Okay Privateer, I'm curious now. I pick up the local rag on a Friday night (or racing paper or whatever), how do I tell if the horse is fit?

I know that you don't care if a horse is first up. Do we really rely on barrier trials?

Placegetter

PS. How are those four inch earrings chief suggested you get recently?

He must mean by looking at them.
A bloke calling himself Prophet on the forum at RacingandSports, reckons he can tell how fit a horse is by looking at it.

I go to the races every 2nd week, yet when I look at them, most look fit - after all they are all racehorses.

One thing that you're supposed to look for is six pack chest. Shogun Lodge is a good example - when he's fit he looks very muscular, when he's not he looks heavy.

You need a trained eye I guess to be really good at it.

If deadly serious and you consider fitness to be a prime factor you then need to track a horse from the beginning of a campaign via trackwork and barrier trials. Of course you are limited somewhat by the amount of information available but there is still plenty to occupy yourself with.

There are a few little clues (which I do not intend to share) that can be picked up by analysing trackwork times and barier trial results.

Then again, as Chief suggests, there is the "trained eye". Look for some of these when next at the races:

To begin with, look at the horse's conformation. Does he have low soles that may be prone to stone bruising? Is he a touch weak behind the saddle, lacking rounding and engaging muscles?

Look at the abdomen for signs of a heave line during respiration.

Muscular definition, especially on the crest, shoulders, loins, hindquarters, forearm and thigh.

When you see a horse sweating, don't worry if the sweat is clear.

And, no, I won't be providing night classes in equine anatomy.

Privateer

One of my first steps is to check out this site which I've made to click on some internet sites. I look around to see if the fields are worth considering. eg last Wednesday at Sandown not many good riders were on the better horses.... it's about checking the validity of the form you use to compare each horse.

http://au.geocities.com/findlg/win


Everyone is welcome to try it out. It's a bit like having your favourites on a web page. If you save this one web page, you have a lot of links at your disposal.

There's only one link which is password protected, otherwise feel free to use it anytime. You can get to this forum via the "Free Ratings" link.