Replies

~sigh~

I was rather luke warm about even watching this race, but I did. I’m a long time horse owner, but not necessarily a racing aficionado. In past year I was able to get excited for the Triple Crown races, but after the heartbreak of Barbaro, and then the recent heartbreak of Frodo Baggins in the Rolex, I had just become a little too uneasy about watching equine sport at this level, where even the strongest are tested to the max and can fail.

“What’s wrong” lately might be a lot of things. From hanging out here, a horse forum, and a farrier forum, I see that a lot of the speculation has to do with perspective and background.

The horse forum discussion focuses on age. In pleasure and show horses, responsible trainers don’t train and ride horses before two, many prefer to wait until they are 3 or 4 to ride them with any kind of intensity, older than that before they are run hard or jumped. The horse matures from the ground up, and is not fully mature till around 5. And yet these racehorses are backed and started at 1 1/2 to race at 2. They have to earn their way to the Derby with winnings as 2 year olds.

Now... just because a horse is young doesn’t mean it should be bubble wrapped and prevented from moving... good exercise, including running and playing in big wide open spaces is vital to physical development, just as it is for our own children during the growing phase. Some work under saddle during the growing phase of a horse is arguably good for them, the movement and ‘stress’ to the structure while they are still growing encourages them to grow even stronger. The debate is always about how much is too much. The powers-that-be will never raise the age these horses are raised, so the question may be moot.

Now, in the horse forum, there are several members who own and breed race horses, or at least follow it closer than I do. Some of them argue that today’s top racehorses (the stallions anyway) are actually not run enough, and are akin to hothouse flowers. They are raced selectively and carefully to chock up enough careful wins to retire them to stud, and they are not tested nearly enough before passing on their genes to the next generation. “Big Brown” may be one of these in the making. He was raced only three times before yesterday, and if he goes on to win the TC, a smart investor would say he should be bubble wrapped and retired to stud before anything bad happens and spend the rest of his days making more thoroughbreds. In earlier years, he’d have been raced, and his racing performance would be his legacy. Oh he’d have been bred, but he’d have still had a day job, and it would only be those horses who were truly strong enough to hold up for the long term who would eventually retire to stud farms. I don’t know, but I’d guess an argument could be made that if you want a strong gene pool, you’d breed not from the fastest 3 year olds, but from the racehorses who are still running sound at 6 or 7 or beyond. Yes, you’ll break down a lot of horses, which is what they used to do. It was survival of the fittest.

So the argument is a lot of relatively weak genetics is having a trickle-down effect on the thoroughbred. TBs have notoriously weak feet. Ask any farrier. Thin, weak, brittle hoof walls. But with the advent of modern farriery, these horses can be fitted with shoes that allow them to perform anyway. Is the thin brittle structure of the feet only the most obvious indication of thin and brittle bones within? I don’t know. But a horse having bad feet these days does not prevent him from racing and breeding and passing on those genes either, the way it might have in the past.

Many TBs who don’t stay on the track certainly go on to successful careers as performance horses and jumpers. There’s nothing I’ve seen that indicates the mature TB does not have good strong bones. At least the genes that excel in jumping anyway...

At the farrier forum they believe that the advent of the tow grab shoe is contributing to breakdown. That the added traction increases stress to the limb. The inevitable sliding at each footfall without them greatly reduces the stress on the limb, and that slipping and sliding also would make them run more carefully... and slower.

Track surfaces also are often discussed, that the hard fast track of Churchill Downs is harder on horses than the newer rubber tracks. I’m sure it is. Good science needs to continue to be applied to the design of the surfaces to make sure they are as safe as they can be.... But that also would tend to allow inferior horses to run sound, contributing to that hot-house flower effect.

Anyway... after thinking about it and watching a lot of discussion, those are my thoughts, in no particular order.