He never got on the plane.
Apparently, it is much more complicated than that:
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/53390/traumatized-quality-road-will-van-home
The horse loads in morning-but NOT in the afternoon. I think that it is wonderful that they are trying to be so kind and proactive about his issues. I also agree completely with the comment in the article, about the blindfold- that absolutely had potential for disaster all over it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mara
I’m just glad he had his “moment” BEFORE getting on the plane rather than in the air. That might not have ended well for him.
[QUOTE=VirginiaBred;4492176]
He never got on the plane.[/QUOTE]
Right, I knew that but my post doesn’t make that clear. At least there was good judgment used in not forcing him to load.
He’s quite banged up now, apparently, with a big laceration over one eye and a hematoma on a leg. Couple that with the upcoming cross-country van ride and no way is he starting in the Cigar Mile. He’ll be put away for the winter, allowed to mature mentally. Maybe we’ll see a different QR next year.
How do those of you who work in racing feel about the practice of “earing”???
I dunno, I think it’s very easy to look back and say that they never should have blindfolded him, or that they should have been able to get the blindfold off sooner. Like Laurie, I’ve seen many a horse go “oh, OKAY, fine” once the blindfold goes on. And once the horse came out of the front of the gate, he was spinning so fast that the handler was just trying to hold on–getting the blindfold off was a secondary priority to making sure he didn’t get loose.
I give the gatemen props for doing a very dangerous job, day in and day out, and under immense pressure to boot. I think they did the best with what they had at the time, which was a very upset and unnerved horse.
Because the horse does fine in the mornings, it’s going to be very hard to recreate the situation that sets him off. If he were mine (which, of course, he isn’t) I’d hang it up and send him to the breeding shed.
Some horses respond well to earing, some do not. It seemed that this one did start to walk forward towards loading when the gate crew had his ear, then refused again.
I do not blame ANYONE for how this horse behaved. It is the horse who did it, not a lack of trying or training from any human involved. It must have been devastating for his owners/trainer/staff for him to do that. I think that gelding may help, they just have to decide if they want a racehorse, or a sire prospect. He did not appear to be afraid, he appeared to be angry.
There are some who simply can’t be sorted out about loading into the starting gate. It is something that they MUST agree to do, and they must agree to do it under racing situations not just in training, and they must agree to load fairly quickly, if they are to race successfully. And you can’t force them to accept and agree to this, because they always have the option to do exactly what this horse did… rebel and refuse and throw a wreck. And in doing so, they get what they want… to go back to the barn without racing. I hope that someone can get into this horse’s head and change his mind about what he does and does not want to do.
I was surprised that they got the buggy whip out with him, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a gate crew do that. It used to be the automatic go-to tool for this sort of thing, but no more around here. Again, it works well with some horses, not with others. And presumabley this gate crew had some idea what they thought might work with this horse from working with him in training in the morning. Years ago, when I had a stake horse running locally, a gate crew did take a buggy whip to him once, which I felt was odd considering what he had done (simply turned away and walked in a different direction from loading, pulling the lead strap from the hand of the crewman- no kicking, rearing or leaping around). With the crewman paying more attention with the next attempt, he walked right in but was buggy whipped anyways. He broke as sharply (or perhaps more so) than he did normally, and won the race.
I’m old and my brain is mushy, but I seem to remember that horses used to be blindfolded by tucking a handtowel under the cheekpieces of the bridle. That way it could be snatched off quickly and easily and if, God forbid, the horse got away, it would come loose on it’s own. Nonetheless, I was always told that this was a last-ditch, emergency tool to use, as the risk of injury to the horse was so great.
FWIW, my take originally and after seeing the Youtube clip was that QR started to double barrel and rear almost as soon as he was asked to go to the gate. He made clear that he wasn’t going to co-operate,and I’m just thankful that no one was badly injured.
I heard a snippet from a clip that he was a large horse and the starting gates are made for 15-16hh horses.
Perhaps they could make every fourth gate ajusable to warmblood size?
Zenyatta doesn’t like the gates much either and she is very large for a racehorse.
Yes, I saw that too that QR is about 17 hands and very long and so the gate is very tight on him.
That was also an issue with Rock Hard Ten, another ginormous horse. I remember his jockey Gary Stevens saying the horse did not like the gate and was uncomfortable so they tried to load him last to shorten the time he was in there.
I do not think the horse has reasoned he can get out of racing, they don’t think like that. For whatever reason, he is afraid of going in the gate for races and obviously this experience will just heighten that.
Plus, what jockey is going to risk going into the gate with him now? Or his jockey will surely be apprehensive and QR will sense that.
This is simply an awful situation for QR’s connections and my sympathies are with them.
I’m also sort of surprised that the owners are unhappy with how he was handled- I thought the gate crew did OK. Maybe not how you or I would have handled it, but racing is a different animal then, say, hauling issues for a pleasure horse, as has been stated.
I was very, very impressed with the guys who hung onto him as he was flailing in the gate and after he came out. Thank god for that small blessing.
Hope he works through his issues and comes back next year a different animal. He’s a very nice horse and has had such rotten luck- I’m looking forward to seeing him run to his potential.
My entire reason for bring up the topic was knowing that QR had a bad time in the Travers, then had a melt-down in the gate for BC.
IN the back of my mind, all this was against the backdrop that they had plans to reel him back for the Cigar Mile, which I believed was a huge mistake.
Now that he’s banged himself up further (emotionally and otherwise) with the plane incident, it’s become a foregone conclusion for me.
I had no complaints about gate crew, etc.
Like everyone else, I do have my preferences for trainers and conditioners, some have infinite patience and smaller barns, and I guess I can indulge those opinions when I buy a racehorse and hire one. 
Hope QR gets some time off, works with a behavioralist, and comes back in 2010 to be the champion he has shown the potential to be.
QR worked horribly all week. He was so lame at the jog that his head was bobbing. I was praying that they would scratch him. He has always been bad at the gate, but he wasn’t going in the gate that day for a reason…thank God. I can’t believe that they were even running him. I’ve lost what little respect that I had for Pletcher after QR. I’m not saying that he definitely would have broke down, but I’m glad that I didn’t have to find out.
Let’s just say that I’m in the camp that believes that QR never should have left Jerkins barn. Ever since Pletcher had that positive, his numbers have been down anyway.
[QUOTE=Equilibrium;4492031]
Quite frankly, I don’t think he has anything physically wrong. He has just figured out how not to do something. He refused to go on the plane too. And I’m guessing that had to be very scary for all involved, especially if this was all taking place on the ramp up to the plane.
Anyway, a cross country van ride shall not be pleasant for the horse.
Wonder what kind of gelding QR would make? Yes, he’s too valuable, but brain surgery would go an awful long way to sort these problems.
Terri[/QUOTE]
Yep, yep, agree with all of this, and talking about it on another board I looked up his pedigree–he’s another one with serious Raise A Native inbreeding. I don’t see anything on there rare or notably known for soundness, meaning if he keeps up the Epic Hissy Fits, I think he’s got two body parts too many and that might go a ways to getting his head on straight.
I am so glad I am not the only one that saw that…that thing was limping all week! Even the guys on TVG or HRTV (cant remember which one I was watching) said the horse looked like crap. He was LAME
Wow, I think this is a bit harsh.
In hunter/jumper land this would mean that if my horse refused a jump or threw me into a jump while in a class, she’d be banned until I could prove she could jump without a problem??!!
I think everyone knows there is a lot of “armchair quarterbacking” going on as people continue to speculate about what really happened and what the horse has really been going through.
Quality Road
I am of the opinion that a horse that behaves in that fashion, demonstrated many times over, is indicating that it’s not happy about something that is being demanded of it. Yes, QR may be a spoiled brat. If a TB doesn’t want to run…and he has given ample evidence that he doesn’t…they are going to communicate that in the only way they can.
TBs are as diverse and unique as humans are. One of my favorite racers was a true warrior, had bad wheels and would be down in his stall for a couple days after each race. However, when he broke from the gate, he was on the lead and tried his damndest to win every single race he was entered in. He had problems, for sure, but was doing the best job he could, even if it meant he was going to pay the ultimate price.
Others I’ve worked with will pitch a fit going to the paddock, in the paddock, in the gate. They’re not necessarily brats: they know it will hurt to run and they don’t want to die. Too many times, nobody listened and the price they paid was death.
I’m not suggesting that I have any information about QR or can surmise about his situation, but he’s not a happy horse. Happy horses who like their jobs want to run. I have a great deal of respect for Todd and Johnny and Angel, but there is something that QR is trying to convey.
LaBonnieBon, I appreciate your perspective–and, well, that’s why I was asking. I don’t know what the guidelines are, but my understanding is this horse has a history of gate trouble, and it seems to have climaxed with the tantrum in the BC Classic gate. I’ve never seen a horse lose it quite like that, so my admittedly limited understanding made me assume there would be some sort of official consequence. In my post, I specifically said I am admittedly uninformed, but I still had formed opinions–but I also want to be educated and corrected if I’m missing something.
This entire incident aside, I’m curious what the actual rules are for when a horse gets–I think this is the term–their “gate card pulled.”
Does it vary from state to state? Track to track? Is an offending horse, in essence, banned for a period until they demonstrate to some overseeing power that they will load into the gate? What behaviors necessitate discipline, and what are the varying degrees of discpline?
I do not mean to start a hysterical, out in the stratosphere reaction but here is my take on this situation. Any horse who loads dangerously is a menace to himself, the handlers, the jockeys, the other horses and potentially any number of people in and around the track. This is not comparable to a horse refusing a jump. This is the most dangerous situation anyone can get into with a horse, imho. They are trained to the nines, fit as a fiddle (one hopes) and ready to leap into a fray of running horses at the clang of the bell. Only to be compared I suppose, to a bucking bronc coming out of the chute.
Okay, first thing is that I do not sanction the use of earing horses, ever, never. If the horse is having difficulty loading, it needs to be reschooled, period. Tonging makes me crazy and if I owned a horse that would not load (I know this may sound like armchair criticism but I will take the risk), and, if someone decided they had the right to tong my horse they better have a good set of eardrums in their head, better they had ear protection that the jet ground crews use. I groomed a big hearted mare named Alot of Mary, she did not load once because her tongue tie was too tight (not my fault, thank the trainer who just had to adjust it), she flipped her head in the gate, bashed the hell out of her mouth and of course did not run. She always loaded and started beautifully prior, so what should that tell someone?
That all being said, horses will balk, I have no problem with pushing them in the gate but applied whips, tongs, blindfolds, just plain crazy to me and shows how much we will tolerate in the name of the so-called game to push the horses in that manner.
Say what you will about Monty Roberts (and horse whispering it is not), he fashioned a blanket to protect the hips of some claustrophobic horses and saved at least one who had been labeled a rogue and banned from the tracks in Europe. I am sure many more were helped. Why are these not allowed or considered on US tracks?
As far as a horse that gets to the level of competition of Quality Road with that kind of ill behavior, and then they were “thinking” of running him if he had not been injured? What? I recall watching the Preakness with Barbaro with great dread. He was nervous and washing out in the post parade, he BROKE THROUGH THE GATE, in a Grade I race. Nearly completely unheard of and we all know how that ended. And all people can talk about is Gretchen Jackson’s “the price for love”, nonsense and how wonderful they were to spend so much to save the horse. Perhaps they should have said something about running the horse when he was saying prior to the start, “PLEASE DON"T”. They have also repeated the same breeding 4 Times, maybe they might get some nice turf horses out of it but I digress.
In short, we can do better schooling, there can be better ideas about how to get a horse through it’s fear at the gate, but it is just poor horsemanship, and judgement to just shove them in and damn the torpedoes.
It amazes me that things that I have seen tolerated in the gates at some of the graded races would have the horse sent back to the proverbial starting gate (school) at Charles Town! Now that’s a laugh!
Scared, stupid, smart, afraid of pain and for me…I have had a few who were bonified clausterphobic. They were fine until confined and flat out paniced…
I don’t think you can compare this to Barbaro’s situation. Many horses that are usually behaved in the parade and gate sometimes get silly and break through. The results are fine. Barbaro’s case was obvious nerves, but he could easily have picked it up from one of his ground people. A lot was expected of that horse from an entire nation.
This situation? My own take was the horse was more than definitely saying he doesn’t want to run. If he was noticeably lame, then shame on all of his people, the vet, and the stewards for allowing him to continue. Yes, he was angry, but when that blindfold went on, he went scared. Visibly scared. You can see it before he screams through the gate and starts flailing about.
Valuable as he may be, it’s time for a new career. As it is, I have my doubts that the van loading will go well. History of bad behavior, or not, I feel for the horse right now.
They are, or at least they were as of a few years ago. There was a mare that Monty Roberts had worked with that used one of these (a turf mare, I think, but I can’t remember her name). And I’ve seen them used a few other times as well.
