Kentucky Derby

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Mercury91

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Sadly there is a horse lying on the track motionless at the Kentucky Derby. I was all happy that the NY Times was going to have nothing to write about being nothing happened at Bady... And the NY Times was waiting to hammer Bady had anything happened I know that for a fact! This sucks!!

Here in the US our quiet little sport got hammered in 2 seperaste large full scale articles in the NY Times News Paper and Website After Rolex we got the big I told ya so article in the NY Times o I guess we are going to get hammered again tomorrow.

Sadly the horse is gone it was just anounced.. Video it looks like the horse just dropped durig the gallop all by itself. Sad very sad
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Poor horse
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Sadly Churchill Downs continue to overgrade the track for big races like this making the going like a highway, thus any weakness like in this big mare, George Washington in the Breeders Cup and serveral other good horses recently and the horses pay the ultimate price.

It may be that a simple change in this practice on dirt tracks would keep the woolves from US racings doors?
 
They are interesting dogs!!

My two are resuces so have come with their problems! But basically they are a couple of blokes! They are very competative and their motto is all or nothing and over it or through it never round it!! They have a few train wrecks when going for the same toy and I haven't found a dog toy yet (apart from a kong) that they can't destroy in short order.

They are extemely tough and though trainable do not have the desire to please as much as other herders, I have to be quite strict with them at times as they will question if they think they can get away with it.

Their energy is boundless, you can't wear them out after 28 miles trotting around beside the tractor they had 1/2 an hours sleep then were up raring to go again! They need a lot of exercise and you have to watch the heeling instinct if you ride out with them!

The darker one of the two "Digger" has real working instinct and is amazing to watch, it's like a scene out of the matrix when he avoids a kick from the horses, who think its quite funny to play with the dogs! They are appaloosas and have a warped sense of humour. The down side is you can not ever hit the little B*ggers as they are too fast!

They have a bit of a Husky like attitude and don't find people very interesting and will often snub someone trying to gain their attention. They like to be with you but are not realy cuddlers! One of mine I have to make, I tell him I work to earn his keep so the least he can do is put up with the odd cuddle!!!

They guard a bit too particularly the house and especially the car, I don't need a car alarm. They can also make a lot of noise.

Basically they need an active experienced home but they are very intelligent and rewarding dogs, I love them attitude
and all!!!
Here are a few more piccs 1 watching the new foal! and the others on a walk the other day.
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Oh beautiful pics! thanks for sharing!. Brings back so many memories of growing up. Our family had two blue heelers Taco and Levi. I agree with most of everything you say about them, but I will say that each one had a very different personality .
 
Yes these two are fairly different too, but it's difficult to say what they would have been like had they not been sold to unsuitable homes as puppies, but they have a good life now warts and all!!

I take it you will be watching big brown in the Preakness on the 17th!
 
GW did not break down at CD. The filly was not prepped right - you can't go from High School Football to the superbowl and that is what they did - she was rubber legged at the end.
 
I Didn't say he did but GW, Babaro and more recently Chelokee trained by Babaro’s trainer Michael Matz (sustaining an injury to his right front leg Friday at Churchill Downs. Similar to Barbaro's) all broke down on dirt tracks graded for speed at big events.

Larry Jones trainer of Eight Bells is not a two bit trainer and she had a similar preparation to his Kentucky Oaks WINNER Proud Spell so you can’t blame it on that! Whatever it is that is causing these weaknesses be it breeding or training, these graded dirt tracks are more inclined to find weaknesses and produce horrific outcomes than other surfaces.

There is a growing body leaning towards their replacement with synthetic alternative, Prairie Meadows was ordered by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission to study synthetic surfaces and report back in August. Early results show that whilst synthetic surfaces are not as easy to maintain as manufacturers claim, but injuries have dropped at every track where they have been installed.

The California Horse Racing Board in 2006 mandated that its major thoroughbred tracks go to a synthetic surface by the end of this year, a response to 272 fatal breakdowns in the state in 2005.

All this points towards the severity of dirt tracks and more so when they are graded for speed.

The sad thing for US breeding I feel is saving these horses for stud duty, save them because they are racing hero’s but don’t breed from them as it is likely a weakness that could be genetic that caused their injury in the first place!

We have plenty of horses in the UK that go from kindergarten kick abouts to Major league without this kind of tragedy! But we have no dirt tracks, mainly grass.
 
Also IMO the fact that in many states in the US they run on a variety of drugs can't help...

I was esp. saddened by the fatal breakdown of Eight Belles, as I used to work with her dam Away and also Away's dam Be A Prospector and later I used to watch Unbridled's Song at play in his paddock from my office window.
 
I actually worked for Michael and Chelokee's injury where not similar to Barbaro's - he had a dislocated ankle, which he had surgery on yesterday and is expected to stand next year.

Larry is a great trainer, unfortunately Rick Porter makes all the calls - I know we have had his horses too. Comparing the prep for PS in the Oaks and EB in the Derby are like comparing apples and oranges - I think her break down was 100% due to the fact she had not prepped against the boys (compare the top fillies who have to those who have not - WC and GR won, RTR and EB were never the same). She pushed herself beyond her physical limits as she did not want to loose - a proper prep, could have avoided that.

Poly showed great results at turfway but they have struggled to replicate the drastic cut in injuries anywhere else - at Saratoga we only lost two horses last summer, considering we had 3000 horses there, you can not really say dirt is that bad.
 
I hear what you are saying and I agree that improper preparation can have an effect but there must be a weakness there for this type of catastrophic injury to happen to just some, pull up lame yes but shatter bones?

Running on bute as allowed in certain states is unlikely to hide serious unsoundness for racing, but it does allow those with small weaknesses to prevail and enter the breeding shed at a higher level than they warrant, when aches and pains might have stopped them winning and Lasix allows bleeders through but these injuries we are seeing must be down to something more than training and mild drugs.

Perhaps research into stud diets would tell more about bone density and resilience problems after all there is a lot of pressure on breeders to present a yearling at the sales top heavy and looking like a 3 yo, they then have to quite quickly turn that around to serious athletic training?

Whilst we see injury in the UK and sometimes at a high level, we don’t often see this kind of injury even over jumps, but then our grass tracks are largely very different to the tight tracks you have and of course we have a variety of right and left hand tracks largely with long straights and open or even no bends.

What I have the biggest problem with, is that whilst it is admirable to save these horses is it ethical to then breed from them? Saving them for stud purposes to me is short sighted and really could be very detrimental to the breed for the future. Babaro in particular would have been well supported at stud had he survived and this would really then have been on the grounds of one performance and some sympathy too I suspect.

I have always avoided breeding from horses retired to stud unsound as I figure that the odds are already stacked against you as a breeder and why tip the scales even further by using a horse that had a weakness that could be inheritable.

I am not totally against dirt tracks I just wish they would reconsider the need for overngrading a track in favour of speed, when leaving a little more surface might result in slower fractions and race times but lessen the likelihood of these injuries, which damage the reputation of the racing industry as well as the horses themselves.

Nor do I think that synthetic tracks are the answer totally, until they sort out the bias on seen some tracks, Though I am looking forward to the BC on a synthetic track as us Brits might just give you a bit of a pasting on that surface! I suspect the answer lies in the study of track conditions to find the optimum depth of surface in combination with synthetic tracks and a good hard look at nutrition and breeding practices.

I the UK particularly in Jump Racing we have been quite proactive in researching injuries in running and training and it allows us to get ahead of the anti’s particularly when post mortems and research show no one particular cause. Perhaps an industry effort like this might help you in the US?
 
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