It’s just so eerie that both Barbaro and Pramedya, have the same owners, false started, and broke down on Preakness day. Even though the vet checks over the horse before it gets reloaded, you really just don’t know if something happened to compromise the horse’s health when the horse broke through the gate. The Equine Injury Database does a good job of tracking fatalities, but they certainly could track more variables. IF false starting does increase the chance of a breakdown, I think we could improve safety by automatically scratching a horse that false starts. I would personally want my horse scratched if it broke through the gate.
I’ve wondered this also.
Ruffian didn’t ‘break through the gate/false start,’ but she did bang into it, IIRC.
I won’t lie and say I never even pondered it but I just can’t think of any reason why it would lead to increased injury. It’s not like breaking through a brick wall so there really isn’t any trauma involved. I have taken horses to the gate to school on occasion where I had the horse hand flop and pull up after they crossed the gap so we could load them back in the gate and do it again. None of them broke down so there isn’t anything inherently dangerous about pulling up shortly afterwards in my opinion. Just bad luck I guess but it is weird and eerie. I feel for them all.
It’s not a false start issue. It’s a breeding and training issue. If racing were like it was in the decades before Ruffian’s death and the ensuing deaths on the track, we’d not have all these deaths we have now. Now it’s just a business not a sport.
The British, aside from steeplechasing:eek:, run a lot on grass and horses last longer on the track without injuries and/or deaths.
I agree that the coincidence (not just in this case but also others) seems strong. I wish that someone was keeping stats on how much more likely a horse is to come to grief if it broke through the gate before the race started.
I also would want to have my horse automatically scratched if it ever broke through a gate and I suspect that many other owners would too.
Invinoveritas, Pramedya broke her leg on the turf.
I don’t see the point of making claims like that, when the benefit you are alleging isn’t even there.
[QUOTE=invinoveritas;8673879]
It’s not a false start issue. It’s a breeding and training issue. If racing were like it was in the decades before Ruffian’s death and the ensuing deaths on the track, we’d not have all these deaths we have now. Now it’s just a business not a sport.
The British, aside from steeplechasing:eek:, run a lot on grass and horses last longer on the track without injuries and/or deaths.[/QUOTE]
What a foolish thing to say.
Causality or coincidence, it would seem very reasonable for jurisdictions to allow a trainer to make a late scratch after any pre-race incident that warrants veterinary examination of the horse, even if the veterinarian finds the horse fit to race.
I can’t imagine how one would/could abuse that type of rule change. It’s not like bettors are thrilled to see a horse they played flip over in the paddock or break through the gate, either.
[QUOTE=Texarkana;8673939]
Causality or coincidence, it would seem very reasonable for jurisdictions to allow a trainer to make a late scratch after any pre-race incident that warrants veterinary examination of the horse, even if the veterinarian finds the horse fit to race.
I can’t imagine how one would/could abuse that type of rule change. It’s not like bettors are thrilled to see a horse they played flip over in the paddock or break through the gate, either.[/QUOTE]
The mechanism to gather information is already in place - the Equine Injury Database. They just need to track more variables, IMHO. If it comes to show that false starts have no effect on the breakdown statistics, then everyone can quit worrying about it. If it comes to show that horses who false start break down at a significantly higher rate, then implement a scratch policy.
Same with frequency of starts, and track conditions. I would like to see those things tracked. And dare anyone suggest it? Track by owner and trainer.
