a matter of using your legs in conjunction with your hands to sort of sqeeze the package together! Once a horse is cantering in the desired way, you can ask them to go faster. Once again they can become unbalanced and if slow maturing, will "Climb" with their front legs rather than lengthen. I would always advise a trainer to back off with this type of horse as they are just not ready for an increase in pace at this stage of their development. It saddens me to see 2yos racing in April/May who clearly have no clue how to gallop properly yet they are trying for all their worth. This can induce artificial speed and I feel it does a fair amount of harm.

When you do fast work you are getting it to peak fitness as well as honing their competitive edge against its work mates. Many large trainers will have lead horses to lead their class horses in work. Mentally this is great for the class horse as it gets a superiority complex whereas the poor lead horse who always does the donkey work can get demoralised and gives up as soon as their companion has passed him. Fast work is also a way of determining how your horse likes to run - sitting in behind, waiting to pounce with a turn of foot or leading from the front just turning up the pace.

Using an uphill gallop will obviously make the horse work harder and it can also be beneficial to those whose front limbs may be fragile as it takes the strain away onto the rear end which is where the power stems from. Therefore you should be able to let the hill make the horse work harder than if you were just using a flat gallop.
 
jinnyj said:
Basically a horse needs to learn to gallop initially. This may seem like an odd comment but it needs to learn how to organise itself in a balanced way and get the maximum effect out of its stride. When you first canter a yearling, they often throw their legs all over the place so it is a matter of using your legs in conjunction with your hands to sort of sqeeze the package together! Once a horse is cantering in the desired way, you can ask them to go faster. Once again they can become unbalanced and if slow maturing, will "Climb" with their front legs rather than lengthen. I would always advise a trainer to back off with this type of horse as they are just not ready for an increase in pace at this stage of their development. It saddens me to see 2yos racing in April/May who clearly have no clue how to gallop properly yet they are trying for all their worth. This can induce artificial speed and I feel it does a fair amount of harm.

When you do fast work you are getting it to peak fitness as well as honing their competitive edge against its work mates. Many large trainers will have lead horses to lead their class horses in work. Mentally this is great for the class horse as it gets a superiority complex whereas the poor lead horse who always does the donkey work can get demoralised and gives up as soon as their companion has passed him. Fast work is also a way of determining how your horse likes to run - sitting in behind, waiting to pounce with a turn of foot or leading from the front just turning up the pace.

Using an uphill gallop will obviously make the horse work harder and it can also be beneficial to those whose front limbs may be fragile as it takes the strain away onto the rear end which is where the power stems from. Therefore you should be able to let the hill make the horse work harder than if you were just using a flat gallop.
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jinnyj,

Without doubt one of the best posts i've ever read on here thank you.
 
ItalianStallion said:
Can someone explain in more detail how a horse can improve physically and technically by galloping, and what percentage of involvement does the trainer have in this for example will he suggest using a stiffer gallop at more speed....
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I wold have thought it is very similar to human training if you go to the gym. You could spend weeks and weeks doing it yourself and wondering why you don't get results or some muscles are stronger than others but if you have a fitness instructor to guide you through it and make sure every muscle gets a work out in your programme, then you will be much better for it. I get the impression from Colm that half the art is knowing when to stop before you injure a horse. He keeps a very close eye on condition and how they are eating as these are the first signs that they might be feeling the effects of over training and need a few weeks off.
 
jinnyj said:
Using an uphill gallop will obviously make the horse work harder and it can also be beneficial to those whose front limbs may be fragile as it takes the strain away onto the rear end which is where the power stems from. Therefore you should be able to let the hill make the horse work harder than if you were just using a flat gallop.
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A reason perhaps for the success of the Nicholls yard? His horses always go well at Cheltenham as well which suggests that training conditions may improve a horse's ability to perform under certain circumstances (uphill in this case).

Henderson's on the other hand often do well on flat tracks - Although I don't know the makeup of his gallops.

O'Brien has custom built gallops (One designed like Epsom I believe) which obviously helps even more.
 
Thank you, IS, that is a very flattering comment to make!

Cantoris, you are quite right in saying Colm will check condition and appetite. Most trainers will walk round at evening stables when not racing and check their horses on a daily basis. The old fashioned trainers will expect each horse to be "stood up" - stood side on with the lad holding the horses head, so the trainer can assess the condition - whether he needs to ease of on the horse because it is losing a bit of weight or if it is looking a little porky still.

He will also liase with his head lad as to whether the feeding routine is right for that horse and whether it can take more/less food. Feeding should be an art the head lad prides himself on. Its not just a case of stuffing as much into a horse as it can eat but working out the optimum amount - too much and you are literally sending it in one end and out the other or in some cases, put the horse (especially fillies) off their feeds entirely. When I was an Assistant in the US, the trainer asked me to figure out why some of his horses looked poor when his feed bills were so huge. I watched the head lad feed every day and discovered he was adding large amounts of bran mash which quickly went rancid in the heat. The fillies who were slower eaters than the colts were leaving the bulk of their feeds and the head lad was throwing it away secretly. We cut out the bran (which IMO is not necessary anyway) and bingo the fillies appetites came back.

The head lad also needs to have a good rapport with the lads who should know their horses dispositions inside out. (Sadly in this economic climate too many lads do too many horses and I fear much gets missed). Each lad should be able to report any differences in the way their horse is each day - likewise when they are ridden - if a horse isn't himself, doesn't spook in its usual place, leaves feed, starts displaying odd behaviour such as sweating, scrapping the floor - all these could be an indication something isn't right.
 
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