Indoor stable exercise track - common?

[Glimmerglass]

Last month I was visiting Lazy Lane Farms in Upperville (Joe Allbritton) and their centerpiece barn has this indoor stable with a shedrow that doubles as an exercise track. Photo here of the neatly harrowed dirt with a rather deep base to it and plenty of light from above.

When talking with one of the stable managers he indicated it was approx 1/16th of a mile in distance for the defacto-oval shape and that it did get used with more green horses and with inclement weather.

How frequent do racing stables have indoor exercise track like that built today? Or it mostly just the “old time” stables like ones such as the Gerry’s Aknusti in the Catskills and Alfred Vanderbilt’s Sagamore farm?

Having one - despite the cost - in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the US just seems like a wise decision for a larger outfit that houses most horses away from a track.

The structures at Lazy Lane by the way are sensation and kept in magnificent condition. Almost all were built back when the property was Brookmeade and Isabel Dodge Sloane’s racing operations center. Based from there she had such greats as Bowl of Flowers, Cavalcade, and Sword Dancer among others.

While there aren’t a lot of horses there I will say the 1991’s Belmont and Preakness winner Hansel isn’t looking at day over 10 and couldn’t be a nicer, more relaxed former stallion.

[rustbreeches]

The stables across the road from Belvoir had a purpose built, not around a stable block indoor gallop, there is the Hacienda at Bowie, Clovelly in Warrenton has a great Belmont style barn that you could shedrow around. Tom Voss has one, I’m sure there are plenty of others.

[brightskyfarm]

Lots. Of course, all the track barns, but around Penn National, the off track farms are built this way. Where I have my horses, not only shedrows, but covered eurocizers!

I was introduced to this style back in the late 60's and thought then how practical this idea was. There was a feed/ tack and pass through in the middle of the block of stalls which was very convienent too. Blue Rock Stables in Paoli.(pa)

If I were to build, without a doubt, these would be the plans… and although I suggest to friends all the time to consider this style, Im somewhat poo-poo’d. – oh well.

[Donkaloosa]

Wow, that’s a really nice version, but I’ve seen them around here, too, at the home stable of racing barns. It’s a great way to be able to train and condition the horses even if the weather is nasty. The cut through in the middle of the stable block is a necessity.

[Hunter_s_Rest]

The Kentucky Training Center in Lexington has a 5/8ths (?) one.
Hickory Tree Farm has a 1/16th mile one.
Buckland has one.
Lots have them.
I galloped on that one at Belvoir many times! Even schooled hurdles on it!!
You can work a horse at the KTC. Its awesome.

[Absolut_Equestrian]

Sagamore may have had an inside shedrow for riding, it also had (has) an indoor training track. I couldn’t find any pictures from inside (it is actually a bit “cave-like” and awaiting renovation), but here’s an aerial view:
http://binged.it/LF74un

[Acertainsmile]

I broke babies for Helen Polinger back in the late 70’s (The Very One’s owner) and her training barn was set up the same way. You went from the barn, to the field, and finally out to the track.

Most tracks are set up this way, and “shedrowing” is a very common practice.

[beaujolais]

Now, the purpose of these is for inclement weather? Any other reasons?

Interesting that the link in the top post had the horse’s name above the stall.

When I used to groom, I was taught you don’t want ID’s like that, as you’d not want anyone to so easily know who the horse is, in case they’d want to mess with it.

[MintHillFarm]

NY has several - Belmont has one, not far from Gate 6…

Also a very large one at Clermont Farm in Clermont, NY…

[Carol_Ames]

look before you leap!

During my time at Lazy Lane we rode/ jogged the baby horses, yearlings and 2 year olds bought at the sales It was great for that but, anything faster, ;like a canter was very :mad:tricky around the corners as the photo shows you facing; it is very easy to end up on the concrete apron around the turn!:eek: I was always glad when we moved outside:yes:

[Hunter_s_Rest]

Sonoma - the ‘reason’ to ride inside is yes, b/c of inclement weather, but more b/c it offers a certain amount of control for young horses, especially. Breaking youngsters goes easily if you start inside like that.
Also its a ‘quickie’ exercise for a busy stable to ‘send’ a horse to jog the shedrow. You can get 3x as many horses exercised in the same amount of time as if you sent them all the way to the track just to do hte same thing you’re doing (exercise-wise) in their own shedrow.
A taught-fit racehorse won’t get in any trouble walking under tack, or jogging turns, in his own barn as much as he might if you send him to the track to stretch his legs (see pix of poor old I’ll Have Another at Belmont nearly getting mowed down by a loose horse.)

[beaujolais]

Thanks Hunter’s Rest. You brought up some things I didn’t think of - lack of traffic, speed in getting them done & green ones.

Are most stall screens fully closed or the half ones with the neck opening? If neck opening, does that distract the one getting shedrow’d?

[Xctrygirl]

OK I have read this thread and I think we’re confusing two things for the “not as experienced” track folks. So let me try to separate them.

1.) Shedrows, as was in GG’s first picture that was harrowed, can and have been used for tack walking, jogging, exercising babies and so forth all over the country. All the points made by Hunter’s Rest as to the usefulness of these applies. **Although I will say be cautious in the Shedrows at Santa Anita… the central water pipe is over your head in many barns there and more than once I was jogging a larger horse on the straightaways and was hearing “clunk, Clunk, Clunk” as I was posting. It’s not got the head room that you have in the barns at Hollywood.

2.) Indoor tracks… Ala Sagamore, Bowie’s hacienda, And the 2 indoor tracks at Belmont. (Zito’s barn and Allen Jerken’s barn)

These are actual smaller tracks housed indoors. And though it can be a little nerve racking depending on the horse, you can sortof canter/gallop in these.

I used both Zito’s and Jerken’s for Lad when he was at Belmont, and the biggest issue was the lack of regular surface maintenance. Jerken’s was dirt, but Zito’s was that older fibar (woodchip like surface that many people got rid of when it turned slippery on turns) and it was a little dicey in there.

Way back when I used Sagamore’s to condition my eventer through the winter and I would always lose track of how many laps I’d done. That was a big issue for me. It felt like a merry go round.

I will say Jerken’s track was always full when it rained. I would be in there, in line with 20+ other horses in a very small space and God forbid if one balked or stopped…it turned into bedlam quickly.

~Emily

[Glimmerglass]

[QUOTE=sonomacounty;6377872]
Interesting that the link in the top post had the horse’s name above the stall.

When I used to groom, I was taught you don’t want ID’s like that, as you’d not want anyone to so easily know who the horse is, in case they’d want to mess with it.[/QUOTE]

I can only say that since Lazy Lane is a private facility and located deep within the 600+ acre estate there’s zero chance of anyone randomly rolling onto the property. So security risks are minimal at best by identifying who is in which stall

As you can see in this picture Hansel’s stall is prominently noted

(Additionally with a single-owner private facility and identifiers with the horse in the stall Up the road at Newstead Farm (image) each stall would have this identifier of who is in what stall; so too did Lazy Lane (image) although without the cool silks image)

Another picture of the shedrow gallop lane as you can see there is no means (at Lazy Lane) for a horse to take a bite out of a passing horse being worked. The wire mesh of the stalls protect horse and random person walking by the stalls.

Carol, I can image that galloping indoors there at Lazy Lane would be a dicey proposition with a having too much speed and having to turn left or right quickly!

[Acertainsmile]

Xcntry, If I remember correctly 10 times around the Hacienda at Bowie equaled a mile, or maybe a mile and a half. Just so you don’t feel alone, I always lost count too! There is enough room for a horse to pass another, and a loose horse usually spelled disaster in there!

[Blinkers_On]

I expect more common where the weather is bad in the winter. Park Stud had a barn we could jog around, and Gardiner Farms had a decent indoor track.
At SA Headly jogs horses around his barn when the weather is “bad.”

[Acertainsmile]

It’s common to shedrow in the bad weather here in the East, I’ve shedrowed up to 12 horses a day during snow storms, etc. It gets a little dicey when the grooms are mucking stalls, and you get really tired of hearing yourself saying “coming by” or “heads up!”

[rustbreeches]

[QUOTE=Acertainsmile;6380745]
It’s common to shedrow in the bad weather here in the East, I’ve shedrowed up to 12 horses a day during snow storms, etc. It gets a little dicey when the grooms are mucking stalls, and you get really tired of hearing yourself saying “coming by” or “heads up!”[/QUOTE]

And that is how I found out a Val de l’orne we had could jump. Silly wheel barrow

[Acertainsmile]

[QUOTE=rustbreeches;6380754]
And that is how I found out a Val de l’orne we had could jump. Silly wheel barrow :)[/QUOTE]

Awesome! :lol:

[War_Admiral]

When I was a kid my (hunter-jumper) trainer briefly rented some stalls at a former racing barn in Mass. that had a purpose-built indoor exercise track. It was new construction where the owner had gone out of business in a hurry, so built early 1960s maybe? I’m sitting here racking my brains trying to recall HOW the thing was designed, but I know it did not pass the stalls at all. It was a long oval corridor with windows and there was an outdoor schooling ring inside the oval. I think it was simply attached to a sort of more Morton-y style barn, 50 stalls I think, with aisles and stalls facing inward toward each other, not a shedrow. We could certainly canter/gallop in there but the whole place was completely empty except for our six horses and it was kinda creepy.