. . . for fourth straight year.
http://www.jockeyclub.com/Default.asp?section=Resources&area=10&story=964
IKR - but I was not happy to see Laurel’s numbers, which were above the national average iirc.
I saw the “equivalent” article in BH a few days ago.
I always find it interesting (and if others have thoughts/ideas on why I’d love to hear them) that the fatalities per start go up as the horses age rather than down…
Good point, WMW. Something for those who think racing two year olds is horrible to think about, eh? (Disclaimer: I mean carefully racing two year olds, of course.) (As we know, it builds stronger bone & such due to remodeling after stressors.)
Why in older ones - perhaps those slight injuries that many have, that you can never get back to truly 100%, give way over time and accumulated force. Then, just simply the more starts, the more opportunities they have had to step into that funny spot on the track or other random misfortune, etc. JMO.
That and I also wonder if the shoeing angle does not have something to do with it. It takes time for them to get to that extremely long heel/long toe status - typically, the horses I’ve gotten younger have not had as extreme feet and have not had as extreme angels. I think it’s because they haven’t had as long for a farrier to reshape their feet.
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Good points. I would think, from a lay person perspective, that any micro/stress fractures would make bone stronger over time over how strong the bone was to start with Having said that, maybe where the healed bone is is actually structurally weaker? I dunno.
Good point on the feet as well. Would be interesting to see a very detailed report on not only breakdown by age but by age, which leg and what type of breakdown failure… condylar, sesamoid, etc. I know that there is thought that as the race goes on, the soft tissue structures get tired (yeah, they do, you can see it as horses come down the stretch with a shorter and often less “lofty” stride than when they started) so would also be interesting to see conjecture if the breakdown is really a “bad step” (in a hole in the track) vs just reaching a critical point in the tiring soft tissue to the point it can no longer stabilize the leg properly during the loading part of the stride.
I also wonder, and having nothing to do really with nothing, how the track vets learn to get past standing at the gate watching the horses load and feeling they’ve done their best to then have to euthanize one 60 seconds later…
