Posted on 05/26/2006 8:17:39 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
If the doors of perception were ever cleansed, the major event attendant to the 2006 Preakness might make a little more sense.
Of course, if thoroughbred racing's doors of perception were ever thoroughly cleansed, the parimutuel part of the game probably would no longer exist. Only the gentried shooing flies and imbecilic bottom clockers would remain.
Instead, an industry constantly trying to tether itself to the major American sports leaderboard once again finds itself in the midst of another plow-out after the near- fatal racing injuries suffered by Kentucky Derby champion Barbaro last Saturday at Pimlico Race Course.
On Thursday, the colt was reported to be continuing his recovery on the uptick at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pa. According to chief veterinary surgeon Dean Richardson, "Barbaro is progressing nicely, has totally normal vital signs and is in excellent condition.''
Said Corinne Sweeney, executive director of the Widener Hospital at the New Bolton Center: "It was another boring day, which is all we want for him right now. Boring day upon boring day while his recovery moves forward.''
But like love and carriage, horse and marriage, racetracks and conspiracy theories are a match made in a dramatist's heaven. It was not by mere coincidence that Oliver Stone chose ominously opaque ovals as the backdrops for critical scenes in both "JFK'' and "Nixon.'' As breeding grounds for suspicion and rich-men-gone-Machiavellian, racetracks historically are Z-number-one, top of the heap.
The central pegs for conspiracy theorists studying video replay of NBC's coverage of the final moments leading to the Preakness and Barbaro's dart with death are reasonably compelling: Why didn't attending veterinarians employed by the Maryland Racing Commission make a more thorough examination of the star colt after he prematurely broke through the starting gate? And why didn't they err on the side of caution and scratch the horse?
Missing footage, fast inspection
The total elapsed time from the instant Barbaro breaks through the gate (at 1:15:42 of the NBC telecast) until he is jogged back, ostensibly examined and the race begins (at 1:17:01) is 1 minute, 19 seconds. A key live portion of that span -- when David G. Zipf, chief veterinarian for the Maryland Racing Commission, insists he examined the colt thoroughly enough to predict a safe run -- is not available on the NBC tape because the network opted to replay Barbaro breaking through the gate.
Instead, only live observers closest to the Pimlico starting gate saw what actually happened. And Zipf has told multiple reporters that all was as normal as could be under the extraordinary circumstance, noting: "I went through the stall he was in and followed him back around. Once he was gathered up [by an outrider] and turned around, the first thing I looked for was head trauma or abrasions or cuts. I then walked behind him as he trotted back to make sure, leg-wise, that there was no problem.
"I could see nothing that would insult his performance. [I] saw no problems with his head or legs. I'm certain there was nothing that would predispose to the injury that occurred in the race.
"We want people to know the circumstances so we can eliminate speculation that isn't warranted. I don't want there to be any gray areas about what we do.''
Had there been any sign of blood anywhere on Barbaro, according to thoroughbred-racing experts in Maryland and Illinois, the colt would have been scratched. Whether there was developing bruising to a front leg that might have contributed to the disaster has not been commented on by any of the principals in the saga.
But in the minutes when an injured Barbaro was being returned to the stakes barn on the Pimlico backstretch, retired Hall of Fame jockey/Preakness analyst Gary Stevens told the NBC audience: "One thing that happens so often -- if there is a front-leg injury -- perhaps he was trying to get off something on the front end and put too much stress on the back end to cause this problem. But that's all speculation.''
The amount of pressure it took Barbaro to break the starting gate also has been overstated in some quarters. Industry experts say a mere 30 pounds of force is enough to pop the barrier.
Equally speculative is the weighing of factors that could have induced Zipf to order a scratch during the brief interval between Barbaro's false start and the opening bell. While such a decision would have come across as positively Churchillian in its depth of instantaneous courage and nobility, the move also would have arbitrarily ended the annual pursuit of a Triple Crown -- the Holy springtime Grail of racetrack marketing.
A veterinarian's scratch also would have forced the refund of millions of dollars wagered on Barbaro and added to the growing image of Pimlico as a haunted and scary thoroughbred venue.
A little help for the horse
What can't be overstated is the amount of sheer luck that played into the rapid stabilization of Barbaro and his quick transport to the New Bolton Center. The colt caught an enormous break when no skin was broken despite his triple fracture. Had there been any ripped outer tissue, his chances of survival would have dropped to 10 percent, according to equine medical authorities.
Also, with the Baltimore police clearing an exit path in the congested neighborhood around Pimlico, Barbaro made the 73-mile trip to the Widener Hospital in less than 90 minutes. The trip was a reverse of the same one Barbaro had made the previous morning from the Fair Hill Training Center in nearby Elkton, Md., to Pimlico, so some have suggested the specter of a return home might have helped calm the damaged horse.
The hospital is also the only one in the mid-Atlantic region with a water pool for post-op recovery, Richardson said. That greatly assisted Barbaro in the hours after his six-hour surgery Sunday. And a huge positive, Sweeney said, has been the colt's intelligence and comprehension of events.
"Some horses fight treatment, often with fatal consequences,'' she said. "Others, like Barbaro, understand that you are trying to help them.''
''All we want,'' said Gretchen Jackson, who co-owns Barbaro with husband Roy and sits on the 24-member board that oversees the New Bolton Center, "is for him to lead a pain-free life.''
Perhaps out of the darkness, thoroughbred racing's doors of perception will be cleansed.
jodonnell@suntimes.com
Perhaps he ought to change careers from being a jockey to being a soothsayer.
The sport of kings is very strict when it comes to reproduction. AI is a "bad word" and is strictly forbidden in order to register and race horses.Stallion owners are extremely selective with bloodlines when a mare owner requests to breed. Doesn't matter how much the stud fee is, if the stallion owner doesn't see it as a potential good match, no dice.
On artificial insemination within the equine breed, a stallion mounts a mare in heat just like she was the recipient, however, the stallions, shall we say, "investment" is steered into an artificial receptacle for collection. My dad was in the industry most of his life so I got to watch and assist in many couplings. Made for an interesting childhood!
Great post. Thanks.
Thanks... I meant to say "their minds aren't any ~more~ settled and sure, but hopefully folk know what I ~meant~ to say :~D
Thanks for the insult. All I'm saying is watch the tape. I just checked the MSNBC videos and they don't have a video of the gate-crashing event online. Didn't you tape the broadcast?
I didn't insult you, I'm just trying to temper your report that it's 'obvious' since, of all the eyes watching since then you're the only one that's reported seeing this.
I don't have a tape of it, no.
Thanks for the info..I remember reading how nervous first-time stallions are first introduced to a "seasoned" mare..Boy, I wish someone had done that for ME..LOL.....IOW, I gather it's impossible for the stallion to produce semen unless he is in an excited state, and to do that he has to be on two legs..
They do also have mounting contraptions now that stallions learn to think is as good as a mare.
The only thing missing from this story is the phrase "...according to an unnamed source..."
Perhaps we could make this into a Freeper Pajamahadeen call. Ping the Horse List with a request to ask if anyone taped the broadcast. If they did, have them look at the NBC broadcast post-race replays of the gate-crashing incident and run-out and then have them report back on whether or not they see Barbaro do any three-legged gaits. If he did, then Freepers get another feather in their cap. If not, well . . I guess I'll just go mumbling off somewhere repeating "I'm losing my mind. I'm losing my mind." (My apologies if I took your post the wrong way.)
Well, I've already pinged them to this thread once, let's see, before pinging them again, if anyone chimes in that they've either got a link to footage or can report this :~D
I have seen the slo-mo replay of the gate-break run.....by the time Barbaro takes the 3rd or 4th step with the right rear, its abberant form is as evident in the very same ways that it is in the actual race slo-mo before the jockey realizes he is hurt and pulls him up.
>Not even the announcers noticed it, but if you are watching the leg, you can't miss it.<
Hogwash. The horse was moving perfectly.
If he had been staggering the way you describe, he would have been scratched immediately. No rider would have been willing to go forward on a broken down horse, putting themselves at great risk. None of the other riders would have wanted any part of sharing the racetrack with a horse ready to fall down. Nobody would have wanted any part of the liability for the resulting dead or injured riders.
No one observed anything amiss with Barbaro prior to the race.
Here's a rough translation into English.
'If folks knew what really went on in the horse racing industry only fools and rich folks with money to throw away would bet. '
If you are not familiar with the story of Alydar, you should look it up. That's the first thing that comes to mind when I read about a top race horse breaking a leg.
I know it might not be nearly as exciting but I would like to see them run in lanes with no gates:')
I've ridden since I was 6 or 7 years old, and I'm considered to have a pretty good eye for a horse being "off", and I just don't see it. Besides, you can feel it before you can see it, and no jockey in his right mind would ride into a race knowing that the horse was going unevenly.
Nor have I heard this from anyone else. Are you sure you didn't see a snippet of the post-injury film taken out of context?
I've heard about those mounting contraptions but never saw one. I could tell a few stories about how individual stallions liked everything a certain way that would keep lay people in stitches but being its a family board and I wouldn't want to get banned ... Horses are amazing and intelligent creatures and they are as individual as humans.
Danger of course was horses jostling or kicking each other before the start, or horses getting turned around facing the wrong way (Man O' War did that once.)
I'm not sure when the starting gate came into general use, but it must have been fairly recently, especially in England.
Friend of mine had a QH stallion who would not treat it as "just business" - he had to fall in love first. They usually put him and the lady of the moment in adjoining paddocks (with an access road in between) so that they could get acquainted. I'm surprised they didn't have a "perfesser" out there playing mood music on the bordello piano . . .
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