There was a bad breakdown today(Wednesday) at Hollywood in the 6th race. Wellnessfast looked like he was about to take the lead inside the 1/16th pole when he broke down. It looked bad. I haven't heard it officially but I'm sure he was euthanized.

Is it one of those "bad step" excuses ? Or was it a continuation of microscopic fractures that culminated in a catostrophic breakdown ?

Seems like the horses who drop like that are often the ones who break down or get pulled up. For instance, cross ya fingers when Austie runs for a 12,500 claiming price today.

Yes, absolutely. In general, when a horse is taking a big class drop there is a reason for it. In a high percentage of those cases, the horse has a serious physical problem and that is the reason for the class drop.

The same thing happened at GG few weeks ago. Hollendoffer drops a horse from ALW to the cheapest of the cheap claiming race (was 1 to 5) and the horse breaks his leg (race was on Turf).

I see Austie scratched.

yea you have these obvious drops that even moderate handicappers suspect that the horse may die, and you also have stride abnormalities like Kong The King, Adriano, or Sun Boat.

Not to mention the horses that lug in or out severely.


these guys need to have nuclear scans or MRIs or whatever that PROVES they don't have problems before being cleared. :mad:

take it to the next level:tro:

Who exactly pays for MRI's or Nuclear scans? The tracks? Or the owners?

I agree that it looks really bad when a horse drops and breaks down. But you have to be realistic with these scans. First off they are very expensive and secondly very few tracks have a local facility to do them anyway. Do you ahve any idea how much time it would take to nuke scan or MRI an entire card of horses? Not to mention that you have to tq them.

Out here they have the facilities for the nuclear scan at Santa Anita but not Hollywood. So if your horse is at Hollywood, you have to ship to Santa Anita.

It would cost a fortune, but I guess they could conceivably make every horse have a nuclear scan once a month or so. But even if they did this, how would they decide what constitues an injury that you are not allowed to run with? If a horse has a small chip, is he allowed to run or does the chip have to be removed?

If a horse has a small tear in his tendon, is he allowed to run?

The truth of the matter is if they were really strict, every race would be a 2-3 horse field.

Exactly. Not to mention that getting every horse in training a scan once a month would be impossible logistically.

The Colorado State doctor that Rupert uses. Didn't he testify in DC that there is a blood test, or they are researching that test, that identifies a horse with a micro injury or a horse prone to have that sort of bone injury. Hopefully that test will be reliable and cost effective.

I don't know the specifics of the research, but a seemingly likely problem with this is that the whole basis of conditioning any athlete human, equid, or otherwise for full performance, relies on some degree of overexertion to stimulate the body to heal and/or adapt at a stronger level (ie "no pain, no gain"). Therefore, "micro injury" should be anticipated in an athlete as it achieves peak form, without necessarily meaning there is an impending catastrophic or debilitating injury. The balancing act that is required here to avoid significant injury is that the athlete's rate of healing/adaptation is greater than the rate of microdamage from continued training.

Seeems to me, as opposed to dubious vague blood tests and garbage-riddled surfaces, all that's needed to decrease an excessive amount of breakdowns is to have more thorough pre-race examinations by the track vets (something that people assume already takes place, but in reality does not in many instances) and a more strict licensing procedure for trainers/assistant trainers with an emphasis on true horsemanship (as opposed to ability to read a condition book, a racing form, or medication withdrawals and guidelines). You can throw outlawing raceday medication in the mix if you want, but certainly judicious use of medication is more beneficial than harmful.

I did hear that testimony by Dr. McIllwraith. I don't anything about those procedures but they certainly sounded promising.

I think the state vets are pretty lenient with those race day exams. As long as the horse does not look lame, they will usually let the horse run. A horse could have a huge ankle or a big bowed tendon, but the vet would still let the horse run as long as the horse does not jog lame.

I believe that you are totally offbase in thinking that making it tougher to get a trainers license and a more thorough prerace exam is going to decrease breakdowns in any signifigant fashion. A trainer that has problems with moral and ethics isnt necessarily an incompetent horseman. I dont believe that the level of horsemanship is the reasons that there are breakdowns and I also dont know if there are any more breakdowns now than there were 20 years ago. And no one else does either.

The prerace checks in theory would be a greater deterrent. However there are factors in play here that would keep this from being true. First and foremost is that the vets that work for the commissions are rarely sharper than your attending vet. Simple economics dictates that a vet willing to work for what the commissions pay tends to lead you to believe that they arent the cream of the crop. Maybe they are a guy or girl that simply hasnt had a chance yet but in that case they are probably too inexperienced anyway. Not to mention they have no diagnostic tools at their disposal other than their hands and eyes. Every track that I run at now prerace checks the horses.

Where do you draw the line? it is a tough question. The fact is that horses with those obvious issues are usually not the ones that have bad breakdowns. Those kinds of horses are already protecting themselves. the scary ones and the ones that cause the bad breakdowns are the sesamoids breaking or a spiral fracture of the cannon bone, neither which is usually visable to th naked eye.

Chuck, Wouldn't all these tests somehow affect the claiming game too. Tough to drop a horse to steal a race, if everyone (or just people wired to the testing barn) knows that the horse is fine.

True, but in my opinion, nowadays a lot of new trainers don't come from traditional, horse-based backgrounds. If this is true, then perhaps the quality of horsemanship has dropped off to some degree, which minimizes ability to identify problems before they snowball. It definitely was a oversimplification on my part, but I would think its one area that if addressed could improve the situation (which as you say, may not be an actual "new" situation).

There may be regional issues here, as perhaps what was said about the newer trainers above is isolated to CA only. Quite a few trainers there have showed up, worked very briefly under an established trainer, and suddenly have a string of horses. But as you suggest, they're not necessarily the one's breaking down all the horses. At any rate, I didn't mean to construe that breakdowns would be abolished in total with either of my suggestions. Just that those areas seem more logical to start with then any sort of new, hyped technology of dubious efficacy (blood tests, synthetic surfaces).

Another regional difference perhaps. The state vets in CA are usually semi-retired, experienced in private practice, and are paid very well. Every horse is checked prior to post on raceday here, but in many instances half-heartedly. If there are a bunch of greenhorns in other jurisdictions well then that would go along again with the suggestion that there is a drop off in horsemanship (in the veterinarian's case this time, not the trainer) from previous eras.