I watched a video this morning with Bob leading Justify and he was very off in his right hind. I hope he is well for the Preakness but more importantly hope he will be ok overall. Any word on what caused the lameness?
They are saying that he has scratches.
:lol:
@Essie - where did you hear that?
Yesterday he was sound as a bell and today he was just about nonweightbearing on that foot???
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@Palm Beach
Video on FB
I got caught up over on the other thread, but thanks.
How bizarre, dead lame on the left hind but Baffert keeps turning him in a tight circle saying “oh you better get used to this” as cameras click away and people talk and laugh. Way to treat a Debby winner!
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I don’t know why one poster laughed about this 
scratches can be very painful. And very hard to treat.
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Here’s Baffert’s story:
https://www.horseracingnation.com/ne…nor_issue_123#
The horse is lame in tight circles and doesn’t want to bear weight on the LH. Walking straight, he looks better. But scratches is an equal opportunity problem. If there’s that much pain associated with it, it won’t matter if the horse is walking straight or being circled.
I’d like to think that Baffert didn’t realize how much pain the horse had, and that’s why he kept turning him. But regardless, that video is now all over the internet.
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You’re right in that it can be painful and hard to treat. I don’t know if I’m buying it though. This horse is in peak condition and should be nutritionally sound. I would certainly expect that a horse of this caliber prone to scratches would have been washed, dried, and treated as soon as he came off the track. I hope that’s all it is.
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This is my take on the situation:
Justify is obviously lame. Bob Baffert is 100% capable of discerning lameness. But, I think in the hubbub, he mistook Jusitfy’s bad steps for balking at the cameras, hence the “you better get used to this” comment.
As for what the actual deal is, anyone’s guess is as good as mine. I think it was a terrible decision to parade a lame horse in front of the press. Although the more times I watch the video, the more I get the impression that Baffert et al. were not anticipating that level of discomfort from him when they took him out of the dirt shedrow and on to the gravel.
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I think the laughter was a “Yeah, right, scratches, that’s funny” kind of spirit. Scratches can certainly be very painful, but it seems pretty darn unlikely to become so within a matter of hours in a situation where the horse (without extensive feathering or other hair) was stalled in meticulously kept dry bedding, briefly in mud (if you can call the mix of water and carefully managed granular substrate of the track “mud”), and sound enough to win the Kentucky Derby cleanly (in more ways than one—his shining coat compared to his competitors’ was striking), properly cared for, and then stalled again.
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I didn’t say I believed it, just that that was being said.
I didn’t say believed, just that that was what they were saying.
Toe touching lame in the morning due to overnight scratches is a new one for me. I’ll take the trainers word for it…but I’m suspicious it’s something else.
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Even if it is scratches, how does Bob clear this up in time to train for the Preakness and not get a bad test? Preparation H and/or steroids will DQ the horse after his next start.
My crackpot theory is that maybe he does have chronic scratches, towards the side of cellulitis (which can get kick you in the head painful), and maybe they had to pull the effective meds in order to test clean, thus the flare up.
like I said, just a crack pot theory.
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Scratches can present oddly and quickly. I had a healthy horse who got scratches during a drought. Lack of water resulted in deeper footing in a sandy ring. He must have gotten sore heels working in the deeper sand, which must have predisposed him to infection. And he was very, very sore–eruptions and cracks across the pasterns where they bend that appeared overnight. He was quite lame within a day. I treated immediately , and he quickly recovered. (My guilt trip took longer to go away.)
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Sorry, wasn’t laughing at you, was laughing at the excuse!!
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You can use panalog/entaderm, and there are many homemade remedies that don’t contain banned substances.
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[I]The problem I see with treating Justify is they wash these horses at least 1x a day. Nothing like wetting the leg everyday to breed the scratches even further. Will make treating it difficult unless they avoid getting the infected legs wet.
Might be painful but soak it in absorbine liniment. I have always had great luck with that stuff at clearing up crud on the legs. Not sure if racetrack classifies it as a banned substance though.
To me, it looked more like a bruised hoof. He ran hard on a sealed monsooned track.
I hope they get it cleared up quickly but I am not convinced Justify will be returning to the track anytime soon if he is that lame. If it is scratches he certainly is a bit of a sissy if it wasn’t cronic and just set in. [/I]
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