The Answer is in the Genes
If you look at the pedigrees of Eight Belles, Barbaro, Chelokee, and other horses that have suffered these sudden catastrophic breakdowns, and then look at the pedigree of Ruffian, you will see all were heavily inbred/linebred on Native Dancer lines.
Chelokee, who suffered a leg injury the day before Eight Belles tragedy, was closely related to her, being inbred on the same Native Dancer lines. All the Kentucky Derby entrants were linebred or inbred on Native Dancer.
Native Dancer’s career was cut short by leg injuries, his descendants have shown the same fragile tendencies. (While producing brilliant racehorses, Native Dancer also has passed on soundness issues. Native Dancer himself retired early from leg injuries, although he still raced 22 times, 18 as a 2- and 3-year-old.) Native Dancer’s propensity for producing unsoundness is well documented.
Raise a Native, who was a very muscular chestnut, heavy on the front end, was an extremely brilliant but unsound racehorse who had won all four of his starts before he broke down in front with a bowed tendon and was retired to stud.
Native Dancer was endowed with the physique of a world’s-strongest-man competitor but unfortunately that imposing structure was perched on upright pasterns. Moreover, the mating with Raise You added the tied-in tendons of Case Ace’s maternal grandsire Ultimus to the conformational mix. Raise a Native’s best offspring were so brilliant, however, that the flaws hardly seemed to matter to breeders.
His career shortened by recurring ankle injuries, Mr. Prospector retired to stud in 1975 at Savin Farm near Ocala and made an immediate impact when his first crop of two-year-olds in 1978 included champion two-year-old filly It’s in the Air.
Even Big Brown, racing’s current celebrity, runs on hooves fortified with glue! He is not naturally sound. Take a look at the horses in Big Brown’s peidgree too. Bad feet isn’t the only issue in Big Brown’s genetic makeup. Horses in the last two or three generations of Big Brown’s pedigree are all lightly raced animals that eventually broke down and were retired.
Unbridled’s Song, the sire of Eight Belles, also had lower leg problems and actually retired from a stress fracture in the coffin bone (his SECOND stress fracture) after being plagued with hoof problems.
If you look at the pedigree of Ruffian, you see the same close linebreeding on Native Dancer.
Racehorses suffering catastrophic breakdowns are a far more common occurrence than most people realize, because the only ones that come to the attention of the general public, are those who have happened to break down at major events.
If you check the records here:
http://scrollsequus.blogspot.com/search/label/2008
You will probably be shocked at the number of horses that have suffered catastrophic breakdowns this year. That site also gives names and details of a multitude of horses that have broken down over the last few years. The list is not limited to 2 to 3 year olds either. Eight Belles unfortunatlly, has had plenty of company on her tragic journey from this world to the next.
Much of the problem is that racing is about speed, for that is what it takes to win. However, horses that don’t break down to the point of requiring euthanasia, but that are retired young due to problems and are in demand in breeding, continue to produce their own inherent unsoundnesses. Big Brown for example, is one I’ve read is likely to be retired after this season.
Naturally, Big Brown will be in demand as a stud because of his race record. However, he will pass on his foot problems and other genetic flaws of his bloodlines.
What is needed is selective breeding for soundness, but that would likely also mean breeding for less speed. It’s a tough situation because it pits speed, which is required to win races, against soundness which is for the betterment of the Thoroughbred breed as a whole. By balancing breeding for speed and breeding for soundness together, the ideal to strive for should be a thoroughbred that is fast, but is able to maintain natural soundness throughout most of the horse’s natural life.
Breeding only for speed, and using drugs and high tech fixes to try to compensate for soundness problems, will only result in more tragedies such as Ruffian, Eight Belles, George Washington, Barbaro, and so many more.
