Harness: Trainer explains how a horse drops seven seconds in one start

On June 30, the 4-year-old Conway Hall mare Cantkeepmiasecret made her first start in trainer Scott Betts' barn. She had last raced 20 days prior at Vernon Downs, where she finished third and trotted a 2:00 4/5 mile in rein to her conditioner and developer Angus MacDonald -- a veteran New York reinsman. In her first start for Betts, the mare -- picking up the hands of The Meadows' all-time leading driver Dave Palone -- scorched the track to win a non-winners-of-two event by 16-1/4 lengths in 1:53 4/5.

She improved seven seconds from one start to the next.

Now I have seen marked drops in time by horses through my time in this sport. Through each instance I've noticed details that I overlooked from the form that show some sort of improvement to be possible. Because our game encapsulates living creatures, we cannot say any one detail is necessarily capable of a quantifiably guaranteeing improvement. All that said, examining the whole canvas can help us to understand.

Scott Betts sits second on the training leaderboard at The Meadows with 60 wins from 200 starts, a 30-percent trainer who's off the heels of a career-best year in 2021 and is currently batting a .425 average, which bests the track's leading trainer Ron Burke. Betts started with a modest stable in 2014 that slowly grew into an operation that has now posted back-to-back 100-win years starting in 2020.

I contacted Scott Betts about this mare who dropped seven seconds and he agreed to talk with me about the acquisition and training of the 4-year-old as well as his overall operation.

Cantkeepmiasecret was purchased privately by Tim Betts from Angus MacDonald for a low five-figure amount. Betts said he liked that she fit into low classes at The Meadows and, from her replays, had a good gait with a rare tendency to break stride.

"She came to the barn and we jogged her," Betts said. "She was a little sore and we ended up doing some vet work to her. She had on five-eighths egg bars, which is a really heavy shoe pretty much made into a bar shoe. And she was hitting her knees really bad. So I put aluminum shoes on her behind and then square-toe full swedges up front. So basically, she went from having heavy shoes up front [and] hitting her knees to really light shoes that gets her to break over a little quicker and straighter to hopefully get her off her knees. And then she just jumped in with our training sets. I had her for two weeks, so I think she trained three or four times and then we put her in the bike and went a good mile in the bike. Then we dropped her in.

"I didn't know that she was going to trot [1:]53," Betts also said. "I thought she would be better with the addition of Lasix and I did vet work to her. I changed her shoes to what I thought would be better -- I actually wanted to put four aluminums on her, but I figured I'd just go full swedge. [I] put Dave [Palone] on . . . I think in her life, you could probably count on one hand the number of times a catch-driver has been on her. And I think that's a huge factor right there."

For Betts, training is an all-around approach to making sure the horse is comfortable on the track and maintaining their health. On one hand, Betts uses his horsemanship and understanding of the breed to rig a horse from its headpole to its shoes how he feels will allow the horse to perform to its best ability. On another hand, Betts collaborates frequently with vets to keep his horses sound and healthy for race day -- and if a horse does not race to expectation, he's with a vet to scope the horse's lungs for any signs of issues.

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"There is a definite negative stigma when people get horses and improve them, especially in the first start," Betts said. "But I had her for a couple of weeks. I trained her multiple times, big sets, sprinting. I don't know what she was doing or what she was wearing before we got her. We trained her and I rigged her how I thought she should be rigged and shod her how I thought she should be shod, did vet work. And away she went."

This synchronicity of proper equipment, veterinary work and training is the triad that structures modern training. Anecdotally, many of the sport's top trainers are candid about monitoring their horses' health through scoping the lungs and bloodwork, and Betts is no different. Part of his regimen -- aside from health monitoring -- is to treat any ailments his horses may be experiencing. He said, for example, that he will frequently treat his horses with dexamethasone two days before a race, which is allowed by racing jurisdictions. Dexamethasone specifically aids in lowering inflammation spurred by training or in respiration, as the medication also aids horses experiencing allergic reactions to pollens and/or any various air pollutants which would build mucous in the lungs as an immune response.

"It seems elementary to say a healthy horse is a good horse," Betts said. "I don't understand why people don't think these elite athletes don't have a workout specific to what they're doing, a meal plan, they have doctors . . . they have every single thing. I'm sure they're pulling their own blood, seeing if they need to supplement something. They don't tell anybody that, but they're doing all these things. They're just trying to be a better athlete and healthier -- going to see a chiropractor, sitting in ice tubs. It's all the same thing, but a different sport. But you're still trying to take care of the athlete so they can perform at a high level for a long time."

Betts later provided an analogy, comparing horses to people: "In your house, you wake up in the morning -- one day you're fine and the next you have a nasal drip and your nose is all stuffed up . . . nothing changed. It's just a different day. Something bloomed, and I mean it's a big thing. Breathing is a big part of the horses, obviously. I think any mucous is performance limiting. It's the equivalent of waking up and taking your over-the-counter allergy pill."

My conversation with Betts lasted around 40 minutes, and through it I gathered several pieces to solve our puzzle. For one, he reshod the mare in a way which could improve her stride, thus allowing her to carry her speed for longer. The vet work done clearly brought her to a sounder point which would allow her to race to her potential as a decently bred Conway Hall mare. Betts also mentioned that the track was playing much faster, with the winners of the two previous races both setting lifetime marks on an 84-degree high-humidity day -- all factors which would make a sound horse go quickly. Plus, being a 4-year-old mare, her performance ceiling is not established, which is a legitimate argument to make given the amount of rerigging and other changes Betts made in the 20-ish days he had her.

I talked with Scott the night Cantkeepmiasecret made her second start for his barn. She trotted another front-stepping mile to win by 5-3/4 lengths in 1:57 3/5. She won again a week later -- on July 14 -- going wire to wire to win by 4-1/4 lengths in 1:55 4/5. Betts said he did not change her loadout from her first start for his stable. When it comes to gauging improvement in a racehorse, sometimes the evidence doesn't directly read off the past performance line.