The Inside View:  A Look at "Breezing" 

Breezes, or workouts, are tools used by trainers to condition horses to prepare them for racing and also to evaluate horses in terms of their readiness for an upcoming race. Typically a Thoroughbred, when in training, will go to the racetrack every morning.  Usually they’ll gallop various distances.  This keeps their fitness levels high, similar to any other athlete jogging or running on a daily basis.  When a horse reaches a certain level of fitness it will be ready to breeze.

A breeze, different than a gallop, is when a horse runs a certain distance as fast as possible as if it were running in a race.  Breezes are usually timed and are evaluated by the trainer in terms of time, horse’s movement, and stamina.

Horses don’t start out in condition to compete in a race.  They must be trained up to fitness.  No different than an athlete preparing to participate in an upcoming season, they can’t just show up and play.  They need to train their bodies for strength, stamina, and speed.  It’s no different for a Thoroughbred entering training from a two-year-old sale or returning from rehabilitation on a farm.  They’re usually sound but not in the shape necessary for the rigors of an actual race.  The trainer will begin by having the horse gallop daily to the point where it can go a certain distance, perhaps two miles, without getting tired.  Once it reaches a certain level it can be asked to breeze.  The art of training a racehorse is a personal thing and every trainer has his own approach and philosophy on how to condition a horse.  Additionally, every horse is a unique individual and needs to be trained in a manner that fits it.  Some trainers may begin by breezing a horse 1/8 of a mile, some ¼ mile, others 3/8, etc.  What’s important is that when the horse breezes that it does it the right way.  It needs to respond when the rider asks it, it needs to cover ground easily and efficiently, it needs to finish well, and it needs to do it in a reasonable time.  Assuming the trainer begins by breezing the horse 3/8s, during its first breeze it may get tired after ¼.  That’s somewhat to be expected.  The expectation is that the horse will improve during its next breeze and progress.  Typically trainers will space breezes from 5 to 7 days apart.  Once the horse can cover the distance without getting tired the trainer will stretch the horse out another furlong and begin the process all over again.  Again, every trainer is different and some will be satisfied having a horse successfully breeze 4 furlongs.  Others will continue to 5 and 6 furlongs and beyond.

Other aspect of breezing, especially in young inexperienced horses, is having them work alone or in company.  Working alone a horse can concentrate on running hard and covering ground efficiently.  But for horses that have never raced before learning how to react around other horses, all running as hard as they can, is a different thing altogether.  When working a horse in company the horse can be taught what it’s like to be pinned along the rail among a group of horses, to duck through a gap between horses, and that it’s important to finish in front of a group of horses.  Some horses when racing in a group and along the rail won’t like it and will instinctively back out.  That’s the last thing you’d want to happen during a race so the horse needs to be taught stay in there and not freak out.  Horses don’t necessarily understand these things and it’s all part of the training process. 

Typically, when a horse breezes at a track where there is active racing there will be a group of track clockers present who will formally time the work and it will be published.  For instance you may see in any day’s Daily Racing Form that as many as 80 horses breezed 4 furlongs at Belmont Park.  They’ll be timed and ranked according to their time.  At training centers or racetracks where there is no active training, such as Delaware Park during the winter, etc, trainers can still breeze their horses but there are no clockers on hand to record the results.  The trainers are on the honor system to record and report the workouts.  Because these results sometimes are reported well after the fact, these are considered unpublished works.

Another aspect of breezes, or workouts, is if the work was done from the gate.  Normally, a horse does not work from the gate.  Instead it will gallop up to a certain point, such as the 3/8s pole, and then accelerate to the desired pace and continue to the finish line.  It’s between those poles that the horse is timed.  A gate drill is done beginning with the horse standing in the starting gate and is noted in the published results with a “g”.  The thing to bear in mind when looking at the time is that the horse started from a standstill so, if the time is a bit slower than usual, then that needs to be taken into consideration.

 Another variable is if the horse worked around the dogs.  Dogs are nothing more than traffic cones spread around the track in order to keep horses from running over the section of track inside those dogs.  This is usually done on a turf course to keep horses off the rail area to protect the course, sometimes after rain.  A work around the dogs is notated with a “d” and the key here is that the trip around the dogs is much wider than a trip around the rail and the time may be slower than usual.  It’s no different than a horse racing on the rail versus in the 4 path in a race.

There are many different things to consider when watching a horse breeze and when studying the breeze results in the Racing Form.  Most trainers will tell you to concentrate much less on the times and more on the spacing between the works and the consistency.  Seeing a horse that breezes like clockwork every 5 days is much better than a horse that has scattered gaps.  The latter would raise a red flag that the horse may have health issues preventing it from working on a regular basis.  It’s also important to learn each individual trainer’s approach and how he or she normally works horses.  As long as a horse works in a pattern that’s typical to that trainer’s customary schedule then indications are good.  If you know a trainer normally works his horses every 5 days but you see one of his horses that works every 8 days it would raise the question as to why.

When you’re an owner of a horse, especially a young two-year-old, the excitement of watching your horse breeze helps to build anticipation as you anxiously await your horse’s debut.  It gives you a taste of the horse racing without actually being in a race.  Kind of like an appetizer before a nice dinner.  It’s a tremendously rewarding experience to attend your horse’s breeze in the morning and to be present during its development.  The trap that’s easy to fall in to is to get caught up in the final time.  Instead of asking how fast it went the more important question is how it went.  Did it go in company?  Did it do it the right way?  How did it gallop out, etc.  Once a person gets used to the nuances of the workout they’ll be in a much better position, not only to evaluate the progress of their horse approaching a race, but also in handicapping races, especially maiden races where many horses are first-time starters.