2nd Update Nov 23

Hill Fire, or Blaze as Tyler likes to call him, is seemingly a natural. Since becoming a gelding, he is less feisty and more focused (as much as a 1 year old can be). He is currently on a growth and protein diet, which has given him lots of energy to the point that he doesn’t know when to stop. The challenge is converting Hill Fire’s strength and endurance into speed and resilience before the upcoming racing season.

The current focus is to keep him in trotting stride. So far he has not broken stride which is great for a 1 year old. Tyler said he has tremendous power when he asks him to move, which should be good for that home stretch push. The “old timers” say that a 1-2 year old trotter should have 200 trotting miles in before they train hard, or about 3-4 months. The goal will be to keep him jogging until the 3rd week of December. At that time we will put a timer on him and hope to get about 3 minute 20 second miles. This will be our starting point and every week Hill Fire will need to cut about 3-4 seconds off his mile to be ready in July to qualify for the larger purses. This was the same plan Tyler used last year to bring our other trotter, All About Faith, down to qualifying speeds.

Off the track, Blaze acts like a big goofy toddler. Similar to humans, the parents have to keep an eye out to make sure he doesn’t do something silly that could hurt him. As shown in the picture, he figured out a way to get his head between the bars in the barn so we had to tie them together so he wouldn’t get his head stuck when someone wasn’t there. We also gave him a ball to play with to keep him entertained throughout the day. Hill Fire has so much energy that Tyler is considering switching up feeds or jogging him twice a day to help release some energy. Right now he is acting like a toddler with a sugar high.