![]() Think of it as having a scout inside of a basketball practice: would you put money on a team if the star player was coming off of an injury and was still looking hobbled in practice? What if the player was returning from injury and throwing down 360 Isaiah Rider East Bay Funk Dunks in practice? Would either of these scenarios persuade your bet one way or another? This is where clockers come in! Clockers are “professionals” (whatever that is in this game) that watch every horse workout in the morning and assign a grade to the workout along with a brief summary of the workout. If a horse is working out sluggishly, it’s not very likely that’s they’re going to revert to winning form come race day. Following up on the performance in the practice idea, if a horse is working out very well, more than likely the horse is ready to run a big race. Trainers utilize workouts to get conditioning and sometimes work on utilizing new tactics such as teaching horses how to rate. Coaches work to implement a game plan and get their players in peak condition for their next competition, so too do horse trainers. That’s what athletes do, right? They work out. If you find this to be true (and you sure as shit should) then you’ve come to the right place.Įach morning, across the nation, thousands of horses workout. Last year, the Jones-trained filly Eight Belles was equally impressive in the morning and finished second before sustaining a fatal injury after crossing the finish line.Coaches always say that the better you perform in practice, the better you perform in games. ![]() Welsch dismissed Hard Spun’s work as too fast, and was stunned when the colt hung on to finish second to Street Sense. Welsch, though, did not see that desire to go farther that he had seen in Street Sense.īut Larry Jones, who put a colt named Hard Spun through a similar work in 2007, trains Friesan Fire. Friesan Fire, the Louisiana Derby winner, blistered five-eighths of a mile on Monday in 57.80 seconds, which is wicked fast. Welsch is befuddled by at least one contender. “I want to see him on this track,” he said. He is curious about Dunkirk, who arrived here Tuesday from Florida. ![]() He says Pioneerof the Nile has trained O.K., but not well enough to inspire fear or confidence. While the bulk of the training has been completed by most of the Derby horses, Welsch has not landed on a favorite. He picked him, but it did not move the horse’s price: Denis of Cork went off at 27-1, and finished third. Instead, he became enamored with the efficiency of motion shown each morning by a horse named Denis of Cork. Last year, for example, Welsch had Big Brown pegged as the horse to beat, but he saw nothing in the morning that even whispered, “Bet me,” especially as a short-priced favorite. In fact, the clocker’s clocker thinks this is about as muddled a Derby field that he has seen at least among the contenders. The next year, Street Sense took the track for his final work with Calvin Borel aboard, and Welsch’s stopwatch nearly cracked because he was gripping it so excitedly. Welsch watched Barbaro glide effortlessly atop the dirt oval here in 2006, and knew he had found his Derby winner. His observations about what goes on in training in the morning have led many a horseplayer to the mutuel windows on Derby afternoon. Welsch writes its Clocker’s Report, and he has been called the E. “I want to see a workout from a horse that just screams: ‘Bet me,’ ” said Welsch, who has been clocking the Derby horses for the Daily Racing Form, widely considered the horseplayers’ Bible, since 2000. ![]() He is watching the Kentucky Derby contenders jog, gallop and breeze listening, really for one thing. Mike Welsch is standing in the dark on the rail at Churchill Downs with the collar of his windbreaker pulled up to his ears and a stopwatch clutched in his hand. ![]()
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