Before Smarty Jones ran off with the Preakness last Saturday, the TV crew allowed John Servis, his trainer, and Kristin Mulhall, trainer of rival Imperialism, to explain their out-of-the-ordinary training methods. Servis hadn`t breezed Smarty Jones since his Kentucky Derby victory, contrary to the usual method to make a race horse “sharp.” And Mulhall likes to gallop her horses herself and make them work their backs and hindquarters, just like she learned to do in the horse show world.
Their thoughts were a poignant example of how training horses–for any discipline–isn`t a science, it`s an art. There`s no absolutely right way, although there are certainly better ways. The question is always when to push, when to try to expand the envelope, and when to reassure, when to be happy with steady or quiet, or–and this can be the toughest–when to do nothing at all.
To make progress, some days you must ask for more, must introduce–and succeed at–one or more exercises that are more difficult than you`ve done before. You could ask for greater connection and more collection and extension. You could raise the fences and shorten the distance between them, or add angles, narrow fences or bounces. Or alternate the number of strides. Race horses can gallop longer and faster, or up a hill. The ways you can develop a horse`s strength, balance, responsiveness and confidence is just about infinite.
And the question becomes even tougher as you approach your competitive goal, as the spot on the horizon that months ago seemed so far away becomes as big as the rising sun. Do you hang on to what you`ve done and just sort of coast on in? Or do you put in one more tough school or fast work, to make the competition seem easy or to make your horse more competitive, more likely to win? Asking for more increases the chance of a last-minute injury. And what if the exercise doesn`t work and you or your horse loses confidence?
All good trainers have a system or a program that addresses these questions. They have a program that`s a way of coordinating elements like conditioning, feeding, shoeing and turn-out with the progression from one level to the next. But for great trainers, it`s not a formula. Great trainers don`t just plug every horse into the same plan. They figure out what each horse needs, what they can skip, and what they need to emphasize.
Servis recognized that Smarty Jones is not a typical race horse, that he puts so much effort into every one of his gallops that he doesn`t need sharpening with fast works. And he thought that keeping “Smarty” under wraps would increase his desire to blow his rivals away. At least last Saturday, he was right.
The real test for Servis, who`s suddenly burst into the big time, won`t be whether or not Smarty ends the 26-year Triple Crown drought. So many things could happen before and during that one race. The real test for Servis will be in the horses he trains in the next five, 10 or 20 years. Will he fall into the trap of “if it worked for Smarty Jones, it should work for everyone”? Or will he understand Smarty`s uniqueness, but have the confidence to do even more unusual things with other unusual horses?
For the next two weeks, though, his confidence will be fleeting. I`m sure he`s going to often wonder, “Is this too much or not enough?” as he gets Smarty ready to run the Belmont`s long 1
