Kyrasmom Posted May 23, 2006 Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 I'm all for medical breakthroughs and let's hear it for a semi-normal life for this colt...but really, just because we can fix, why do people think it's ok to keep breaking it?? When will the industry buy a clue? We talk about not letting pups jump because of growth plate closure until they're about a year and yet these horses are started at 2 and expected to run at warp speed with a rider. And kudos for the owners being so kind that they would have saved his life even if he had been a gelding...talk about leaving the barn door open. Talk about the need for a barf bag... Maria Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Watch Debatable Posted May 23, 2006 Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 AK dog doc wrote: The proximal cause of death for Ruffian was that she detroyed her repair on recovering from anesthesia. This is much more preventable now. Had she not done that, there would certainly still have been hurdles ahead, but foreleg fractures are significantly more manageable now than they used to beAn equine veterinary surgeon interviewed in the NY Times says, "Now, surgery to correct an injury like Ruffian had is almost routine." I was talking to a friend who pointed out that most horse injuries---talking about riding horses here, or maybe I should say non-racehorses---are tissue issues, bowed tendons and such, where recovery isn't full of risk and the horse is OK to be ridden afterwards, once everything has healed. "Correcting an injury," when they're talking about a racehorse, means saving the animal for breeding alone, since the horse will never regain normal function. In a lifetime of riding, my friend could remember hearing of just one "non-racehorse" that had suffered a fracture: a broken hip. The owner chose to have the horse---a mare---euthanized when the vet said it could never be ridden again or used for breeding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigD Posted May 23, 2006 Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 I see horse racing as just another form of abuse. Just because they seem to like to run doesn't mean they have to run them into the ground at only 3 years old. It's not the only industry, but it has one of the highest profiles. Until the money goes away (I'm secretly hoping the triple crown dry spell will help the money to go away faster) they will always run and strive to be that next winner. Why can't they start them at 3 years and retire at 6? So the general times are slower? So what! Does it make that much of a difference? Oh yeah, I guess the owners would loose more money when they have to hold on to a horse for 3/4 years before they can even start it see if it needs to go to the glue factory or not....right... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoloRiver Posted May 23, 2006 Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 My understanding -- and I am not a vet, obviously -- is that Ruffian broke her leg just above the pastern and then continued to pound what was left into the track because it took quite some time for her jockey to slow her up, vastly complicating the injury. And that had she been any other horse she would have been euthanized on the spot, but since she was Ruffian, and the event was televised live, the folks present felt compelled to treat her. In the end it was a mistake. Beyond being able to surgically correct an injury, you also have to work with the temperament of the animal being treated. I'll have to defer to AK Dog Doc on this one, obviously, but it seems like there's a difference between what is theoretically possible and what a given horse will tolerate. I think "soft" bone is just lingo -- used as a stand-in when "brittle" would be more accurate. I am convinced that there is variation among horses regarding how brittle they are and that this variation is at least in part heritable. I also agree with Denise that part of the problem is running these animals so hard, so young. This, coupled with the generally short careers of top racehorses (and therefore no way to select for bone strength that lasts), seems like a good explanation for the numbers of injuries racehorses suffer. The fact that racing careers are so short also does not allow the general public to get and remain interested in horse racing (whether one thinks this is good or bad is a matter of opinion) since the stars come and go so quickly. Back in the day a horse would campaign for years and the public could get to know him or her. The last horse I can think of who raced for more than a few years and became generally well known was Cigar. I had high hopes for Funny Cide, since he is a gelding and therefore would never retire for breeding, but he seems to have lost his early form. At least, I haven't heard anything about him recently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hector Posted May 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 Tuesday update on Barbaro's status Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hastyreply Posted May 23, 2006 Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 When I first went to work for a vet back in 1988 one of the cases he had was a yearling who'd mistepped and broken her front leg. We tried fixing it but didn't have the technology they have today. This horse was just running and playing in the field. On a horse board, an number of people have spoken of horses with fused joints. I don't think any of their injuries occured on the track. Because these surgeries were first down on racehorses - whose owners could afford the high costs- the techniques have been perfected and refined so that they are availble to people who love their horses but don't have unlimited funds to spend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PSmitty Posted May 23, 2006 Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 Melanie-Funny Cide ran in an earlier race Saturday at Pimlico. Came in third, just barely. Seems he has lost his step a bit. Thanks for this discussion, everyone. I'm learning a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK dog doc Posted May 24, 2006 Report Share Posted May 24, 2006 Okay, I can buy "soft" as lingo, although to me it seems like exactly the opposite problem. I'd agree that there certainly is some genetic input into how much bone is present and what the composition of it is (and hence the liklihood of it wanting to shatter), and I've no doubt that this feeds in to how the injuries occur and in which horses this is most likely to happen. Some of it will be circumstance, however - on softer footing, you have different kinds of injuries than on hard ones, for instance. And some of it will be luck - the limb meeting the ground in just the wrong way at just the wrong moment. It's also true that there is a difference - sometimes a BIG difference - between what is theoreticaly possible and what is do-able in a given animal. What I think we can't know is whether Ruffian broke down her repair due to her temperament or whether it was due to her anesthetic recovery (although I do think that stronger and better repair options now exist, some of which might have resisted the rigors of anesthetic recovery better than what was available in 1975). Even with the better drugs and techniques we have available to us now, horses can be unpredictable in recovery from anesthesia. I've seen fractious maniac horses who came up as sweetly as you please form anesthesia, and others who were generally calm go into a thrashing frenzy as they recovered. Yet it was worse in the past than it is now. Older equine practitioners sometimes tell it like it was a crap shoot in "the olden days" as to whether or not a horse would go nuts on recovery - no way to predict it and no way to prevent it. You just had to wait and see (and stand back so as not to get killed in the process), and the numbers that went bad were higher than now. The thing is that if you don't at least try it you're guaranteed a failure. If you try it and it doesn't work - okay, you took your shot and you at least gave the horse a chance. There are times when it's not appropriate to try it, but I honestly don't know if Ruffian was one of those or not. Maybe she had no shot from the start, or maybe she did, but it just went badly for her in the end. No question that the position of the fracture (close above a pastern) would have been a career-ender (although she might have made a different career of being a brood mare.) As to whether or not it was doomed to be a fatality from the moment the fracture occurred and that the surgery should not have been attempted - I'm not sure. I don't think there's any way to know from here. BTW, those who've pointed out that the jockey has a hope of helping by pulling the horse up before the injury gets completely pulverized are absolutely right. It's no easy job to stop 1000 pounds of full-on running T-bred, but a quick reaction from the rider increases your odds. And it's a dangerous move at times, trying to bring it down and bail off of it without getting run over (especally when you consider the relative sizes), so the jock should absolutely get credit for quick and decisive action in the face of risk to him- or herself. Oh, yeah - on well-known and long-term campaigners: John Henry - I believe the winningest T-bred in American racing history, IIRC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falcon Posted May 24, 2006 Report Share Posted May 24, 2006 In a lifetime of riding, my friend could remember hearing of just one "non-racehorse" that had suffered a fracture: a broken hip. The owner chose to have the horse---a mare---euthanized when the vet said it could never be ridden again or used for breeding.I can name two, though one I didn't know personally (a local competitor I heard about through the barn grapevine). She had a very promising eventing mare, but she tripped in a hole during a trail ride. I honestly don't remember for certain whether or not she was euthanized, though. The second was a yearling owned by a friend of mine who misstepped or something when she was out playing in a pasture with another yearling. She was not euthanized, but she'll probably never been rideable for anything more than very, very light trail rides (and definitely not breeding, though that wasn't my friend's intention anyway, she was supposed to be her next barrel-racer). Rather like what Hastyreply describes, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hector Posted May 24, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2006 There is an interesting column in the Sports section of today's Baltimore Sun. Barbaro was bred to compete. If not for the thoroughbred industry, he never would have existed. So divest yourself of the silly notion that he would have been galloping free in Montana if not for this terrible industry. Racehorses are born to run, and if everything falls right, they lead a fairly pampered existence and end up wandering the meadows of some idyllic farm between stud sessions. You should be so lucky. Weight of Barbaro's injury won't crash racing industry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nancy in AZ Posted May 24, 2006 Report Share Posted May 24, 2006 Originally posted by AK dog doc:Oh, yeah - on well-known and long-term campaigners: John Henry - I believe the winningest T-bred in American racing history, IIRC. And don't forget Sea Biscuit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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