any news on how he’s doing since back home?
[QUOTE=Blacklabs;4508504]
any news on how he’s doing since back home?[/QUOTE]
He’s done repeated gate work without incident.
Quality Road behaved himself yesterday morning.
The 3-year-old colt, who was ordered a late scratch in the gate for the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, [b]behaved himself while being schooled at Belmont Park.
“He went very well,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “He went through repeatedly without incident.”[/b]
The Florida Derby winner arrived at Pletcher’s barn at Belmont on Tuesday morning after refusing to board the plane to take him back to New York and was vanned the whole way home from Santa Anita.
Quality Road was tranquilized during the van trip home, but it was done as a precaution. “I was frustrated that it happened,” Pletcher said of the scratch.
The trainer thinks having a blindfold put on his horse for the first time really spooked Quality Road. “He never had one put on before,” the 42-year-old trainer said.
Pletcher reported that aside from a few scratches and scrapes, Quality Road suffered nothing too severe and after a workout this Sunday, could be entered in the Nov. 28 Cigar Mile, the final Grade I race of the New York racing season. “It’s possible if everything goes smoothly,” he said.
Quality Road set the track record when winning the Florida Derby in March and also set the track record when capturing the Amsterdam Stakes at Saratoga this summer.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;4491846]
Horses that don’t want to load in the trailer generally don’t want to load in the trailer. Horses that don’t want to load in the gate don’t want to race. You need to make racing and training a reasonably pleasant experience ie get them sound AND take them to the gate repeatedly to fix the problem.[/QUOTE]
I agree 100%
I hope they are going to go ahead and make arrangements to school him in the afternoon like they discussed earlier-- there is no way to re-create the atmosphere of afternoon racing.
I think that will be the best way to gauge whether or not QR is ready to run again.
[QUOTE=pinkdiamondracing;4508838]
I hope they are going to go ahead and make arrangements to school him in the afternoon like they discussed earlier-- there is no way to re-create the atmosphere of afternoon racing.
I think that will be the best way to gauge whether or not QR is ready to run again.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely right, his connections already have said that previous to the Breeders Cup he had schooled at the gate in the morning and had no problems.
Next steps per Todd aren’t 100% clear: DRF 11-20-09 “Quality Road iffy for Cigar Mile”
“He will go to Aqueduct Saturday to school in the paddock around 11 a.m., and he’ll go in the starting gate around 11:15. He’ll probably breeze on Sunday, and we’ll see how that goes.”
That is about as late in the day as one can go with schooling at the gate of a live track.
Pletcher said Quality Road has been “perfect” since returning to Belmont, patiently enduring gate schooling supervised by Bob Duncan, the former starter for the New York Racing Association, and current members of the gate crew.
I’m rehashing what I stated before but its been my observation that most NYRA crews would front load (back in a horse) well before blindfolding one and with good reason.
I think it’s safe to say Quality Road won’t be blindfolded again. Not after that performance.
Do trainers ever practice blindfolding a horse? I’d think especially with one who had had some gate trouble before, they might figure it could come up eventually. I’ve known some barns, not racing but just regular barns, who held “fire drills” at times, including blindfolding the horses and leading them out, to try to better prepare them for a “just in case” eventuality.
Just wondering. I agree that the blindfold spooked him, but I also think his body language was pretty clear well before that. He had firmly decided he did not want to go in that day.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;4490318]
If he was mine I would bring him to my training center and he would eat his meals in the starting gate. I would hang a small feed tub and haynet and leave him there to watch the world go by.[/QUOTE]
AWSOME IDEA!
That was one major panic attack on his part. I’m guessing the adreneline was sky high at the gate and he fed on it big time.
On a side note, about putting them in the gate to hang out, while that may get them past panicing over it, how do you then transition back to loading and breaking out? Seems like that would put them right back where they were mentally before. It’s different from a trailer where you want them relaxed. In the gate, you want them ready to break.
[QUOTE=dressagetraks;4510000]
Do trainers ever practice blindfolding a horse? I’d think especially with one who had had some gate trouble before, they might figure it could come up eventually. I’ve known some barns, not racing but just regular barns, who held “fire drills” at times, including blindfolding the horses and leading them out, to try to better prepare them for a “just in case” eventuality.
Just wondering. I agree that the blindfold spooked him, but I also think his body language was pretty clear well before that. He had firmly decided he did not want to go in that day.[/QUOTE]
When I was an assistant trainer back a couple years ago, we have a Graded Stakes filly in the barn who hated to load in the trailer.
We had a set of blinkers that had blind cups (as in a blindfold) on both eyes that had come with the high powered therapy laser we used, and every afternoon I would put the blindfold on her and lead her around and around the shedrow with her listening to the sound of my voice, until she relaxed and would follow me without fear.
Then we started leading her into the trailer blindfolded and once inside, we removed the blindfold. This was done every day, without fail, right up until the day it was time to leave to go to the races.
I put her blindfold on, led her around the shedrow until she relaxed, then led her onto the trailer. No muss, no fuss!!!
She went on to win that day and retired the next day, was sold to Adena Springs and bred to Ghostzapper. What a special filly she was, I can’t wait to see her baby!!!
I am sure having a guy on his back and 12 nervous horses beside him helps out a lot.
trailering and loading in the gate (can) have a lot in common. growing up around a lot of amateur owner/trainers who all trained on the farm hauling with Brenderup style trailers, there were hardly any loading issues (the one that gave me such glee was a, above average sized gelding with little room in the stall)
According to the Blood Horse, he schooled well at Aqueduct today. I can’t help but think he really doesn’t have a “gate issue.” Combine the gate with 12 horses ready to explode, about 10 asst starters who had to all be on edge, nerves from the jockey, cameras, thousands of screaming fans in the distance and a helicopter overhead, and there’s the issue. Unfortunately, it will be a little tough to find out if he is over it until he is back in another big race.
Saturday’s (11/21) schooling (as cited above by Caryledee) reaffirmed he’s doing just fine going through the drills over and over.
Quality Road schools ‘perfectly’ at Big A
Shortly before 11 a.m., Quality Road was led to the Aqueduct paddock in company with stablemates Nite Light (Thunder Gulch) and Storm Play (Smart Strike), both of whom are also owned by Evans and trained by Pletcher.
The colt stood quietly in the saddling enclosure while being tacked up and, after regular jockey John Velazquez was given a leg up by Pletcher, made several circuits of the paddock before being handed off to a NYRA lead pony and taken to the track for a simulated pre-race warm-up with the two other horses. The group worked its way toward the gate, which was positioned at the back of the mile chute on Aqueduct’s main track.
As he has done all week at Belmont under the supervision of former NYRA starter Bob Duncan, Quality Road loaded into the gate about 10 times without incident, both with and without Velazquez aboard, and led by both Duncan and assistant NYRA starter Guido Rouse. The colt stood in the gate for varying lengths of time before being backed out, and never balked or fussed.
“We wanted to come as close as we could to simulating a race without actually doing so,” Pletcher said.
Roll tape … video from NYRA of Saturday (11/21) schooling work:
youtube: 3 min video of Quality Road at the Big A
As cited before but worth mentioning again - QR is a big boy.
I own and raced TB racehorses for some years. After reviewing and replaying that incident of loading QR there seems to be some very important points missing. Now we know that QR has issues with the gate before. There is a helicopter hovering over the gate, you can hear it. Instead of taking their time just a slight slower, they have 4 guys hanging over him, pushing him in, with one man snapping the whip behind him. Now it gets interesting, not only is the snapping the whip but he starts to poke him with the end of the whip up his rear, now he is pissed. So, what we do next is lets hurry up and put the blindfold on (I am sure there is talk being said that you don’t hear because of the helicopter) let just turn him one time and pull him in at a fast rate so he hits the gate, then that guy with the whip pokes him again up his rear AGAIN for what reason just to piss him off, yep he is pissed off so he start to buck, rear and the rest is history. None of my horses would like a whip poked up their rear.
Huh? Poked up the rear? I didn’t see that. Can you post the video where you saw that?
An editorial in the Blood-Horse mentions how the Breeders’ Cup incident has resulted in Quality Road getting unfairly labeled “rogue”. According to the people around him he’s actually quite friendly and easy to work with.
And as far as the gate crew - they can’t just take all day to try to load a horse, even if it is the last race on the card. There’s a starting gate full of other horses who have to be considered.
I think if anyone watches the video of his recent schooling can see the guy is pretty easy in a relative term. With QR his biggest issue has been his feet not his attitude.
Too many folks (and I’m not saying that about those who’ve posted here) in general know so little about him but watched the gate incident and are giving an opinion about him.
I don’t know one horseman who wouldn’t be utterly thrilled to have a horse of his capabilities and accomplishments in their barn. Even if he’s had some loading complications before that is meaningless in the sands of time.
Kudos to Johnny V to working with him.
I hope they can get him in a race quickly and supplant that BC memory with a good experience.
Wonder if he could have an assigned starter/gate handler that could load him in schooling and then be the one to handle him at the race? I mean, QR is really a baby still at 3, at least mentally. Certainly when my gelding was 3, if I had vanished and some stranger had tried to load him into a strange trailer, he would have been on edge.
