I personally find this comment distasteful. Barbaro was not kept alive to avoid any “immediate fatality”. His owners and PennVet felt he would be able to be saved. I can only say my personal feelings after watching/reading Barbaro’s daily progress. The videos I saw of him walking didn’t show a depressed horse in pain. To me, they showed a horse feeling good about the world.
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This track was ??? Since I would suspect not SA on Monday as you mention the trainer was let back in the following year…
There are two videos, the one you linked to shot on 10/31 and a second one from 10/26. He looks uneven behind in both. To my eye, he looks worse in the one from the 26th.
Here’s the second one: https://www.xbtv.com/video/workout/m…ber-26th-2019/
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OMG!! The rider is a total asshat!!!
that poor horse, I hope he was ok.
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Not Monday at SA, correct. I didn’t realize you made a rule someone couldn’t refer to anything but Monday at SA, and as others had veered off to comments that weren’t Monday at SA, or SA any day, or Mondays, or even racing, frankly, and the post is about when someone has found it necessary to draw a line for themselves, and I shared my story. If it’s too attenuated for you, my point is that it was not a breakdown or breakdowns in general that finally impelled me to leave, it was the bearing witness to the daily indignities and suffering of people and horses and having my heart broke 20 times before noon on a regular basis. But I suspect you won’t like that explanation either.
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I saw his rads that were released. If I am ever a majority owner, I hope I have the guts to see an X-ray like that and say “Put him down now.” He would never have been anything but pasture sound if they were very, very lucky and most likely not even that. They were thinking with their hearts, I have no doubt, but there is little to no point in trying to keep a horse with a break like that alive. And of course ultimately they couldn’t.
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Ok, I saw Barbaro himself nearly every day of his treatment, as I was part of his dedicated care team. I spent more hours of my life with him during that time period than I did with my own horses.
That horse had an incredible will to live. There is no doubt in my mind almost anyone else with the means would have done the same if they knew him.
I understand everyone is going to form their own opinion from afar in these kind of highly public situations. Hell, I certainly am just as guilty. But just remember that unless you were there, you have no idea why decisions were made.
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As did I. I followed him via the internet every day for what, 8 months or so? I, to this day, don’t believe that he should have been euthanized after the fracture. He deserved a chance at life and his owners had the financial means to attempt to acquire that.
I also believe that when laminitis showed up in both front legs, the decision to euthanize was also the right one. As I said, I saw a bright, energized horse when Dr Richardson would take him out for his video excursions.
”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹@Texarkana thanks for all your hard work during that 8 months {{}} I can’t begin to imagine how heartwrenching it must have been to know euthanasia was the right decision. Right doesn’t make it any easier.
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Thanks, Where’sMyWhite. While it was a big part of my life at the time, it is not my story to share. But I do feel compelled to remind everyone in any situation that unless you were there, you do not know the full story.
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WOW, what a spoiled brat that rider was!
Thanks for correcting and updating me on eventing. Just like equine color genetics:
As soon as you learn one set of standards, they come up with something new.
Which shows your complete ignorance of the sport of eventing, where the horses start off low and slow in their early training. and are gradually progressively introduce to higher obstacle and greater speed.
Those horses enjoy the sport . I had one that was spun at the pre-CC vet check as a result of a foot landing on a rock ( yes, they do have rocks sometimes)… Sound, by the time they got back to the stable, the horse threw a tantrum,. This horse only ran when they knew another jump was next. Hated the racetrack.:lol:
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So it’s OK for eventing horses to die because they enjoy what they are doing? My bad.
I’m not going to get into it one way or the other, because I have mixed feeling about the upper levels of eventing.
But if it isn’t clear to you that it’s apples and oranges, you’re blind.
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You are right, it is apples and oranges. Horse racing is a professional sport. Eventing is a hobby.
Eventing is an Olympic sport, some may argue that it is more professional than even racing is but who cares? Nobody likes dead horses regardless of how they die and we need to do all we can to protect them.
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No, racing puts extreme stress on young horses without a ‘defined’ ramp up system, and at the very least escalates very quickly by its timeline and nature.
Eventing there are levels the horse moves up over periods of years.
They aren’t the same. They both have problems. To try and throw someone under the bus so you don’t feel alone in your spotlight is pretty poor form, and certainly looks like someone trying to divert attention from their own sport with its own skeletons.
Do as you will.
EDIT: You know, the horses don’t know what’s a professional sport and what’s a hobby, and we (collectively) are doing a piss poor job of showing any difference between the two. Step up or shut up.
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No, it doesn’t. Race horses are conditioned to race by professional horsemen. It’s in the horse’s best long term interest to get to the races as a 2 yo which is supported by statistical data and vets.
Not sure why you are so determined to pick an argument with me, I have my opinion and you have yours, but proceed if it makes you happy. Just at least try to get the facts straight.
Not picking an argument. I’m requesting you back up your statements.
What other sport has horses competing at the pinnacle by age 2-3?
If you’re going to use western Futurities, then be prepared to defend how often those horses break down - maybe not catastrophically, but career ending for sure.
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Sure. Here is the data.
http://jockeyclub.com/default.asp?section=Advocacy&area=10
And her is what Dr Bramlage says about the data. Look at the link, there is a neat diagram that he refers to. I’ll post what he says about babies.
https://www.paulickreport.com/news/ray-s-paddock/santa-anita-breakdowns-your-questions-answered/
"Aren’t horses running on undeveloped bones and joints – not just as 2-year-olds, but all horses?
Dr. Larry Bramlage: Roughly, this is a schedule of the disappearance of the growth plates. Skeletons mature from the ground up, and just because the growth plates are still there does not indicate anything related to injury. The one that’s commonly followed is the growth plate at the distal end of the radius or what horsemen mean when they say ‘Are the knees closed?’ That was shown 30 years ago in a paper by Dr. Gabel at Ohio State that it had no relation to injury. That’s because the skeletal age, or the maturity of the bones, is not the thing that causes the horse problems – it’s adaptation to training.
Most people that have some passing interest in horses think you should wait until the horse is fully mature and has no growth plates in its limbs – that would be four or five years old. The growth plates in the withers, those are going to be there until they’re 12 or 13, if that gives you an indication of the fact the growth plates aren’t all that important as far as skeletal maturity. But the people who think you should wait until the growth plates are gone before you start training, that gets proven to be wrong over and over in scientific studies. The reason is that as the horse finishes growing, he’s got the blood supply and cell population that supports growth. What’s best for the horse is to start training during that period of time and convert those support processes from growth to adaptation to training. The cells that would disappear because the skeleton is fully grown just switch jobs and start modeling the bones for the stress of training.
This all goes back to understanding that racehorses are not born with racehorse skeletons, they make them. The training is most effective when you catch the horse at the time they’re most able to respond, which is roughly the time when they’re two years old."
Maybe do a little reading up on progressive loading as well, it’s helpful to understand physical conditioning if you are going to train and compete a horse, at any level or at any age.
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What does this have to do with eventing?
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