Breeding, Training, Punting.
 

It's time to pass on my knowledge that has been acquired over the years.
My grandfather was a very successful racehorse and greyhound trainer in Ireland. He had winners at Limerick, and all surrounding courses.
He once picked the card at a racecourse just by looking at the parade ring and became notorius for winning a small fortune in those days.

Personally, I have owned Chrome Prince sired by Coal King which won numerous picnic races. Hence the forum username.

I have very firm opinions about breeding and training, horse care and parade ring punting. I don't profess to be an authority, but what
i do share has stood the test of time. In fact it has stood for over 100 years.
Punters, breeders, trainers may gain something from my insights, I'm sure there will be professionals who disagree, but from my work with horses, these methods are so successful, they cannot be ignored.

I'll try and post a continuing series in parts.

The breeding industry is going to implode if prices keep soaring for greatly bred duds. Green Monkey in USA was famously sold for U.S. 16 million and retired a maiden. He earned $10,440 in his career and couldn't win a maiden.
His sire was Forestry and Grand sire was the well hailed Storm Cat by Northern Dancer. Along the dam line was some very impressive black type winners including Secretariat.
All professionals thought this horse would be the next champion and champion sire. It is a fact that this $16 million dollar horse did not possess the heart and lungs of his lineage. He looked super in the parade ring as he inherited great conformation and strong profile resemblances to his heritage.

His stud fee of course crashed to a staggeringly poor $5,000USD.
Breeders and owners are getting totally carried away with sire / dam immediate progeny. This used to be the focus and was certainly the most successful way to go for investment to return. It's obvious that overall this is the most successful method, but now is not the most profitable.

Considering the Green Monkey's breeding and heritage, at $5,000USD stud fee, this was the bargain of the century. Granted he isn't going to pass on any speed directly, and may pass on his poor performance, but breeding horses is far more complicated than looking at the sire and dam.

As an example, Green Monkey has sired Kinz Funky Monkey for $5,000 stud fee. 4 starts for 2 placings and 2 wins including the $73,600 Manhattan Beach Stakes, so this dud now has sired a stakes winner.
Other winners include Chongo Verdi, Your Lovely, and Monkey Wench, including some very good placings from other progeny.

Clearly these horses have inherited a mix of the lineage, not a direct result of the sire. That's the point. As an owner, trainer or breeder, there are some very inexpensive sires that were not so successful on the track and yet have outstanding pedigree. These are value sires.

Training.
Unfortunately these days due to costs, horses are only trained to the extent of breaking in and trackwork. They require far more work than what is put in.
I believe in natural horsemanship, getting the horse to overcome it's natural instinct of fear, rather than breaking it's will.
Notorious barrier rogues consistently become barrier rogues, they apply rogue hoods, twist the horse's ear, use a lunge whip, ropes and brute force from the attendants. This is not the fault of the attendants, they do an amazing job in ensuring horse and jockey safety, it is partly the breaker and partly the trainer.
These "rogues" will always be rogues, because their inherent fear is reinforced each time they are loaded and always eventually end up with the horse "going off" and getting cast in the barriers at one time or another.
This sets off a chain reaction, amongst others who might be nervous but comfortable. This domino effect, time wasted, and risk of injury could easily be overcome by some simple natural horse techniques. Most people think the horse is a rogue or doesn't want to race, nothing could be further from the truth, the plain fact is, the horse is extremely frightened. Overcoming this fear is simply a case of instilling confidence patiently. A little ground work can save a horse from injury, and tardy starts.

You can tell a suited racing pattern when you turnout a group of horses and watch them run. There will always be the same leaders, the same off pacers, the same backmarkers, if they run long enough.
On this topic, it saddens me greatly to see the way horses are treated by trainers these days. They are locked up in stables, feed at intervals, taken out for trackwork and excercise and let out on a Sunday afternoon for a short graze. This might sound idyllic, but it's completely un natural.
This shortcut method of training creates many unhappy horses with digestive problems, and vitamin D defficiency.

Horses are pack and graze animals, they need to run free and graze. They also need to be "naked" in the spring / summer to absord natural vitamin D.
Vitamin D supplements do not do the same job as natural vitamin D.
Feeding horses in a stable at various times of the day with boosted nutrients and not allowing them to graze on juicy green pastures, is completely un natural. The old hay bale does not supply the range of nutrients a horse needs. Horses put on bulk in the pasture and trainers do not want to put in the work to keep the bulk of. They'd rather take short cuts to ensure a fit and trim horse. Stables have a purpose, they provide shelter, warmth and safety. That is all they should be used for, and the horse should be free to come and go.

Horses need to be trained naturally, the more effort put in and basic work will build a stronger and healthier horse. It also builds muscle and bone strength. That is why we have so many break downs, shattered bones, popped knees, bowed tendons etc. The amount of preparation put in to today's thoroughbred prior to fast work and racing, is not sufficient to the horse's physical needs. You cannot fast track a horse, you need to build confidence, strength, maturity and patience.

Horses are never nasty.
Horses are either frightened, injured or asserting leadership.
A horse has to be naturally taught that man is the leader, taught with kindness, but firmness.

Apart from breeding, when selecting a horse to own, breed or race:
One should check firstly for heat around all joints, muscles and tendons.
Reject any horse that has bandages, or lumps, bumps or hard nodules in the bones, joints, tendons.
Horses should have a clear sharp eye (almost sparkling), glossy coat and very straight back. The fetlock should not droop but be at a straight angle, with the hoof planting flat on the ground. The toe and heel should hit the ground almost in unison.
A sprinter should be of stocky build with a short back.
A stayer should be of slender build with a long back.
However, one of the most important factors is stride length combined with speed of course.
You can't have a short stride horse that is a black type winner!
You can have a long stride horse that doesn't have speed.
What becomes a champion is a horse with a long stride, with good conformation and speed.

In the parade ring, look at the horses career records.
Look at the eye, the coat, and the stride.
Muscle development and fetlocks.
Of course with unraced horses in the parade ring, check the odds, but concentrate on the eyes, coat and finally stride.

The list of long striding champions is evident:
Frankel
Octagonal
Makybe Diva
Super Impose
Kingston Town
Phar Lap
Secretariat
and of course Black Caviar.

Just a short list.
Reason being the horse takes less strides per 100m and therefore has more in reserve in the heart, lungs and muscles.
The same applies with Greyhounds, though it is a lot harder to detect without slow motion or digital measurement.

Here is a video on the stride of The Green Monkey, very short and proppy:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/RN7ZU5AN-0U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Kinz Funky Monkey has nearly double the stride length.

Thanks for the thread CP. Very interesting although I cannot tell the difference between the stride of Kinz Funky Monkey and The Green Monkey, but that's just me, hopeless at that sort of thing (or punting in general). But very nice post.

TO,
It takes a lot of practice to spot the difference.
For example there are a couple of ways to look at stride length, but I must emphasize firstly, that not all good striders have the right engine behind them.
Sometimes they are too slow and basically plodders.

When being paraded, look at the reach of the front legs, the bobbing of the head as the horse takes it's stride. Is the horse taking lots of little steps with the head rapidly bobbing in short sequence.
Or is the horse taking long strides and reaching with the head.

Here's Black Caviar's half-brother.
http://youtu.be/U3xpBvzRMdw

You'll note a couple of things here.
The horse is leading the handler, not vice versa :)
The handler is merely steering.
The action of the front legs is fluid with long slow strides covering a lot of ground with each stride, so much so, they had to remove the other horse from the ring, as he was catching up!
Whether or not he also has the speed is another issue, but the basics are there including the breeding.

Walks like he is shinny or feeling something in his legs to my eye CP.
You haven't got a video of the other Monkey by chance so we can compare perhaps?

Sorry I don't have any footage of Kinz Funky Monkey parading :(

Breeding Bargains
 

I have long had an unorthodox view on value breeding.
It seems that the masses are obsessed with the leading sires and broodmares, and while statistically speaking, this is the proven best chance of landing a top racehorse, financially, it is a losing proposition.
The chances of making a profit are outweighed by the overwhelming costs.

I grew up in an era where Sir Tristram was the boom sire, an era where it seemed all Group races had some connection to Sir Tristram, and you couldn't get near him to breed without options in a gold mine.

His only direct son standing at stud is the famous Zabeel @ $100,000 service fee.
And while Zabeel has proven to be a gun sire, this is his only son standing out of all the thousands of colts he sired.
Notably Dr Grace and Kaapstad did stand at stud, but did not become leading sires.

Sir Tristram has only five grandsons standing at stud:
SAVABEEL @ NZD$55,000
RESET @ $16,500
OVER @ $4,400
SUFFICIENT @ NZD$4,000
MCFLIRT @ $3,300

Savabeel, Reset and Sufficient being by Zabeel.

However, the point I'm getting to is that thinking back on Sir Tristram's stud fee and Zabeel's $100,000 fee, surely Sufficient is at a bargain basement price at $4,000. The fact that he has Sir Tristram and Zabeel in his bloodlines and the cheap as chips price, means one could send broodmares 25 times to this sire for the price of one service to Zabeel.
Here's some other opinions of him...

Excellent yearling sales series at Karaka 2013 where his first-crop yearlings averaged $45,000 in the Select Session with a sale topper of $80,000 and an overall sales average of $23,500.

His progeny were purchased at Karaka by some very good judges such as Robert Smerdon, Mike Moroney, Alwyn Tweedie; Paul O'Sullivan; Katrina Alexander and Dick Bothwell.

The Sufficient x Brindillemousse filly was purchased by Robert Smerdon of Aquanita Racing for $80,000.

The Ocho,
There are many factors to stride, but here's some pointers.

The front legs should be reaching from the shoulder and should be long in stride.
The lead should come from the shoulder and not from the knees.
The knees should only bend to accomodate the lead from the shoulder, they should not be where the stride comes from.

The hind legs should almost fill the spaces the front legs leave behind, they should not drag or hit the ground just underneath the belly.

The gait should be fluid in action and the best way to see this is at a slow lope or canter, watching the head and neck action can be a good indicator.

The shoulders should be at a 45 degree angle or more to the neck and you should be able to see a triangle from the start of the neck to the withers, down the shoulder and back up to the neck.

An indication of heart size is the chest cavity.
From the top of the withers straight down to the elbow should be very deep.
The deeper the better, providing all other factors are in proportion.

I'm at a loss to see how some of these buyers assess a horse in the short time in the parade ring at the sales. It takes me a good 20 minutes to fully assess a horse and certainly would need to be right up close. Perhaps the big spenders get private viewing time ;)

10 miniutes on overall conformation and 10 minutes hands on.

The hind legs should also be wider than the front legs.
Thinkk of how a cheetah runs, with it's rear legs either side of the front legs, this is how it gets it's speed, by the spring and leverage action, only we don't want a horse to overreach.

Horses that actually overreach and clip their own front heels do not have ideal conformation. The hind legs should be filling the spaces left by the front legs, only wider, not the same spaces.

This information does not only apply to buying and breeding, it can be a huge guide to a horse's potential, especially with regard to lightly raced horses, and first starters.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ecPdElGaug4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Watch this video, it points to some very important differences.

Pause the video at Conformation Shot #1....
Romi the first horse, is too stocky.
He has a beautiful big depth of chest cavity and huge chest muscles, but his leg aren't long enough in proportion for his body.
He has a lovely back, but his hind muscles are lacking on his hips.
It seems he is underdeveloped at the rear for his strong muscular front.
Therefore he is going to be short striding.
The angle of his shoulder is fine, but there should be more definition.

Play video...

You'll notice his hind legs never go anywhere near filling the spots his front legs leave. He leads with his front knees and not with his shoulder, because although he has a good shoulder and chest, his hind legs lack power and leverage.

Pause the video at Conformation Shot #1 again....
Deco has good conformation.
His head is shorter.
His neck has perfect proportion and the angle is great.
He has good shoulder muscle and his hip muscles are in proportion (not lacking).
The chest cavity is not as deep as Romi, but he has plenty of muscle evenly distributed.

Play video...

He has a beautifully smooth gait and when he canters into the jump, his legs stretch from the shoulder and his hind legs stretch to almost fill the spaces the front legs left behind. He is not perfect, but he is a good example.
He has a very good reach on jumping and his head does not have to jerk to maintain balance on landing. He is a well conformed, well balanced horse.

Pause the video at Conformation Shot #2

Hans is similar to the first horse Romi, only better around the rear hip area.
However, poor Hans is unbalanced. His head is a little too long. His chest cavity is very good and deep, but again his withers are too high, and this is the pivot point or centre of gravity for a horse. There's no way he is going to be able to maintain a fluid gate and will find it hard at a canter or gallop being unbalanced. He also has a weak back, it slopes down from his rump to his withers at a bad angle. although he is better in the hind quarters and hips than Romi, he is still not evenly distributed in muscle development.
This along with his head size and withers and back problem means he is going to have to throw his head to maintain balance when jumping.

Play video and pause at each still shot.

You'll notice he has a very short stride and throws his head on landing to maintain balance.

Still shot no. 1
This is Romi the first horse.
His knees are up to his cheeks and his hind legs are way behind him.
He is not jumping from the hind legs, he is springing off them and reaching with his front legs.

Still shot no. 2
This is Deco the second horse.
Look at the angle of the hind legs, he is using a lot of power from the hind legs, they are not dragging behind, they are almost underneath him. His front knees are not up near his cheeks, he is tucking his front legs under himself and stretching out nicely with his neck.

Still shot no. 3
This is unbalanced Hans
Look at the angle of the hind legs, he is using a lot of power from the hind legs, they are not dragging behind, they are almost underneath him. His front knees are not up near his cheeks, but he is not tucking his front legs under himself and he is stretching upwards with his head and neck. He seems to be using ALL his rear and none of his front. What you don't see are the next few frames where he lands all unbalanced and throws his head to maintain balance.

Deco is 8/10 for mine and stands the best chance of becoming a good racehorse, IF he has the speed.

Cheap Winners
 

Geelong
Race 2 - Grc Function/Event Centre Mdn - 1900m
Glenaroua
Nadeem x Toccare (GB) (Machiavellian (USA) )
Purchased for $8,000
Grandsire Redoute's Choice
Great Grandsire Danehill
Great Great Grandsire on Dam side Canny Lad

BARGAIN!

Port Macquarie
Race 3 - Hans Smallgoods Mdn Plate - 1500m
Lopresti
Ad Valorem (USA) x Glycks (Langfuhr (CAN) )
Passed In $ 4,000 / Reserve $ 5,000
Sire side: Danzig, Northern Dancer
Dam side: Danzig, Northern Dancer

BARGAIN

Townsville
Race 4 - Cup Calcutta Tickets Hcp - 1000m
He's A Ladies Man
All Bar One x Favorite Starlet (Favorite Trick (USA) )
Purchased for $5,000
On the Sire side Stormcat, Stormbird lineage
On the Dam side Marauding, Sir Tristram.

BARGAIN!

These horses, although mainly winning maidens, beat home some horses costing six figures.
You never know what genes will filter through as long as the structure is in place. All horses had links to leading sires, without being sired by leading sires.
This is where the value is, considering some six and seven figure horses either never make it to the track or never win a race.

Top stuff CP.

Excellent stuff CP, when's the book coming out, serious??
RP

Thanks for the feedback gents, much appreciated.

I had occasion to visit the stables of Moody, Smerdon and Vasil at Caulfield a couple of years ago.
They were all raving on about this horse Altius which was the best breed horse in the stable and a small fortune had been outlayed on him.
I don't think he was ever offered for sale, bet they wish they had now.

They were talking about how many millions of dollars he was worth on breeding alone.
Being the inquisitive type, I went straight home and looked him up, indeed in the stable he looked a nice type, but didn't strike me to have ideal conformation, nor be the best looking horse in the stable.

Yes, he was a Redoute's Choice x Circles Of Gold horse.
He had Danehill and Canny Lad on his Sire line.
He also had Marscay and Zamaazan on the Dam line.

Straight off the bat, I could see that it was Redoute's Choice that was getting them over excited. They were saying this was the Group 1 horse for the spring!

Well, it didn't pan out too well. He proved a handy type, but not a Group 1 horse. Couldn't win a Group 3, couldn't win a Listed (placed 2nd), won an Open and a BM80 in the city.

Vasil got rid of him and he was transferred to Chris Waller and ended his racing career in Sydney earning a total of $172,438.

Here's the interesting part, have they gelded him?
Surely not.
Is he injured?
What happened to him?

He isn't listed anywhere as a Sire and Arrowfield have no news about him at all.
It all remains a very expensive mystery and the horse never won a Stakes race.

How do you mean RP?

The Chrome Prince is a living book, every post another page.

In a word..
sage

/sāj/
Noun

1. An aromatic plant (Salvia officinalis) of the mint family, with grayish-green leaves that are used as a culinary herb, native to...
2. A profoundly wise man.

Some say he toys with No. 1. in his spare time but it's no. 2, for mine

Cheers LG

Thanks again, I really do appreciate all comments, as it's something that interests me greatly from all aspects of racing, from breeding to training to punting.

This is why stride is more important than breeding.
When you have the two combined, you have a truly class horse.
Look at Photon Willie.
He's not silly either, he knows exactly where to find his cosy warm stable and a good feed :D

http://www.racingnetwork.com.au/For...152#2013-07-17:

If they train him to keep his mind on the job and possibly put on ************s, this will be one horse who is probably going to earn them the enormous purchase price.
There are just so many with good breeding that have no good stride length at all, that it makes it a bit of a raffle.

Hi Chrome.

Appreciate that your wisdom comes from years of watching, experience(genetics?) but I mistakenly assumed that the art of watching horses and knowing what to look for was a kind of black magic, invisible clues etc etc. Until now, that is.. will take practice of course but I think it might be hard to look at a horse from here without noticing some of the the various features you have pointed out. Particularly the movement of the legs, how this differs bt front and back.

Now, just got to get vision of the horses parading up on a screen here without it costing me an arm and leg. Any ideas are welcome!

Quality posting, considerable value plus generosity and not a whiff of ego or arrogance or 'hype' to go with it. I find that the message 'goes in' a lot quicker with this mix i.e. the shields come down and a clean exchange of information occurs.

So I thank for that and I look fwd to anything else you would like to share in this respect.


Cheers LG

Cheers mate.
If a whiff of any sort of ego does come through inadvertently, it is only because I'm so passionate about the information handed down to me and that I've learnt, works and stands the test of time.
My grandfather didn't have the internet, he picked it all up himself.
He was self taught and made his own mistakes.
However, a few racing people and friends have passed away in the last few years, and some very knowledgable one's took everything they knew with them.
I feel that's a sad waste.
The time to share is now, it's too late later.
I'm not giving anyone anything that will make them a millionaire, just helping understand some things the basic punter usually overlooks.

I've only touched on the topics lightly, and felt I might be boring people, so the feedback you guys give, inspires me to share more and go a bit more indepth.

A leading bloodstock agent in England once said to me:
A bad walker is a bad buy regardless of breeding.
A good walker is a potential buy.
A good walker with breeding is a definite buy.

However, he also said some good walkers don't have speed.
They are so good, they are slow, they lope along.

The only thing I disagreed with this professional about was Sire dominance.
He said look for progeny who look like their Sire.
That means the Sire is stamping his mark on his offspring.

This guy is a leading bloodstock agent, not just any old bloke and pays some of the biggest money in the UK for horses, so he was somewhat surprised I'd not agree with him.
Until I explained about my findings of Sires passing on looks versus, speed, stamina, soundness, and the degree of influence from the grand sires and dams. And the mixing of sprinters and stayers does not make a good middle distance horse, it dillutes the gene.
It was only when I gave him clear examples, that he had an enlightened look on his face.

If we take for example Rory's Jester:



Here's his successful son Racer's Edge:


He inherited the build and conformation and speed.
He did not inherit the colour, nor the blaze.

Here is Happy Giggle, Rory's other son:


Racer's Edge career prizemoney: $938,390
Happy Giggle career prizemoney: $274,250

On looks, one would immediately say Happy Giggle is the image of his father, which he is.
But Racer's Edge is the image of his father in a different way, conformation and speed.

Racer's Edge has passed on his genes and those of his father to his progeny.
Happy Giggle has struggled.

And here's the kicker, Happy Giggle servivce fee is $4,400.
Racer's Edge service fee is $3,300.

I really struggle to understand this, but that right there is another bargain.

It's harder and harder to find an edge, if you do the extra legwork that most punters don't do, you have an edge.
If you could pick the right horses to follow and discard the overbet and overhyped one's, you can save losing bets, and have an edge.

Most leading stables will have pictures of their horses on their websites and you can try google for the other one's.
You can get Youtube videos and TVN videos and convert them to slow motion and watch the horse in action.
We have access to pedigree information.
We have access to form (obviously).
We have access to market odds and track odds movements.
We can watch as they load the horses and parade the horses.
We can get steward's reports.

Here's a very basic checklist:
Look for well bred horses.
Don't limit yourself to Sire and Dam, some of the best horses have poor Dam performances but strong bloodlines from the Dam.
Look at the head, the muscles, the legs, the angle of the shoulder, which horses in his pedigree does he most resemble in conformation.
In fact, at times, I have converted images to black and white, and that assists with not getting distracted by colour and markings etc.
Is the horse a mix of sprinter, miler, distance, or is he (she) getting the best genes suited to bring out outstanding performances on both sides that highlight the distance gene.
Has the horse won a good race, or is he always promising to do something.
Watching video replays, does the horse let down and either kick away, or make late ground to win, or does he plod or grind and just get there.
Mid race moves excepted.

Very good black type horses ALL have a turn of foot, they let down and dominate. They also very rarely run "a shocker", they are consistently in the first four and bounce back to win.
They also step up in grade with ease, they don't generally fail and keep knocking on the door and then win.
Average to good horses do that.

Avoid like the plague horses talked up by trainers and jockeys.
Most trainers will downplay their good prospects to the media for obvious reasons.

Avoid horses that play up in the barriers or are hard to load.
A scared horse will use all it's nervous energy and not run to it's full potential.
It's an indicator of the horse's psyche.
You can glean a lot of information from steward's reports online.

Stride
 

Here's a wonderful video showing the stride of the great Oracle.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/zQDAUv6d_KY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Notice how he fills the spaces left by his front legs with his hind legs.
How he leads with his shoulder and simply bends his knees.
He had a lovely long stride.

Another of Frankel.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/L7MChh1F4nI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The ground he covers with every stride is amazing, how easily he did it.
Again the hind legs fill the spots left by the front legs, he leads from the shoulder and bends from the knees.

A lot of horses don't make a lot of ground wih each stride, so it taxes them physically. You see their heads bobbing in a race madly up and down, but they're not making much ground for the effort. (in the straight).

Well it seems I'm not the only one who places massive importance on stride length combined with speed. The above device sends stride information to a trainer's mobile phone.
I am in no way affiliated with the product, but thought it was a relevant product to this thread.

Unfortunately I have no access to the prroduct and more unfortunately no access to the horse carrying it :(

However, I've been manually doing some work in the background on stride length, via tedious and laborious video analysis.

I will post my selections in this thread as they come to hand.

These information threads are fantastic. Thank you CP for the time and effort put into them. Linking the videos is so helpful to understand the thoughts!

Cheers
Nitro

Thanks for the feedback Nitro.
Certainly it isn't infallible, but it certainly helps to weed out the donkeys.
If a horse has a poor stride, it's a waste of time from a punting or racing perspective, owners would be better off breeding the horse and hoping the sire, grand sire lines throw a good strider. As I was going through a lot of old form and horse history, I was actually amazed at the number of slow horses persued with, they seem to pour good money after bad. If a horse doesn't show ability with the first three or four starts, really it's never going to be a top horse. Owners can only make money from top horses, whereas trainers make money from owners ;)

I have watched a lot of videos of syndicated horses for sale, and there are a lot of poor striders with good breeding. Needless to say, when I looked up the form later, NONE of them had ever made it into a first four placing at tracks like Echuca and Seymour, let alone win a race.
I can't name the horses due to possible legal action, but there are a lot of them for sale as syndicate shares etc.

I also poured over hours and hours of old Magic Millions sales video.
I marked out possible horses from breeding and stride, some became top liners. Of the horses I marked as poor conformation or stride, there were some winners there, but they were all country winners, no city winners and no black type winners. The percentage of actual winners from poor horses was only a very small percentage, some never made it to the track, and a few are on sale on Gumtree as hobby horses!

Still working on the strider selections, so am going to miss today unfortunately.
It's a much bigger task than I anticipated, but it has to be accurate or it's a waste of time.

So to ease everyone's sighs of disappointment :D , here is an example of an excellent strider in trackwork. There is also a nice slow motion of it, to look at the nice stride and how he stretches out.

http://youtu.be/blMhuC8l0Mo?t=2m35s

However, he stretches and strides nicely, but he is slow :(
Although the sand was dead and heavy, he ran home his last 600m in 39.75 (approx). And that was after having a couple of cuts with the whip.
The trainer had a really good feeling about this horse, but I could tell although he was a nice horse with good conformation, he just doesn't have the motor to be a top class racehorse.

His name is Trululu, so I looked up his form.
He won a maiden claiming race in the country and ran second in a claiming race in the country. He also ran a lot of shockers and never won more than one race, and never made it to the city. In fact, he was retired at the end of 2011, which was his first and last race season.

Time to put it on the line!

These are horses I've spotted who have good strides and appear to show some ability. These are horses I've earmarked that might step up in grade and may pay to follow. I don't know whether this will be profitable or not, but I'm going to follow them in a stable system, win, lose or break down.
It doesn't matter the time they ran, nor the sectionals, because good horses don't have to run time to win, they just do it with dominance and very often the jockey eases them down. With notable exceptions of Northerly, Octagonal, Kingston Town and others, most good horses do not have to have their ears scrubbed off to win, they make a move at one point in the race which wins them the race. Lonhro was an example, he'd whip around the field and usually take control, that was his trademark. Black Caviar had the race shot to pieces by putting herself in a winning position and then cruising home.

Photon Willie
Great stride and speed but very green.
Nearly threw a race away by wanting to go back to the stable a week ago.
On Friday they ran him in a barrier trial at Warwick Farm and he was ridden quietly and then pushed to the line without incident.
Pay to follow.

Octavia
Great stride and won well Saturday.

Just found out that Altius was injured and resumes at Rosehill in race 3.
99 weeks out with injury.
There has been no official trial for this horse.

Altius was unplaced.
However, he was chopped out at a crucial point and would have run a place.
But the jockey was throwing everything at him, and he was never going to actually win.

Adding to the great strider stable, so far I have Photon Willie and Octavia.
Gregers
Henwood

Photon Willie
SR 5 # 5 today

Henwood R6 Flemington (10 August 2013)

Photon Willie no good today, but he still showed a good stride and very hard to come from the back at Canterbury in a 1200m race.
Won't sack him on that effort, still following.
Might get generous odds next start!

Henwood[/QUOTE]
Couldn't agree more, the way this horse picked them up at the valley over 1200 was decent, albeit a fairly average field, however he did have to make up a fair bit of ground and looked to be a decent strider.

Adding to the great strider stable, so far I have
Photon Willie
Octavia
Gregers
Henwood

Adding Montgomery from the hurdle at Sandown and Recycle Prince which showed enormous length of stride to run over the top of them and win hands and heels.

I'm going to record punting profit/loss and prizemoney won.
Whether or not I can make a profit punting on them remains to be seen, but I do think that these horses are worth cyber "claiming" for prizemoney.

Hope your not putting money on them Chrome.

Of course I am darky.

Back to Altius who I have a poor opinion of stride wise.
The upside of this non performer, is that he will be extraordinary value for anyone wanting to send a mare to him.
His lack of champion status, will discount his sire fees.
I have a feeling on breeding, he won't be cheap, but certainly reasonable value.

Looking into his lineage, he has truly blue blood.
Redoute's Choice
Danehill
Marscay
Zamazaan
Biscay
Danzig
Northern Dancer
Canny Lad
Star Kingdom
Bletchingly
Sir Ivor (Sire of Sir Tristram)

Altius simply lacks the stride, sending a well bred mare to him, could certainly result in a champion.

Kinz Funky Monkey goes around in the DaisyCutter Handicap at Del Mar USA on Saturday.
It's stepping up in grade to a stakes race.
Will be watching with interest and will have an interest eachway.

BETFAIR or Willy Hilly?

LG

Betfair SP LG, worth a shot at the probable odds and considering the stride and breeding and the fact that Kinz won last two starts.
Here's Kinz in action:

http://youtu.be/ttgiauT5gpk

The Green Monkey had what is called a "rotary gallop", which produces short bursts of speed, but is ineffective as distances get longer. This would explain his blistering one furlong time and his subsequent failure as a racehorse.
Here he is at a breeze up prior to sale:

http://youtu.be/SrzIIeHU2ik

He had some problems with injury such as a gluteal muscle tear as a 2yo, but his stride is what bothered me, seems I wasn't alone....

Analysis of the extreme racing gait of an elite Thoroughbred is perhaps the area where the information provided by high-speed kinetics most seems to throw open a door to the previously unseen and unknown.

Jeff Seder of EQB Agents and Consultants in West Grove, Pennsylvania, began with a business and filmmaking background. He applied what he knew to getting good film of racehorses. He also began collecting data on elite equine athletes by attending Thoroughbred sales.

"Prior databases [mostly academic] included average athletes, and the information did not exist to describe the elite horse," Seder said. "So we became obsessive-compulsive about getting good data." Experts like Clayton agree.

"Mr. Seder has amassed a wealth of data and has been generous in providing that information for study," she said. Seder has published much of his data in a series of articles that evaluates the various detailed phases of gait in racing Thoroughbreds. Perhaps more controversially, he also wrote an article that relates racing performance to foreleg flight patterns among 900 unraced two-year-olds offered at major sales in the United States. Seder listed a group of 73 horses with "good" motion and a group of 77 horses with "bad" motion. The latter group showed extraneous foreleg motion, including hyper-rotation of the cannon bone (hoof hitting an elbow in extreme cases); winging, paddling, or wobbling; and other deviations from straight and correct motion.

"Good" movers were patterned more closely after the ideal. All horses compared were matched to have workouts of similar velocity.

The subsequent North American racing performances of these two groups were evaluated. Seder concluded what proponents of high-speed gait analysis had hoped for when the technology first began to be used. He wrote: "Extraneous foreleg motion was shown to be related to subsequent racing earnings and the level of competition attained. Horses with good foreleg motion (as defined and determined with high-speed film evaluation) earned more and had greater stakes-level success (83% higher earnings) than horses with bad foreleg motion."

Seder's data also has yielded information about high-leg-action horses and turf racing, about the lack of performance predictability when trying to use only velocity and length- of-stride measurements, and several other very technical facts about the vast differences and arrays of phases contained within the racing gait of the horse.

Seder pointed out that The Green Monkey, a Forestry colt recently purchased for $16-million at the Fasig-Tipton Calder sale of selected two-year-olds in training, had a fabulous 9.8-second workout, but high-speed film revealed that the entire work was done at a rotary gallop, a very quick gait that can produce fast times but costs more energy. In Seder's opinion, such a gait is unlikely to be maintained for longer distances. High-speed analysis of that horse's motion leaves questions in Seder's mind and puts tremendous, maybe excessive, expectations on the horse. "Really good horses have a number of ways to run fast," Seder said. "And if they are 'correct' in their motion, they will be able to generate more power and speed without tiring out or breaking down."

Seder did not set out to ruin the careers of those horses that were deemed to have bad motion in his study, and in a bit of kill-the-messenger mentality, he said he has sometimes not been well received within the racing industry.

"Roughly 80% of horses bred for the track will have some sort of problem and never make it to an elite status," Seder said. "The history of science is that innovation is met with skepticism. I'm just taking science and playing probabilities, looking for those horses that, based on our data of gait and motion analysis, have a higher chance of making it."

Whether you use the latest in cameras, high-speed analysis, and data evaluation, or you hang near the rail to find a way of going that pleases your eye, everyone is looking for the same thing--a horse that has a good chance to make it.

*Article courtesy of Elite Thoroughbreds.

One would notice the difference between the two strides.
"Kinz" has a long stride, and leads from the shoulder stretching out the forelegs and springing off the hindlegs.
Whereas "Green" had a short paddling stride. It would have taken twice as much energy to cover the same ground, and at a slower speed!
He lifted his front legs like a trotter rather than stretching out from the shoulder and using his front legs to continue the motion, much like mentioned in the above article as rotary action.

Is this why they breezed him over merely one furlong in almost record breaking time? Horses with this action can be fast, super fast, but simply cannot maintain it. Very similar to a racing quarter horse.

Henwood races tomorrow in Race 6 Flemington.
Looks to be favourite.

Kinz Funky Monkey ran 3rd at Del Mar.
Backed it eachway on the tote, as Betfair weren't covering the race.
Was a big step up in grade to a Stakes race against older horses, so pretty satisfied with the placing.
Will put up the video, as it comes to hand.

Henwood ran second today.
Still happy with his action and indeed the run.

So far the "stable" has had two starts for one second placing and earned $18,000 in prizemoney.
Betting action is minus 2 units.
Both Henwood and Photon Willie are showing the same length of stride and action still, so I think there's more to come.

Adding a couple more to the stable from today:
Bonne Nuit
Rain Affair

Stable of striders:
Bonne Nuit
Gregers
Henwood
Montgomery
Octavia
Photon Willie
Rain Affair
Recycle Prince