What do you do?

[Nick Gilmore]

With your freak late bloomers? Wait on them peaking or what? Two Socks is a freak, late bloomer. I don’t see any sense in shelving him now, but I have others that I’m questioning where to go next. Opinions and comments are welcome.

BTY, thanks much for voting for him for Asian 2 year old.

[Sara Julin]

For me personally, I don't wait. Points are important (something I have learned).
So I don't wait with late bloomers, because I feel like if I wait, then the horse will never have a chance to "catch up" to the peak horses ^^''
I treat them all fairly similar ^^''

[Ash Tarasin]

I only pause late blooming horses when it's beginning to be hard finding non-claimers for them to win. I don't think that ever happened with my stakes or freaks.

[Lily Wilkins]

I try to treat them as I normally would, but in my experience all of my Late Bloomers run like poo poo until they peak. I'm pretty frustrated with Love Me Like You Do at the moment (https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1295877) because she is still rated Late Bloomer and I suspect won't actually win a stakes race until she hits peak. I thought I might have an Oaks contender in her this year
So I might edit my tactics this season and be more conservative with my bloomers in order to avoid frustration and muddying up their records.

[Rochelle Bos]

I give them a few starts and see how they do. If they run decently (OTB/Win aka not butchering their confidence) they can keep going, otherwise they go into my Late Bloomer barn where they get a gallop every week with the Allowance and under LBs.

[Jack Christensen]

The only reason I would say race them a little lightly is because I would not want to risk getting them into bad form. I wouldn't say don't race them, but stakes late bloomers won't always perform at the same quality of a stakes peak anyway, so running them every 2 weeks until they are struggling to break a certain condition which causes their confidence to go down, just doesn't seem like the best course of action in every case.

[Ren Marston]

With your freak late bloomers? Wait on them peaking or what? Two Socks is a freak, late bloomer. I don’t see any sense in shelving him now, but I have others that I’m questioning where to go next. Opinions and comments are welcome.

BTY, thanks much for voting for him for Asian 2 year old.

off topic, but was Two Socks named after the wolf in Dances With Wolves?

[Shannon Hunt]

It wasn't so long ago that we couldn't see a horse's improvement level at all. If you had a horse labeled "stakes" or "freak", and didn't know whether it was at its best level or would get better later, would you wait and see? Or would you run? IMO the idea that a horse can get better later doesn't mean it's no good now; I see people getting gun-shy about running a bloomer sometimes, but current level is AFAIK independent of future level; a stakes bloomer isn't automatically worse than a stakes peak, that just indicates whether they'll do better later or if their best days are now. A freak is a freak, sad freaks exist but how many freaks are just straight-up not worth running, really? How many potential wins/earnings would a horse potentially miss out on by waiting? It only takes one barrier trial to restore confidence if a bad run does occur, but whether a horse will have a bad run isn't tied to its improvement comment, only trainer expectations (and subsequently race placement) + luck.

[Craig Mcgee]

There for racing so run them. If I had waited on Jeaux to peak he would have never had the career he did, as he did not peak till he became age 4.

[Andrew James]

I give them a race or two, if they aren't running well I shelf them for a bit.

Took it fairly easy with takeshi Kovacs - https://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.ph ... ID=1154679 he didn't peak till 4.

[Tammy Stawicki]

I run them and would only back off if they were not performing well. I had a mixer stakes late bloomer when a Steward's Cup at 2 and not peak/move to freak. until the beginning of his 4-year-old year.

[Stormy Peak]

I race them.

I don't see the sense in letting them just sit and not make any money at all.

I've had stakes and freaks that were late bloomers as yearlings and 2 year olds -- then --turn into Peaked stakes and freaks at the start of their 3 year old season. : (

Those same horses often earned anywhere from $50,000 on up to a several hundred thousand before peaking as a 3 yr old. If I hadn't raced them, they would have only earned money for 1 season racing as 3 year olds. Sometimes... I would go ahead and see if I could get them through a 4 year old season too...sometimes they did ok, but often they started losing their form in the 2nd half the their 4 year old season.

Stormy

[Nick Gilmore]

With your freak late bloomers? Wait on them peaking or what? Two Socks is a freak, late bloomer. I don’t see any sense in shelving him now, but I have others that I’m questioning where to go next. Opinions and comments are welcome.

BTY, thanks much for voting for him for Asian 2 year old.

off topic, but was Two Socks named after the wolf in Dances With Wolves?

Yes he was…and Cisco is named after that smart buckskin pony! I tend to name horses while watching movies and Dance With Wolves is an all time fav of mine.

[Ren Marston]

With your freak late bloomers? Wait on them peaking or what? Two Socks is a freak, late bloomer. I don’t see any sense in shelving him now, but I have others that I’m questioning where to go next. Opinions and comments are welcome.

BTY, thanks much for voting for him for Asian 2 year old.

off topic, but was Two Socks named after the wolf in Dances With Wolves?

Yes he was…and Cisco is named after that smart buckskin pony! I tend to name horses while watching movies and Dance With Wolves is an all time fav of mine.

I love that! That movie is seriously one of the best, I just watched it!

[Erin Sanderson]

I can't pick one set option, because what I choose to do depends on the horse. If it's allowance or lower and still room to mature, I'm liable to just sit them until they mature. I try the stakes and freaks out in a race or two and see if they want to run or not (both Wayward Son and War Like Me were late blooming stakes until turning 4, and both earned over $500k and got G1 wins prior to peaking). This goes for both TBs and mixers. I am much more liable to be less ambitious about race placing with late bloomers, though. Unless they're running lights out, I don't have my eye set on TC or SC races with them.