Wow. Horrible.
Now I wonder even more how much the horse was insured for at the time. Will the owner just have to eat that loss? Or will they sue the vet?
Very sad loss, regardless.
Kind of a slap on the wrist penalty for the vetâŠhope they do sue her.
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The issue is that the horse has no value unless he can breed mares. Apparently, he couldnât. The breeding farm may actually value the horse, but they are a business, and if he is not producing, wellâŠthe Vet was someone who they clearly trusted to care for the horse, and his issues. This is simply tragic.
That is just plain ugly. All sorts of ugly. It may be all legal; but ethically neither the vet, nor the farm, nor the breeding industry as a whole look all that lovely on that. Poor horse.
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You have to wonder if it was convenient that the horse died, given he would no longer cover mares.
Once the insurance died the claim, however, it became rather inconvenient. Someoneâs taking the fall, and that is the vet.
It strikes me as really odd a vet would carry around medication nine years past expiry, concoct a mixture of vitamins easily fed to the horse, then the horse has an anaphylactic reaction and dies.
I wonder if the vet has malpractice insurance that will cover the loss of the stallion? A breeding stallion that wonât breed and cannot be collected from because: thoroughbred isnât exactly going to be a useful animal. A thoroughbred that wonât breed because maybe something showed up on the x-rays that would be really inconvenient to anyone who has bred to him isnât going to be real useful either.
A vet who takes the fall for injecting a really big boo-boo? Now that is convenient.
Caveat: I donât know the horse, the stud, the owners. Maybe the owners are salt of the earth and would have given him a pasture for the rest of his life, without ever serving another mare, I donât know. But this story is just weird.
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Slap on the wrist for the vet, whom Winstar is keeping on staff. This stinks.
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I donât have any inside info, but what you are implying doesnât add up given the circumstances.
He was standing his very first season at Winstar in Kentucky. Prior to that, he spend his first 3 seasons in New York, where his smaller first crop had a lot of success right off the bat.
Winstar wouldnât be trying to âoffâ him in the middle of his first Kentucky season when everyone spent a lot of money to get him into Kentucky. It was too soon for that.
What makes complete sense is his body and/or libido not being able to keep up with the larger book of mares he was suddenly getting in Kentucky. And there was probably a sense of desperation as it got later into the season and he wasnât getting his mares covered and none of their interventions were working. (Desperation to try other interventions, not desperation to get rid of him while there was still time to get mares pregnant)
Iâm not making excuses for them. But the odds it was deliberate disposal are pretty low.
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I do not think he was deliberately killed.
I canât find it, but I seem to remember that at a stallion showcase his feet looked awful. And now I have read that he was suffering from neck pain, which may have affected his breeding ability.
I think it was a combination of desperation and greed in equal parts. I know, I know it is all about the money, not about the horse. But I find it sickening.
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Iâm not even quick to say âgreed.â More like ânecessity.â Him being unable to perform hurts mare owners just as much or more than the stallion owner.
These arenât pets; these foals are peoplesâ entire livelihoods. You only get a few chances a year to get a mare pregnant. You only have so many years in a mareâs lifetime to produce foals.
It was the farmâs first year with the stallion and it sounds like his breeding issues were somewhat unexpected. It makes a lot of sense for the team to be figuratively pulling their hair out over this.
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Iâm still just thinking back to my farm visit that day and wondering how on earth everyone kept their act together under the circumstances.
I mean, obviously stuff happens around horses. But still. That had to be pretty extreme.
Nothing about what happened was convenient for anyone involved. I donât even understand how such a suggestion could be made.
As Texarkana explained, the horse was breeding his first book of Kentucky mares. Due to his success in NY, it was a larger book than he was used to covering and that led to problems. Mistakes were obviously made, but I imagine the farm thought they could ânurseâ the horse through that current (already booked) year, then reevaluate the size of his book going forward.
It hasnât been said anywhere that the stallion wouldnât have been able to cover mares in the future, just that he didnât want to at the end of that season (a not unheard of problem.) If by calling what happened âconvenientâ you were thinking of insurance, no kind of policy you can get on racehorses or stallions covers this situation.
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Saying again, I am sure he was not deliberately killed for any nefarious purpose. Something was tried, worked badly.
As was pointed out, itâs a business, lots of money on the table for both the stallion owner and the mare owners.
And from reading what happened, it seems he went down fast after the shot, so he probably did nor suffer.
As I said, I donât know any of the players and I probably read Hot Blood one too many times. I accept I am most likely waaaay off base.
But perhaps, some elements of the accident are being manipulated so that some financial investment can be salvaged, maybe through a malpractice lawsuit (when it really was just a freak accident). You canât tell me this story wouldnât have Aunt Peg peaking an interestâŠ
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I would question if it could be considered a freak accident if the vet used outdated medication. Accident, yes.
But I think the expiration dates are on the bottles for a reason.
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Good point.
Thanks for the laugh.
The facts of what happened to Laoban are publicly known. Itâs hard to manipulate an outcome for financial gain when everyone knows whatâs happening. IMO, the vetâs actions were more negligent than accidental. The vet was a farm employee. The horse was owned (mostly) by the farm. It wouldnât make sense for them to sue themselves.
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Ah, ok. I only read the two reports attached here.
Aunt Peg needs another racehorse. Just sayingâŠ.
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I agree! Aunt Peg has her own series now and the 3rd book in the series (coming out next year) brings her back to Kentucky for the September yearling sale. And horseracing. 
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