Messages

Yes, as far as I know, the owner and trainer can take the horse wherever they want to.  He's not a prisoner at the race track.  

If they have a facility or training track where they could work the horse at longer distances without anybody knowing about it,  then they can do that.  

The workouts that you see in the various Racing Forms aren't recorded by anybody at the track.   That's done by private clockers  who then report it to Equibase, Daily Racing From, Brisnet, etc..    If they aren't around, then nobody is going to know about anything the horse and trainer are doing somewhere else.

And I've always had doubts about the accuracy of workout information anyway since it's done by hand with a stopwatch.    Very high probability of human error in those times.