Boyd Martin's Crackerjack Euthanized at Pau

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

I usually have so much respect for Denny but after reading the comments on his Facebook page…especially his comments, not the post itself, wow. I’m kind of floored.

At this point, we have no idea what exactly caused the injury, if the weakness was likely there before the competition, caused by jumping something early on, or if Crackers just slipped and fell wrong.

Regardless, there are sometimes comments which are more appropriately made to the individual in person, rather than on social media. With a cool head. Especially when someone’s beloved horse isn’t even cold in the ground.

I guess maybe I’m a hypocrite since I’m saying this on a social media website but I think one of the bad things about social media is that it generates these kind of knee-jerk reactions which are never very helpful and are always emotionally hurtful to the people whose tragedy is being cannibalized.

Many people are very emotional right now, this was obviously a very beloved horse, not just by his connections, but all fans of the sport.

[CVPeg]

@GraceLikeRain

In this instance I found Denny’s response to be crass, cruel, and intentionally divisive. There is a place for thoughtful and tasteful reflection about the sport and specific incidents but that time is not now. My thoughts are with those who were closest to this horse and have been deeply impacted by his unexpected passing.

Which would not omit Denny, having had the sire. He also expressed why he felt it happened, and what should be done to prevent it/what hasn’t been considered previously.

[Jealoushe]

Very very sad day in sport. Regardless what happened, it’s still another death in our sport. It becomes difficult to bear so much loss, accident or not. Condolences to those who all knew and loved CJ.

[IFG]

So sorry for all of the horse’s connections. I can tell you that bones can break from a bad step. Has happened to me too. Sometimes, crappy stuff happens, and it has nothing to do with eventing.

[tabula_rashah]

Denny is 100% right. When will it be enough?

[HeyJealousy]

There is a reason why I never get on FB anymore and that reason are ridiculous and unfounded rants like Denny’s. I took a peek and immediately was so disgusted I clicked right out. No one has any way of knowing what caused this horrible situation. To point fingers and say incredibly rude, crass and downright disrespectful things about someone like Doug, who is an incredible horseman…let’s just say I didn’t have much respect for Denny prior considering all he seems to do is preach to his ignorant minions on facebook and never actually does anything for our sport, but after today not a shred of respect remains.

[lep]

I obviously am not a mind reader, but it seems like Denny was trying to say that this particular horse was being pushed past his limits. Don’t the studies back up the theory that more breakdowns occur when a horse is working past its limits (physical/fitness-wise)? Crackerjack had already had a terrible fall at Badminton. Again, no mind reader here, but maybe Denny’s point is that Crackerjack shouldn’t have been at Pau to begin with? Per his USEA record, he was eliminated at Pau last year, but I don’t recall why. Maybe Denny’s point was that Crackerjack shouldn’t have been at this level, period. Yes, some horses can compete at 4*s over and over and over again and stay safe and sound. Some not.

[Highflyer]

Last year he was clear on xc and did not pass the jog.

[halt]

@HeyJealousy

There is a reason why I never get on FB anymore and that reason are ridiculous and unfounded rants like Denny’s. I took a peek and immediately was so disgusted I clicked right out. No one has any way of knowing what caused this horrible situation. To point fingers and say incredibly rude, crass and downright disrespectful things about someone like Doug, who is an incredible horseman…let’s just say I didn’t have much respect for Denny prior considering all he seems to do is preach to his ignorant minions on facebook and never actually does anything for our sport, but after today not a shred of respect remains.

Denny has gotten quite filterless as he has aged. Great horseman, and he has actually done things for the sport, but he does deliberately stir the pot and what little admiration I had for him was gone well before today but this just seals the deal. So sad for Boyd.

[mfleming13]

I used to enjoy reading Denny’s posts and found a lot of them to be insightful. This recent post regarding CJ was extremely inflammatory and terribly insensitive. I have lost a great deal of respect for him today.

Condolences to Boyd and all of CJ’s connections. Losing a horse to such an accident is never easy.

[Jealoushe]

I just think it was a bad omen for Boyd to have his profile pic a photo of this horse mid rotational fall. Bad image for the sport and just kind of glorifying the moment.

So when a horse passes and that is the first thing you think of - it definitely doesn’t help the situation.

Denny may have been off base but all the pros running to attack him are no better. I’m seeing comments “the sport has changed deal with it”. To me, that attitude is just as bad as the one upset over another loss.

we can’t fight against each other and expect to come out with a solution to make things safer. The pros seem to get on the psycho defensive whenever there is a death in the sport. Yet you can look at results for the events this weekend and see horses being pushed at events when it is clear they don’t want to play anymore.

This tragedy today may have been a freak accident, but lots of fatalities and injuries in Eventing are not. Riders should be more focused on asking themselves if the horses are capable and ready for what they are asking, or if they are blinded by their need to be at the top, rather than attacking someone who has a different opinion then them. It is never too often to stop and think about those things, and today is another day to remind yourself.

[Lynnwood]

So sad for those involved and close to the horse.

As for Denny its hard to take his rants seriously when he deletes the comments of anyone who doesn’t jump on the band wagon with him. Censorship happens when your position is to week to intelligently defend it.

[Winding_Down]

@HeyJealousy

There is a reason why I never get on FB anymore and that reason are ridiculous and unfounded rants like Denny’s. I took a peek and immediately was so disgusted I clicked right out. No one has any way of knowing what caused this horrible situation. To point fingers and say incredibly rude, crass and downright disrespectful things about someone like Doug, who is an incredible horseman…let’s just say I didn’t have much respect for Denny prior considering all he seems to do is preach to his ignorant minions on facebook and never actually does anything for our sport, but after today not a shred of respect remains.

thank you.

[Blugal]

@Jealoushe

we can’t fight against each other and expect to come out with a solution to make things safer. The pros seem to get on the psycho defensive whenever there is a death in the sport. Yet you can look at results for the events this weekend and see horses being pushed at events when it is clear they don’t want to play anymore.

This tragedy today may have been a freak accident, but lots of fatalities and injuries in Eventing are not. Riders should be more focused on asking themselves if the horses are capable and ready for what they are asking, or if they are blinded by their need to be at the top, rather than attacking someone who has a different opinion then them. It is never too often to stop and think about those things, and today is another day to remind yourself.

Not just rider responsibility either. Why are courses like this happening? We do need to investigate, use science and data too. Not just blame riders.

[RAyers]

I have plenty of journal papers on fractures and failures in racehorses. A good data dive into the scientific research will bring up hundreds of investigator initiated studies, case reports, investigations pertaining to the association between fractures, track surfaces, age, breed, training, and so forth. At the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit IV, he presented a very through assessment entitled, “Training and the Musculoskeletal System.” There is clear associations between training and fracture rates based on not allowing the cellular regenerative aspects of the skeleton to repair damage from prior training. Therefore, fatigue fractures begin to develop at the microstructual level that can catastrophically fail in competition, especially if the footing varies in softness (as the tendon/muscle support structures get tired, they can no longer support the bone effectively).

In this case the likely changes between arena and turf combined with the loss of strength in the tendons, muscles, and ligaments during competition (why NFL player can blow an ACL just running in a straight line) was the final straw.

Face it, the FEI, USEF, and USEA are truly incapable of conducting a true root cause investigation. It will cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars (in the human world some of my investigations to bone implant/bone failure run hundreds of thousands of dollars), but I know it can be done. Nobody has the economic cajones though.

[GraceLikeRain]

@CVPeg

Which would not omit Denny, having had the sire. He also expressed why he felt it happened, and what should be done to prevent it/what hasn’t been considered previously.

Somehow I think he may have a more direct way of contacting Boyd than making a public inflammatory Facebook post. Additionally, if he felt that creating public post was the absolute only opinion available for reaching Boyd then why would he delete and block every single individual who dared to offer a different opinion?

[Groom_amp_Taxi]

Those following this thread may want to check in on @RAyers posts on the other active Pau thread. He references some of Bramlage’s work that suggests galloping across different surfaces can contribute to breakdowns in competitive situations like this (I’m paraphrasing - please correct me if I didn’t get it right).

As I was watching the tail end of the feed that I was able to catch, my (non-horsey) husband commented on the horses crossing several “sidewalks”. If Crackers had just galloped onto the arena footing… seems like his bad step probably wasn’t as random as it first seemed.

I follow Denny and will continue to follow Denny. I think he has paid his dues, developed his platform, and is entitled to preach from that platforn as he sees fit. I think his reaction in this particular situation is undoubtedly colored by his connection to the horse, and I think he is absolute in his belief that Crackerjack shouldn’t have been running at this level after the fall at Badminton. But I wonder if Crackers had been bred for the track instead of for sport and had broken down there, would Denny be condemning the sport of racing in the same way? Breakdowns do still happen there - would be interested in seeing %s of horses that break down in CCI 3* and 4* cross country vs percentage who break down in, say, blacktype races.

ETA: @RAyers posted on this thread as well while I was typing. So now my first paragraph seems like I didn’t read the previous posts.

[Winding_Down]

@Jealoushe

Denny may have been off base but all the pros running to attack him are no better. I’m seeing comments “the sport has changed deal with it”. To me, that attitude is just as bad as the one upset over another loss.

we can’t fight against each other and expect to come out with a solution to make things safer. The pros seem to get on the psycho defensive whenever there is a death in the sport. Yet you can look at results for the events this weekend and see horses being pushed at events when it is clear they don’t want to play anymore.

I don’t quite understand how pros get all psycho defensive whenever there is a death in the sport. First, I am not sure what that term means, other than being derogatory/hateful. The pros I know are deeply troubled and saddened when there is a death in the sport. On social media, they may attempt to confront someone like Denny (who in this case is accusing Boyd of being greedy and negligent), so perhaps that is what you mean? They disagree and speak up when they read something that is highly insulting to someone for whom they have great respect Is that “psycho defensive?”

What results are you talking about when you say the following: that you can look at the results for the events this weekend and see horses being pushed at events when it is clear they don’t want to play anymore. I am curious as to how you can extrapolate that conclusion from online results for events around the country. I am following the results at VA HT and I just can’t figure out how horses are being pushed etc. Most of the problems (refusals, eliminations) are with amateurs and LL riders. The FEI divisions are pretty clean.

And guess what, the sport has changed and we do need to deal with it. We can’t just continue to lament and whine about the loss of the long format. It is gone. We need to move forward. Safety studies, collecting relevant data, etc. I have shared all of that previously through links. We need to continue to deal with changes in our sport and we need to effect changes in our sport to address safety issues. I think this is productive but perhaps there are those who do not see it that way.

Back to this horrible accident. I am mourning this loss as I know how much Boyd and Susan loved that horse.

When I read about the accident, I immediately thought of Barbaro and how tragic and sad that accident was.

[00Jumper]

to eliminate risk in eventing (or dressage, or hunters, or polo, or …) would be to eliminate the sport. certainly there should be a root cause analysis, scrutiny of the venue, the footing, the horse, the rider, everything, to ensure that all necessary precautions are taken so this has a minimal chance of happening again, but the hard fact is that any time you wake up alive in the morning you’re taking a risk, and we can never eliminate the possibility of something going catastrophically wrong. doesn’t mean we shouldn’t admit there might be a problem, nor does it mean that someone needs to be at fault when something goes wrong. sometimes bad shit just happens, but before we throw our hands up and attribute something like the death of a horse to bad luck, we should take a moment to examine the circumstances surrounding the death and try to prevent something like that from happening again.

my heart breaks for Lucy, Boyd, and all of Crackers’ connections. he was a truly wonderful horse, always fun to watch, gone too soon. i’m sure if anybody involved in that horse’s life felt that this accident was imminent or predictable, they would have put the brakes on the competition entirely, but nobody has a crystal ball. i hope they can comfort one another through this, and don’t let the vitriol on the internet tear them up too much.

(Edit for grammar)

[vineyridge]

@Groom&Taxi

Those following this thread may want to check in on @RAyers posts on the other active Pau thread. He references some of Bramlage’s work that suggests galloping across different surfaces can contribute to breakdowns in competitive situations like this (I’m paraphrasing - please correct me if I didn’t get it right).

As I was watching the tail end of the feed that I was able to catch, my (non-horsey) husband commented on the horses crossing several “sidewalks”. If Crackers had just galloped onto the arena footing… seems like his bad step probably wasn’t as random as it first seemed.

I follow Denny and will continue to follow Denny. I think he has paid his dues, developed his platform, and is entitled to preach from that platforn as he sees fit. I think his reaction in this particular situation is undoubtedly colored by his connection to the horse, and I think he is absolute in his belief that Crackerjack shouldn’t have been running at this level after the fall at Badminton. But I wonder if Crackers had been bred for the track instead of for sport and had broken down there, would Denny be condemning the sport of racing in the same way? Breakdowns do still happen there - would be interested in seeing %s of horses that break down in CCI 3* and 4* cross country vs percentage who break down in, say, blacktype races.

ETA: @RAyers posted on this thread as well while I was typing. So now my first paragraph seems like I didn’t read the previous posts.

FWIW, at the former Rolex, horses have to gallop across a paved road to get to or from Head of the Lake. I’m not sure, but they may also have to gallop across another paved road to get to the left hand side of the course. Galloping across short stretches of paved and dirt roads is not uncommon in eventing. FWIW, they also do it in steeplechasing.