Shadow Play went his first training mile of 2009 today, since the weather forecast sounds bad for tomorrow, at his home farm track in Winsloe, PEI.

Rather than trying a free legged mile for the first time, I thought he might relax more with the hopples on and he was great, although he did take a pretty snug hold going in 2:40 (imagine how we used to train them in 3:00 years ago and nowadays we can hardly hold them to 2:45 - is it breeding or progress or faster watches?).

I did let his hopples out 1 inch so they are now at 58 1/2" - not much but consider that he wore a 54" hopple as a 2 year old and would not gait up and would make breaks without them that tight. They were 57 1/2" last year after he had to learn to pace all over again the first couple of times I trained him. I will try going free legged with him next week. He seems very strong and raring to go.