Discussion: Racehorse breeding and the future of racing
Dec 03 2007
Just a brief note after attending the Washington Thoroughbred Breeders’ Sale yesterday…
There is a good and a bad way to sell horses at auction. The variation in prices was absolutely stunning – all the way from “couldn’t get a $100 bid” to $24,000 – but it wasn’t random. The horses who brought good prices looked like they should. They were excellent weight – fat, shiny, blanketed or body clipped. A real effort had been made to make them look appealing. Whereas a lot of the horses who couldn’t get a bid or sold for under $300 looked like crap – furry, poor weight, no muscle tone. In some cases, I don’t think anyone had even given them a bath.
I walked through the barns and I saw the owners who were hustling to make sure their horses brought good prices and went to good barns. It was like a horse show – show sheen and baby oil everywhere, clippers running, tails being meticulously picked out. But there were some horses no one had even made the slightest effort with. It was sad. I am not opposed to good quality registered horse sales like these – but get off your dead ass and put some effort into making sure your horse sells well!
(At left, a very nice Tribunal colt who was presented beautifully and, unsurprisingly, brought $14,000. OK, you’re allowed to breed. You are putting effort AND thought into it. Thank you!)
One of the most stunning things to me was that it wasn’t just open mares that sold badly. Some of the mares in foal sold poorly as well! People, when you’re getting $200 for a bred, stakes-winner-producing mare, isn’t it time to re-evaluate? Or when you can’t get a $100 bid on your weanling? Hey, if you’re one of the people who sold multiple horses for $5000+ yesterday, by all means keep breeding. If you couldn’t get bids, HELLO! Stop it! Sometimes you have to accept that you’re not very good at doing something and maybe in your case it is breeding! Or maybe what you’ve bred isn’t so bad but your management, nutrition, and preparation suck. Either way, you need a new hobby.
You know what else made me sad? All of the crabby, anti-social broodmares. Is it gonna kill you people to buy a 25 pound bag of carrots here and there? Why do all of these mares HATE people? None of my friends have any broodmares that hate people (other horses, yes!). What have you DONE to them? I can see one or two crabby old bats but, man, I only found 2 really sweet ones in the bunch yesterday. (On the plus side, it’s easier to say no to the 22 year old when she snaps at your face…though I have to say, she sold OK, I’m not worried about her fate).
(I did want to take home Coffee Nudge. She was very sweet. They have my phone number if the new buyer doesn’t want her after they get the baby…)
Now, looking at the bigger picture…let’s talk a little about the future of horse racing in general. I’ve heard (feel free to elaborate if you know more) that the corporation that owns the tracks is in financial trouble. Horse racing, for whatever reason, is not doing too well. Tracks have closed and other tracks are running fewer races, getting fewer entries. (Still, it sure didn’t look like production had slowed down. 124 yearlings yesterday!) While I am not anti-racing myself, I do think there have been problems with footing that have resulted in avoidable deaths, and I am 100% flat out opposed to riding yearlings of any breed for any reason, standard practice in racing.
I do think the whole Barbaro thing has created some backlash for the racing industry and perhaps resulted in declining attendance and betting. Public breakdowns are always bad news in any horse discipline, and they do happen more often in the high-performance ones. A couple years ago in L.A., I watched a horse start to have a heart attack on the polo field. I knew he was done and it was actually a pretty fast death. There was no limping to a halt with a shattered, bloody appendage…he just crumpled and was gone. I happened to be up near the audience watching and got to hear the comments. It freaks people out no end. I’m sure they know horses die, on some level, but they don’t expect it to happen while they’re watching, and their first instinct is to believe some kind of abuse is to blame. There wasn’t – in this case it was a fit, sound teenaged gelding who toppled over just like a fit, marathon runner can with no forewarning that anything may be wrong. But people were freaked. I can only imagine how much more freaked they are witnessing a breakdown on the track. I’d hazard a guess it would scare many, many people away from attending a future race. I’m pretty realistic about the fact that horses break down in all disciplines, but I admit I watched those 124 yearlings sell and wondered which of them would be dead in a year.
Racetrack folks, did we always have as many breakdowns as we do now, or is it just that with TV and the Internet, we know about all the breakdowns now? What do you think is the main cause of breakdowns? Is it riding them too early? Poor conditioning? Not giving time off for soreness? Bad conformation to begin with? Are the new polytrack surfaces a real solution or just an attempt to look like we’re trying to fix the problem? I’m particularly interested to hear from those of you who have racehorses or work on the tracks…how do we discourage the overbreeding of low quality Thoroughbreds at the source? Is there a way to increase interest in racing anymore? Is there any way to make racing safer for the horses and reduce the breakdowns?
What do you think?
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forthefutureofthebreed said…
jumpermegs said, “If I had a dollar for every OTTB owner who gloated “his grandsire was Seattle Slew!” or “she goes back to Secretariat!”, I’d be a millionaire. I shake my head because neither of those studs produced a whole heck of a lot worth merit, ESPECIALLY when you get into the 3rd and 4th generations.”
Both of those stallions sired quite well, especially Secretariat, who became a leading broodmare sire. He was not a sire of sires, but Seattle Slew was. Seattle Slew sired among many others, A. P. Indy, who is certainly no slouch (and sire of this year’s Belmont winning filly, Rags To Riches).
Just thought I’d put in a good word for these two stallions. They were not failures as sires, as many have mistakenly said. They have their poor quality descendants like any other stallion.
December 3, 2007 7:16 PM
True, that.
Just thought I’d throw this out there… there is someone who is breeding Seabiscuit descendants… through QUARTER HORSES. *eyes rolling* … more American Warmbloods.
http://www.legendhorse.com/babybiscuitpicturepg.htm
N wrote in regard to TB George Washington: I’m actually curious to know if he was a kick ass turbo-sperm breeding horse, would heroic (Barbaro) measures been done to try and save him.
I doubt it. The reason Barbaro had even a slender chance was that the leg broke and he only put it down once after the break (I’ve seen frame by frame video of it) and clearly without putting weight on it. Part of the reason he pulled up so well was probably because it was so early in the race. It’s usually easier to stop a horse at the beginning of a race than it is when they are close to the end.
Barbaro pulled up fast, kept that leg off the ground and preserved the two main blood vessels that serve the lower leg and hoof.
In the video, you can see that even though Barbaro’s leg is clearly broken, it is still somewhat normally aligned; the hoof is still pointed in the correct direction, etc.
I haven’t seen any frame by frame of George Washington’s breakdown and really don’t need to. From the photos I’ve seen it’s clear that the leg was no longer anywhere near correctly aligned, the hoof had clearly rotated and he’d put that leg down a bunch of times before the jockey managed to pull him up.
The two main blood vessels were both torn, he was pouring out blood and it was clear even to a non-expert like me that he didn’t have a sliver of a chance to recover.
Catastrophic leg injuries in horses are often like that–you can tell in the first look whether the horse has even a tiny chance to recover or not. Even with all the advances in veterinary medicine in the last forty years, the answer with cominuted fractures of the lower legs is almost always no.
In 1969 I saw a horse that had been showing in jumper shatter a hind leg going over a tiny warm up jump (less than two feet high). I’ll never forget it. It was totally and completely clear that the only thing that could be done was put him down as quickly as possible.
It’s almost forty years later and the answer would still be exactly the same today; there would be no chance that horse would survive even if given all the heroic measures.
On the track, I’m not even sure if they wait to consult the owner(s); if the track vet, steward and trainer agree, the horse is euthanized right there and then. No one wants to make a horse hang on in agony when it clear there is no chance of recovery. No matter what the horse is worth. In that awful moment, each horse is just a living, suffering creature and the humans are desperate to stop the suffering.
First off, weanlings sold for about $100?? Wow. I work at the Jockey Club. To register a horse under the age of 1 is $200. So if they registered the horse, they’ve lost a lot of money. Not just in the registration fee, but also the stud fee and care of the mare.
In regards to accidents. They broadcast them more. Keeneland has switched to that new polytrack making it much safer for horses to run on it. It drains the water better and isn’t as hard on their tendons and such. Every track is slowly shifting into this. Tracks are closing. The one back home (I’m away at school) had to shut down due to financial reasons. They made some bad choices. I’ve been to Keeneland (near my school) and it has been packed every day I’ve gone. Attendance is actually doing well, and with the addition of simulcasting the tracks are bring more money in.
Agree that it’s a media thing that people see more breakdowns in racing than other horse sports.
Someone here said that they can’t watch racing anymore because they’re sick of seeing the broken legs etc so often. Wow, it really must be different in the US than here. In the 4 years that I worked at the track I would go to the races on average twice a week and in all that time I saw very few (in fact can’t remember any specifically) horses break legs etc and require euthanasia. When I talk about breaking down I spose in my mind I really mean bowed tendons, ruptured suspensory ligaments etc that can be recovered from. Yes sometimes horses need to be euthanised but it’s not at all common here.
One way to help discourage breeding of poor Thoroughbreds is to create a studbook like the Warmblood Regestries. Have some sort of inspection set up so that in order for a colt to stay a colt it must pass an inspection above a certain level. Not so much for regestration purposes, more for breeding purposes. Although, I believe that with how long all of this has been going on, the Jockey Club, or any other racing-associated regestry will not be highly motivitated to change.
I’ll never forget watching the match race between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure (1975). Yes, it does make you wonder why. If you’re a part of the industry, you understand that these things happen, and it’s time to look forward to another super star. It doesn’t lessen the shock and pain and sorrow for those who don’t make it, though. She was a beautiful filly and really something special.
My father’s family has been in racing since the 1900′s.
No, there are not more brake downs nowadays it is just brought to more peoples attention with the internet, tv, news papers, and the ‘bleeding hearts’. It is a horrible thing when a horse has to be put down from an injury, but when dealing with animals that are worked so hard so young it is inevitable. Just as you do not see many reining horses sound after a certain age.
Would it be great if they waited to race them until they were older? YOU BET!
Will it happen? NO. Unless they change every big purse so that the horse is say 4yrs, then you will see them being broke out as long yearlings.
It also has to do with paying attention to even the littlest soreness in the horse. One thing that may seem small at one moment can lead to a brake down in the race. So yes, it also has to do with not paying more attention to the soundness of the horse. Though you see that more often with the smaller trainers with the low money trainers, as it can quite literally mean the difference between feeding their family and not, which is one of the reasons that some horses are run when they are sore.
The thing is that racing is about making money.
If other sports were under as much public scrutiny as racing is then there would be an uproar about horses being injured for things such as reining, driving, endurance, show jumping, and eventing. Heck you wouldn’t believe what I had to deal with after the whole Le Samurai incident since I train horses for eventing and show jumping.
On the subject of them not being turned out:
Alot of times it is for their own good. They are to fit to be let in an open area to run. When a horse has that much muscle and that much conditioning they can literally go ape sh*t when in big spaces turned out. Even alot of 3day horses are not turned out, and if they are it is in a small area. My competition horses when in top shape are pretty much turned out in large outside ‘stalls’ by themselves so that they do not get injured.
Something that hasn’t been mentioned here yet, in regards to putting people off racing, is the whips. I am over the flailing whips in races here in Oz. If horses want to run, and surely many TBs do, then why whip them to the line? Jockeys here get pulled up by the tribunal if they aren’t seen to flail them enough! It looks ridiculous!
I don’t care if most of the flailing doesn’t hit the horse. We all know sometimes it does, and we all know horses who won’t even try in case they end up near the front and get a real hiding to get them into the placings. Non-horsey spectators with any sort of heart must be put off, not to mention softy horse people like me.
I noticed when in the UK that the whips are hardly used at all, and found myself relatively happy to watch racing there.
I used to ride racehorses as a youngster. I had a good boss who loved his horses, and gave them a good life, but he still raced the two year olds. (And wasn’t it fun to ride those overfed, under-balanced yearling twits when they first came back from the breaker? Talk about dangerous!)
It nearly broke my boss’s heart when a very promising two year old died of a brain haemorrhage. Maybe it was the stress of carrying too much weight in her last race, I don’t know, but she dropped dead after having some sort of fit where she bucked me off so fast and so high I nearly went into orbit. Where she lay, her feet had left scrape marks on the ground less than a foot across. I think she was dead before she hit the ground. Blood was trickling from her nose and mouth, and apart from that she was perfect. She had been so vibrant and alive only minutes before. It was so devastating, I left the industry not long after that. I was too soft, even to work for my kind boss.
Cruchberrysmom said: LOL!!! thats GREAT! if i ever move to where i can’t holler to the back of the pasture i’ll have to get a bell!
I think I want one even if I can to save me yelling lol. They now have bells by some of their XC jumps too, so that a page can call for help if a horse/rider goes down and as a warning to any other horses on the course to slow down.
I am a AFA Certified Farrier working in Lexington, KY. My biggest concern with the welfare of racehorses (that I can control) is the use of toe grabs in horse shoes.
Here is a link for those interested
http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/national-news/2007/April/25/Detrimental-effects-of-toe-grabs-outlined-to-commissioners.aspx
If not, take my word they are bad news with only tradition on their side as a benefit.
You see there are 5 stages of the stride and after the landing phase there is the slide phase, which helps dissipate the, oh, 3000lbs the limb has to deal with in a racehorse.
Toe grabs pretty much eliminate the slide phase.
And since horses (should) land heel first, a grab actually has no “digging” effect anyway. (If you really wanted a horse to have traction you would use a traction device on the heel, like jumpers and eventers do, but I’m just a dumb girl farrier)
The toe grab just acts as the handbrake you forgot to disengage with EVERY STEP THE HORSE TAKES.
Off the toe grabs soapbox now.
FHOTD,
I know breaking yearlings sounds bad, in the defense:
I would hate to have to break a 2 y.o. at the track with all that stress and horses breezing by at 40mph.
When the yearlings are backed in Oct/Nov it is with a very tiny person.
It is done just to not to have a big deal about it when the very expensive horse can have a fit about it and be big enough to win said fight with tiny person.
These horses (that I deal with are too expensive to risk fucking up)
After they are cool with the concept, it is too cold and the ground too hard, so after the middle of Dec. they aren’t bothered again until Mar/Apr.
Love your blog!
Elizabeth
As for a lot of the ‘meanness’ in TB’s, understandably not every trainer will turn out horses during the season. Horses that get down time in any discipline tend to do far better than horses who only do one thing day in day out. How much harm would it honestly for these horses to be well behaved enough that grooms could hack them out once or twice a week at a walk or take them to a teeny tiny local show for a confirmation class (I want to say halter but can’t remember the non-QH equivalent at the moment).
I do agree with certain people who are pushing to only allow trainers to stable horses at tracks for x number of days per year to make sure that horses aren’t being run 2-3 times a week 50 weeks out of the year barring injuries (Its been known to happen, especially with claimers it seems).
Emily said One way to help discourage breeding of poor Thoroughbreds is to create a studbook like the Warmblood Regestries. Have some sort of inspection set up so that in order for a colt to stay a colt it must pass an inspection above a certain level.
I believe Weatherby’s of London does this already, but I might be wrong. They do run a stud book.
Mattsontraining said Alot of times it is for their own good. They are to fit to be let in an open area to run. When a horse has that much muscle and that much conditioning they can literally go ape sh*t when in big spaces turned out. Even alot of 3day horses are not turned out, and if they are it is in a small area. My competition horses when in top shape are pretty much turned out in large outside ‘stalls’ by themselves so that they do not get injured.
I understand the logic there but at least your horses do go out, even if they don’t have space to run around at full tilt. My biggest problem with high level horses (well their trainers more so) is that many of them never receive any time at all when they aren’t being pushed through training unless they’re injured.
To everyone who says they breed for speed not confirmation: Can someone explain this to me? It seems like the best way to breed for speed is to breed for confirmation and movement.
Just a side note– I have Coffee Nudge’s brother!
Neato!!
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20071130_O_for_128.html
This was a cover story on yahoos home page.This mare is 9 and has stayed sound.That’s amazing!However she has never won a race and they are planning on breeding her? Where is the logic?
Sorry ..link didn’t work.The mares name is Dona Chepa if you want to look her up.
coffeecrisp said…
Neato!!
Just a side note– I have Coffee Nudge’s brother!
Cool! Does he have her cute face and great personality?
Pinkandwhitepony said: “To everyone who says they breed for speed not confirmation: Can someone explain this to me? It seems like the best way to breed for speed is to breed for confirmation and movement.”
A horse can have poor confOrmation that predisposes it to unsoundness but doesn’t prevent it from running fast in the short term. As we know most of the racing world only require a horse to race for a short time anyway. In other words, if a 2yo is fast but breaks down because of a predisposing conformational fault they aren’t too fussed. It’s earned them some money and can now go to stud to earn them some more maybe.
pinkandwhitepony said… “To everyone who says they breed for speed not confirmation: Can someone explain this to me? It seems like the best way to breed for speed is to breed for confirmation and movement.”
No, breeding for speed is not necessarily breeding for conformation. Sprinters, mid-distance, and distance runners all have slightly different “ideal” hind limb conformation. In particular the stifle placement.
A horse with an otherwise ideal conforamtion can have a major fault and still be fast as hell. Being over at the knee is common-ish, even in top runners. But those top runners have such perfect conformation otherwise, they can correctly compensate for the foreleg fault. Hind limb faults are less well tolerated, as are back/neck faults.
By breeding “for speed”, breeders are favoring the sprinter build. By breeding “for conformation”, breeders tend to favor the mid- or distance runner.
Aelfleah Farm said A horse with an otherwise ideal conforamtion can have a major fault and still be fast as hell. Being over at the knee is common-ish, even in top runners. But those top runners have such perfect conformation otherwise, they can correctly compensate for the foreleg fault. Hind limb faults are less well tolerated, as are back/neck faults.
By breeding “for speed”, breeders are favoring the sprinter build. By breeding “for conformation”, breeders tend to favor the mid- or distance runner.
Ok, I’ve worked with plenty of OTTB’s but we always picked up one’s with good confirmation so it seemed like odd logic. The only racing TB’s bred near me that I was aware of were the steeplechasers not that far from us when we lived in the UK and obviously they were bred to jump and run distance.
Summerhorse-what you said makes me even more amazed at my OTTB. He is 9years lod. Raced 8 times as an 8yr old, didn’t place even once, and retired sound. I paid $1.00 for him, and promissed not to race him. He has the sweetist temperment. Now that I have my pasture, he is out 24/7, is brought up daily fed and turned loose again. He is calm and quiet under saddle, and moves beautifly. He has outstanding conformation, which may have a lot to do with him remaining sound. He won just under $60,000 during his career, and though is bred as a distance horse never won at anything over 7 furlongs.
His grand sires include Nasrula, and War Admiral. He is a gelding.
Oooh… something I can actually add about racing
katie…
Keeneland has switched to that new polytrack making it much safer for horses to run on it. It drains the water better and isn’t as hard on their tendons and such. Every track is slowly shifting into this.
This is true. Arlington did. I walked on it over Memorial day. The footing is like that stuff you get with scotts turf made of paper fiber sort of thing. It is really, really nice to run on and very forgiving. There were no accidents when I was there (which is great). I like the new surface if is saves horses from injury and well-worth the money. And… when I was there, there were a TON of people there spending money so they are doing something right. Also, quite family friendly, too.
FHOtD said:
I see people ALL THE TIME take some poor horse out of a field and go on a 6 hour trail ride…
I hear you, but being in a field is better than stalled 23/7, and almost never ridden, then taken on the 6 hour ride once a month on a Saturday…
On breeding non winners.. thats one thing I don’t get either.. I checked out my mares family tree, including their winnings. She only won about 30K over 4 years, probably barely paid her own bills.
I noticed she has 4 or 5 full siblings, checked them out, and none of them has won much over 30K either. WTF?? Why keep breeding these two horses together?
Mine is a really nice mare with a great build and super disposition and I’ve read that her sire is known for producing good jumpers when they leave the track but thats certainly not the mare owners intent!
Hello, New Zealander here. I’ve been looking for it, but can’t find the story about a top NZ trainer that took a horse over to the US and was called a fool and thought an idiot as the horse was lead out to graze as much as possible, did a lot of walking and trotting and very little fast work, did not have a “pony” and was infact used to pony one of the other international horses! (The horse did well, but the trainer said he’d never go back as it’s not a horses life for the horses).
I have been at racing stables in the evening here, when a friend was picking up a horse that was too slow to race to turn into a saddle horse – the stables were empty as all the horses had been fed and turned back out in there 5-10 acre paddocks.
Even when in training a lot of the horses spend the majority of their time outside, it is wrong that they will hurt themselves – they only go nuts if they never get to play outside.
As for the temprement of the TB’s, well, if it’s got Sir Tristriam in it, it may be a bit grumpy – and the Sir Tristriam story is all that is right with the breeding industry in NZ.
In short a guy named Patrick Hogan (Now Sir Patrick) bought a horse, sight unseen from France, for his new stud – the horse arrived and a number of the syndicate owners pulled out cos he looked so crappy – Hogan made a promise to the horse that he’d never sell him and do his best by the horse, and he’s now one of the best sires ever to stand in NZ – he was always terrible to handle, but he sired great horse and has been an amazing sire’s sire and dam’s sire – he was put down age 20 something a few years after being retired from stud after breaking a shoulder in the paddock. He is buried on the grounds of Cambridge Stud).
As for what can be done with a good horse and patience check this link
tinyurl.com/38cp4y The horse was started as a 2yo (after being gelded as he was to nasty to deal with – Moroney isn’t scared of gelding colts if they have terrible attitude) but due to reccurent soreness was put back out in the paddock until 3. He placed 3rd in the Melbourne cup as a 5yo.
With approx. 600 gray mare’s in Washington in their late teens in arabdatasource, the ONLY way to know is to get her wet and find any sort of white markings- even if it’s just a small dot. I searched arab data source and found two with the name mist or myst in it, right age and no white markings:
#1). MYSTI DEZERAGE – AHR*429765
Foal Date 13 Apr 1989
Color Grey
Gender Mare
Sire DESERT FERZEYN
AHR*119258 Grey 1975
Dam MY ALIAGE
AHR*343203 Grey 1984
Dam’s Sire COMAR BAY BRUMMEL++
AHR*56049 Bay 1969
#2). MISTY SHADOWS – AHR*483393
Foal Date 20 May 1990
Color Grey
Gender Mare
Sire SH BASK SHADOW
AHR*278394 Grey 1983
Dam HA-RAH LARONDE
AHR*217815 Chestnut 1979
Dam’s Sire LA MOUETTAH
AHR*34207 Chestnut 1965
Both don’t have any offspring or show records. If you email me I’ll give the the address to the registered owners.
To clarify my earlier comment to mattsontraining (I understand the logic there but at least your horses do go out, even if they don’t have space to run around at full tilt. My biggest problem with high level horses (well their trainers more so) is that many of them never receive any time at all when they aren’t being pushed through training unless they’re injured.)
I meant to say that while I understood the logic of wanting to prevent injury to a horse the vet bills are still the same no matter how much the horse costs. True if a six figure gelding gets hurt and is forever unsound that’s a lot more loss than if he had been worth under $1000. All horses need time to play and be horses though and to recuperate from a months of training and stress. Not trying to say that anyone’s methods on here are horrible, just that all of the horse’s I’ve cared for get plenty of turnout(except the stallions of course) and don’t seem anymore prone to injuries. I knew a trainer who matched each horse with a buddy that wasn’t a horse to help prevent injuries and problems, most of them had orphaned sheep for friends or dehorned goats. Nothing will get you stranger looks than walking around up during a dressage show with a stunning Hanoverian mare in one hand and a very confused looking lamb with a rhinestone collar and leash in the other.
TB racing is literally based on screwing people out of huge sums of money. Trust me when I tell you it doesn’t take the moral high road from there.
Wanna find out if a business will be successful ? Look at how they treat their employees. If you hire nothing but illegal aliens and pay below minimum wage then the goods and services you produce will suck. They treat the horse badly of course ; but they treat the employees , and by logical extension , their clients badly as well.
For every graded stakes winner you’ll find a hundred ruined horses in it’s wake.
When I first started thirty years ago , the horses at the breeding farms were all pinfired or even linefired . The mares were caught to be vaccinated , foaled out, trimmed , teased and hobbled , twitched and raped . So – yeah – they didn’t care for people much.
Mindless brutality and scientific illiteracy still pretty much have the floor. Things have improved – some – but not all that much.
I think a lot of the negative stereotypes about TBs are overexaggerated. I have owned 4 ottbs and trained many, many more. No one was nasty. No one was even hard to just hop on and ride. All of them had perfectly fine feet, although The Noodle INSISTS on pulling off the right front shoe once a week.
I am tired of people posting to forums: OTTB canter problem or whatever. Why specify that it’s an ottb? It’s not somehow special or more difficult because it’s from the track. In fact, unlike the POS QH you bought out of a back yard because you felt sorry for it, the ottb has actually been bred to perform at something AND has been in professional handling for all of its life.
But everyone is like, “OMG it’s an OTTB, it needs 6 months of longe work and W/T under saddle before you even can THINK about cantering.”
Of course, if a person posts on the internet, “Problems with my horse’s canter”, and leaves out that it’s an ottb, then they usually get much more reasonable advice (by internet standards). People actually give riding advice rather than telling the OP to just do trail rides and decompress for 6 months.
If one more person tells me an OTTB “isn’t ready” to canter, I am going to flip out. Hello, before it met you it was galloping under tack like a precision guided missile, and you are trying to explain to me it’s not ready to CANTER? Just hop on and ride it for crying out loud.
And I also wish I had a dollar for everytime someone got excited about a 5th generation name they recognize. Yay! Your horse is related to Man O’War. So is everyone else’s. I bouoght a mare who was the daughter of Hansel (Belmont Stakes and Preakness winner) for $3,700. Off the track, the bloodlines mean NOTHING. The Noodle is the son of Holy Bull, and sold at Keeneland for $335,000. He didn’t run, and lets just say I have him now so his value depreciated immensely. So even if you are one of the 1% of people who buys a horse off the track with RECENT good bloodlines, by the time it gets to you, the bloodlines mean nothing anyway.
I don’t know why I’m so grumpy this morning. Maybe because I think ottbs are right up there with QHs for being over produced, and I’m sure they represent the second most prominent spot in the slaughter trucks, and nobody makes the situation any better when uniformed people who can’t ride for shit then completely over exaggerate how “difficult” they are to work with.
It’s because people can’t ride.
Not because of the breed.
Favorite Pet Peeve. I am just a spectator on the side lines, and I feel nothing will change for the TB racing industry, as long as money rules the roost. There is nothing wrong with affording top notch care and using the horse for a type of competition. The way it´s done is not only disrespectful to the creature, it is treating a life as a disposable commodity. Maybe there is too much money interest in this industry, too.
Little regard has ever been given to temperament and conformation issues. What wins, is bred. And sometimes winning is not even a requirement. Just Northern Dancer five Generations back. Fact is, quite a few of the stallions producing the best racers have conformational faults they pass on with great consistency. You have to look hard and read even more closely between the lines, but when I find people raving about “the best Storm Cat (insert other names here – just an example) legs I have ever seen”, I wonder and more or less shudder for the young hopefuls who didn´t get “bestest”.
Temperament – another one that is hushed up with great care. Quite a few of the World’s famous Thoroughbreds “could have or actually did hurt somebody if it wasn´t for careful handling”. You have to go over tons of material to find a note saying that, but Native Dancer absolutely wasn´t a safe horse to be around, nor Roberto. A few years ago a woman in California was killed by a rank breeding stallion, whose “issues” were known beforehand, but hey, if you were able to strap a saddle on his kids, some of them win. It should raise a flag that the most careful and knowlegdeable handling cannot control some of these animals and it raises one he.. of a question about “passing their offspring on” to the average owner.
Too young, too early, too fast – Let´s face it, being a potential race horse is no box of chocolate. Your Mum leaves you at the tender age of a few days at foal heat (about 9 days after you were born)to be bred. Because despite advancement in artificial insemination and DNA testing, your Mum still has to stand tied for a breeding live-cover according to the Jockey Club. She will be shipped around the world to get it done, and too bad if her nerves don´t take it or she doesn´t take. Dog food.
Mind you, you will be fostered onto a loving and caring “nurse mare” who is often grade and had her own newborn pulled of her at the same age as a byproduct. Your nurse mare will be returned pregnant by any stallion to suffer the same fate next year. Nobody cares that a hormone treatment could make the average mare, who has had one foal produce milk. You are too valuable and your growth spurt cannot wait. Money counts.
By the time you are 10 months to a year old, you’ll be trained to accept a rider, walk a starting gate and run if a whip cracks welds on your body and stop if the teeth are pulled out of your face. If you don´t crumble, you´ll be competing from Jan1rst of your two year old year on up. No wonder so many hopefuls break down. Muscle trains faster than bones and tendons which take years to grow and build strength. Those horses are “using” babies whose bone structure isn´t fully set or ossified yet. A horse may not be fully grown until 5 or 6 years old, by that time your racing days will be long past.
If you run well, you pack even more weight on your young body and compete harder than ever. Special shoes, treatments, medications may also make your day. You run whether it´s hard and dry or deep and muddy, putting strain on your feet. I sometimes wonder if faster sometimes doesn´t mean a loss of thick solid bones at the expense of muscle. You run, until you top out or break down, with the latter often first.
Barbaro wasn´t a single occurence. Only most of the Unfortunates never get noticed again, once the trailer has hauled them off the track or if they never even made it there. If they are very lucky they have some kind of potential as breeding stock or future riding horse, but those are few. Far more travel on with a different truck.
It´s kinda hard to estimate yearly registration numbers, but a guesstimate reaches as many as 37,500 foals newly registered in North America in 07. Of those, to have 50% runners would be a high number in my eyes (and I´d love to hear the correct number of how many horses were actually racing in 07). The rest? Hmm. Breeding, canned, riding… but let´s face it, not a fraction of thought has been given on the future of these horses for an entirely too long time. A whole industry that does it´s best to keep the “disposal facilities” going all around the world, while the money looks to produce new “Fame and Fortune” each year, and leaves the broken down, or uninteresting ones anywhere they can be put. I am sad to say, a day at the racetrack isn´t such an enticing invitation to me any more.
Good luck to all the current and future no name horses with the aspiration to become Barbaros, Nothern Dancers and Terlinguas. Heaven knows they’ll need it, because responsibility may be elsewhere.
Favorite Pet Peeve. I am just a spectator on the side lines, and I feel nothing will change for the TB racing industry, as long as money rules the roost and there is no remote interest to even give them a horse-worthy life. There is nothing wrong with affording top notch care and using the horse for a type of competition. The way it´s done is not only disrespectful to the creature, it is treating a life as a disposable commodity. Maybe there is too much money interest in this industry, too.
Little regard has ever been given to temperament and conformation issues. What wins, is bred. And sometimes winning is not even a requirement. Just Northern Dancer five Generations back. Fact is, quite a few of the stallions producing the best racers have conformational faults they pass on with great consistency. You have to look hard and read even more closely between the lines, but when I find people raving about “the best Storm Cat (insert other names here – just an example) legs I have ever seen”, I wonder and more or less shudder for the young hopefuls who didn´t get “bestest”.
Temperament – another one that is hushed up with great care. Quite a few of the World’s famous Thoroughbreds “could have or actually did hurt somebody if it wasn´t for careful handling”. You have to go over tons of material to find a note saying that, but Native Dancer absolutely wasn´t a safe horse to be around, nor Roberto. A few years ago a woman in California was killed by a rank breeding stallion, whose “issues” were known beforehand, but hey, if you were able to strap a saddle on his kids, some of them win. It should raise a flag that the most careful and knowlegdeable handling cannot control some of these animals and it raises one he.. of a question about “passing their offspring on” to the average owner.
Too young, too early, too fast – Let´s face it, being a potential race horse is no box of chocolate. Your Mum leaves you at the tender age of a few days at foal heat (about 9 days after you were born)to be bred. Because despite advancement in artificial insemination, DNA testing and Embryo Transfer your Mum still has to stand tied for a breeding live-cover according to the Jockey Club. She will be shipped around the world to get it done, and too bad if her nerves don´t take it or she doesn´t take or “stickâ€. Dog food.
Mind you, you will be fostered onto a loving and caring “nurse mare” who is often grade and had her own newborn pulled of her at the same age as a byproduct. Your nurse mare will be returned pregnant by any stallion to suffer the same fate next year. Nobody cares that a hormone treatment could make the average mare, who has had one foal produce milk. You are too valuable and your growth spurt cannot wait. Money counts.
By the time you are 10 months to a year old, you’ll be trained to accept a rider, walk a starting gate and run if a whip cracks welds on your body and stop if the teeth are pulled out of your face. If you don´t crumble, you´ll be competing from Jan1rst of your two year old year on up. No wonder so many hopefuls break down. Muscle trains faster than bones and tendons which take years to grow and build strength. Those horses are “using” babies whose bone structure isn´t fully set or ossified yet. A horse may not be fully grown until 5 or 6 years old, by that time your racing days will be long past.
If you run well, you pack even more weight on your young body and compete harder than ever. Special shoes, treatments, medications may also make your day. You run whether it´s hard and dry or deep and muddy, putting strain on your feet. I sometimes wonder if faster sometimes doesn´t mean a loss of thick solid bones at the expense of muscle. You run, until you top out or break down, with the latter often first.
Barbaro wasn´t a single occurence. Only most of the Unfortunates never get noticed again, once the trailer has hauled them off the track or if they never even made it there. If they are very lucky they have some kind of potential as breeding stock or future riding horse, but those are few. Far more travel on with a different truck.
It´s kinda hard to estimate yearly registration numbers, but a guesstimate reaches as many as 37,500 foals newly registered in North America in 07. Of those, to have 50% runners would be a high number in my eyes (and I´d love to hear the correct number of how many horses were actually racing in 07). The rest? Hmm. Breeding, canned, riding… but let´s face it, not a fraction of thought has been given on the future of these horses for an entirely too long time. A whole industry that does it´s best to keep the “disposal facilities” going all around the world, while the money looks to produce new “Fame and Fortune” each year, and leaves the broken down, or uninteresting ones anywhere they can be put. I am sad to say, a day at the racetrack isn´t such an enticing invitation to me any more.
Good luck to all the current and future no name horses with the aspiration to become Barbaros, Nothern Dancers and Terlinguas. Heaven knows they’ll need it, because responsibility may be elsewhere.
By way of example:
This is a video of me riding a 6yo recently gelded ottb. He won $190,000, bred for a year, got gelded and then the video.
Guess what happens when I post it in a horse forum?
“It’s not ready to canter!”
“Give him time!”
“How can you do that to him?”
And so on. I get the ENITRE ottb litany. They need weeks of longing first. They have no idea what leg is. They don’t understand. They have totally different muscles (?). Blah blah blah blah blah.
To which I reply, “Pshaw. He is just getting twitchy by the trees. He is doing remarkably well considering my disastrous equitation.”
Guess how many rides later he was loping around the field on a hunter loop hopping politely over little jumps? (By “ride” I mean 20-30 minutes aboard with no longe prep.)
Hint: you can use the fingers on one hand to answer, and you won’t need all of them.
Just because it’s off the track doesn’t make it rocket science.
Favorite Pet Peeve. I am just a spectator on the side lines, and I feel nothing will change for the TB racing industry, as long as money rules the roost and there is no remote interest to even give them a horse-worthy life. There is nothing wrong with affording top notch care and using the horse for a type of competition. The way it´s done is not only disrespectful to the creature, it is treating a life as a disposable commodity. Maybe there is too much money interest in this industry, too.
Little regard has ever been given to temperament and conformation issues. What wins, is bred. And sometimes winning is not even a requirement. Just Northern Dancer five Generations back. Fact is, quite a few of the stallions producing the best racers have conformational faults they pass on with great consistency. You have to look hard and read even more closely between the lines, but when I find people raving about “the best Storm Cat (insert other names here – just an example) legs I have ever seen”, I wonder and more or less shudder for the young hopefuls who didn´t get “bestest”.
Temperament – another one that is hushed up with great care. Quite a few of the World’s famous Thoroughbreds “could have or actually did hurt somebody if it wasn´t for careful handling”. You have to go over tons of material to find a note saying that, but Native Dancer absolutely wasn´t a safe horse to be around, nor Roberto. A few years ago a woman in California was killed by a rank breeding stallion, whose “issues” were known beforehand, but hey, if you were able to strap a saddle on his kids, some of them win. It should raise a flag that the most careful and knowlegdeable handling cannot control some of these animals and it raises one he.. of a question about “passing their offspring on” to the average owner.
Too young, too early, too fast – Let´s face it, being a potential race horse is no box of chocolate. Your Mum leaves you at the tender age of a few days at foal heat (about 9 days after you were born)to be bred. Because despite advancement in artificial insemination, DNA testing and Embryo Transfer your Mum still has to stand tied for a breeding live-cover according to the Jockey Club. She will be shipped around the world to get it done, and too bad if her nerves don´t take it or she doesn´t take or “stickâ€. Dog food.
Mind you, you will be fostered onto a loving and caring “nurse mare” who is often grade and had her own newborn pulled of her at the same age as a byproduct. Your nurse mare will be returned pregnant by any stallion to suffer the same fate next year. Nobody cares that a hormone treatment could make the average mare, who has had one foal produce milk. You are too valuable and your growth spurt cannot wait. Money counts.
By the time you are 10 months to a year old, you’ll be trained to accept a rider, walk a starting gate and run if a whip cracks welds on your body and stop if the teeth are pulled out of your face. If you don´t crumble, you´ll be competing from Jan1rst of your two year old year on up. No wonder so many hopefuls break down. Muscle trains faster than bones and tendons which take years to grow and build strength. Those horses are “using” babies whose bone structure isn´t fully set or ossified yet. A horse may not be fully grown until 5 or 6 years old, by that time your racing days will be long past.
If you run well, you pack even more weight on your young body and compete harder than ever. Special shoes, treatments, medications may also make your day. You run whether it´s hard and dry or deep and muddy, putting strain on your feet. I sometimes wonder if faster sometimes doesn´t mean a loss of thick solid bones at the expense of muscle. You run, until you top out or break down, with the latter often first.
Barbaro wasn´t a single occurence. Only most of the Unfortunates never get noticed again, once the trailer has hauled them off the track or if they never even made it there. If they are very lucky they have some kind of potential as breeding stock or future riding horse, but those are few. Far more travel on with a different truck.
It´s kinda hard to estimate yearly registration numbers, but a guesstimate reaches as many as 37,500 foals newly registered in North America in 07. Of those, to have 50% runners would be a high number in my eyes (and I´d love to hear the correct number of how many horses were actually racing in 07). The rest? Hmm. Breeding, canned, riding… but let´s face it, not a fraction of thought has been given on the future of these horses for an entirely too long time. A whole industry that does it´s best to keep the “disposal facilities” going all around the world, while the money looks to produce new “Fame and Fortune” each year, and leaves the broken down, or uninteresting ones anywhere they can be put. I am sad to say, a day at the racetrack isn´t such an enticing invitation to me any more.
Good luck to all the current and future no name horses with the aspiration to become Barbaros, Nothern Dancers and Terlinguas. Heaven knows they’ll need it, because responsibility may be elsewhere.
I read as far as the grumpy broodmares, I have worked at many TB training/breeding farms. Some of these poor mares are NOT treated very well. Bad treatment of horses at these farms is a HUGE pet peeve of mine!! I was just visiting the farm where my fiancée works. He was telling me about this one mare who when he first got her he could not catch her in the stall. She was terrified!! As he told me this, she came to the front of the stall and let me scratch her forehead. She was pressing her head against my hand and closing her eyes. He went on to tell me how the other guys who work there have scared the shit out these poor mares!! If they don’t come out of the stall right after eating (the stalls open up into the field) they go in and chase them out, screaming and hitting them. If the mares look at them the wrong way, the guys beat them, sometimes drawing blood!! When my fiancée gets horses, he makes it a point to go in and rub on them, talk to them and let them feel comfortable around him. If he has some that are a bit silly, he will spend more time with them. His babies are like old Quarter Horses; his mares are like, well…old broodmares!! I stood talking and scratching this mare for at least 10 minutes, when he opened up her back door to let her out, she stayed with her head pressed against my hand while I continued to rub on her. She had never seen me before, although she had a little bit of a worried look in her eye at first and even gave me half a snort, she relaxed and enjoyed the scratches. I hate hearing about the treatment of the mares at this farm, but no one does anything about it (management). The owners don’t live there, so they don’t know what is going on. Many of the help will drink on the job, they had one old mare who absolutely hated those guys and she associated the smell of alcohol on them. She would go after them if she smelled alcohol. One day the owners stopped in to see this one mare and her foal after coming from a party and some drinking. The foal was older and the mare, who could be a bit emotional, was very well behaved with my fiancée and would even let me in the stall, got a smell of the alcohol on the owner. She went after the lady. Of course the lady did not put the alcohol smell together with the mare going after her. My fiancée was there and got between them. She didn’t do anything to him, nor did she try to go after me. I believe that bad treatment of some of these mares (not all of them) is the reason for them being on the grumpy side!! Now I will go back and finish reading the blog!!
Amen to EMS!! I have felt for a long time that if the TB breeders had to track and report the outcome of each breeding year, the industry would emerge much smaller and more humane. I suspect a significant percentage of these horses breakdown, or fail to stand up under the stress. I too live in Lexington,KY, the self proclaimed horse capital of the world. And it is like everywhere else, some farms are decent and some aren’t. The status of the workers is a huge issue, mistreated and underpaid and no health insurance in an industry where human injury comes with the territory. I have seen a broken shoulder on a groom who was picked up and tossed by a stud. The breeding horses are treated much better. My farrier, who is a former exercise rider and owns and races a TB, says he feels the polytrack makes an honest evaluation of a horses soundness much more difficult, and that a lame horse can appear sound on a polytrack. His opinion was this will lead to more breakdowns. The more I learn about what horses need, (Space, horse companionship, space, hay, space, a chance to mature before being worked, space) the less romance TB racing holds for me. The industry is motivated by money, not love, and the horses are a cold commodity, for some just meat that runs. But the reason tracks are in trouble is they cannot compete with the casinos. People that gamble want to do it when they want, year round, in comfortable, faux-luxury. I wonder what would happen if the sheiks lost interest in paying the huge prices that support these beautiful horse farms. Alot more tacky malls and developments I guess.
Christina said…”All of them had perfectly fine feet, although The Noodle INSISTS on pulling off the right front shoe once a week.”
“It’s not somehow special or more difficult because it’s from the track. In fact, unlike the POS QH you bought out of a back yard because you felt sorry for it, the ottb has actually been bred to perform at something AND has been in professional handling for all of its life.”
“If one more person tells me an OTTB “isn’t ready” to canter, I am going to flip out. Hello, before it met you it was galloping under tack like a precision guided missile, and you are trying to explain to me it’s not ready to CANTER? Just hop on and ride it for crying out loud.”
The first thing about the feet I have to strongly disagree with. Own a few QH’s or paints with nice bloodlines (not impressive all over) and you will see that they have, in general strong feet. Any TB’s that I have been around have had the crappiest feet around. Abscesses all around. However, they can be wonderful horses if you take care of their feet and are prepared for some “issues”.
Backyard QH’s are bred badly, yes, but so are a great deal of TB’s IMHO. They are just bred to run a couple of times and if they can just run those couple of times, they can be tossed to the wayside. TB’s are a disposable industry. I feel like you are knocking on QH’s. They were also bred for a purpose. Try cutting and roping a cow on a 16 hand thoroughbred!
I watched the video. You were pushing that horse too hard IMO. It has nothing to do with it being an OTTB. If I had a halter horse that I was breaking to ride or a horse that had been ridden in two years after it was just green broke, I would have worked on relaxing it more. That horse was just wanting to run. Going back to square one and working on leg and contact, etc. is very important.
Just my two sense on your comment.
OMG!!!!
Never thought it would happen to me personally…..still shaking my head!
I was sitting at the computer going over my normal horsey sites when at 7:30 a.m the doorbell rang. It’s early so I think bad news.
Dogs go balistic, so I look out the window and don’t recognize the person or truck. (good, at least it’s not a family member bringing bad news~ whew!) I answer the door and the guy tells me he has a loose horse.
“what color?” “brown”
(now right there I wonder how much he knows about horses. The usual answer would be bay if you are a horse person)
So he tells me his horse can hear my horses, that he thinks she will come to my place. I tell him I will keep an eye out, and then ask if her enclosure is fixed in case I can’t get ahold of him and want to bring her back home. He says that he doesn’t have ANY fence….that she has ran free back there for the whole 6 months he’s owned her!
(he lives on a short dead end road, off of a busy cut-thru to a major highway!)
Said he always just kept an eye on her….but that this time he was up on his roof, heard her feet on the road, and next thing he knew she was gone.
Unreal.
Thought about driving around the block to look for her, but am then baling out yet another ignorant horse owner (that shouldn’t have one to begin with), spending extra time and gas money. (not cheap in a big truck as many of you know!)
I have a few errands that I absolutely have to run, so am going to be worried the whole time I am gone. Is she going to show up at my house and tear up my fence? (have HorseGuard fence- very sturdy!)
And if I stay home and watch for her am I going to witness her trying to cross the road (to get to my place), and see her hit by a car? What about the people that could be in that car? Sheesh….too much to think about!
I wish ignorant people would just go away……
Back in 1971 I was visiting relatives in Riverside California and they were complaining about the coyote problem. They said it was caused by the dead young horses piled up behind the race track and wanted the track to have body pick up more than once a week. I guess things haven’t changed they are just more obvious.
Christina, I watched your schooling video, he looks like a nice horse. There does come a point in training where you have to push the animal.
I can’t say from a video whether or not that particular horse was ready on that particular day…but I can speak to a horse who has a LITANY of excuses NOT do something. Sometimes I just have to press her harder and harder until she does it, sees that it doesn’t kill her, and accepts it as routine.
I also catch a point that I think you’re implying (sorry if I get it wrong) is that a lot of riders have a HUGE barrier to cantering. While a horse does need to have physical maturity to carry a rider at a canter on a circle or pattern…it isn’t the “holy grail” that a lot of people make it. You got yer walk, yer trot, yer canter. Just get on and ride.
That said, I can’t get my Clydesdale to canter worth a damn. Still trying.
ffotb, do you think that the majority of those high performing TBs are retired for soundness…or to make sure that they leave the track on “a winner”?
I don’t pretend to know about the TB Industry (most knowledge comes from those A Horse Named Wonder books) but it seems to this untrained eye that the highest-profile races are for young horses. Triple Crown and the big Breeder’s Cup races? They are the ones that seem to happen early on the track program, where people bet heavily…and as the night wears on to the 5- and 6- year old races people drift out of the stands.
It makes sense to me to have a young horse go out, win some big name races, and then retire before they have a chance to lose. Stud fees are more reliable income that purses?
I don’t know if that is the case though. Thoughts?
Speaking of the TB industry….this was on Yahoo News this morning. Why would you continue to race a horse who has NEVER won? The poor girl had to endure 7 years at the track before a vet finally said ENOUGH IS ENOUGH….the vet doesn’t even want her doing her morning warm up gallops. People just amaze me!
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20071130_O_for_128.html
Sorry here is the link….
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20071130
The pictures from the Bay Story breakdown in Mellbourne made my stomach turn. Sickening. IMHO, wrecks like that one are the main reason starting such young horses is a problem.
sarcastabitch said…
ffotb, do you think that the majority of those high performing TBs are retired for soundness…or to make sure that they leave the track on “a winner”?
I don’t pretend to know about the TB Industry (most knowledge comes from those A Horse Named Wonder books) but it seems to this untrained eye that the highest-profile races are for young horses. Triple Crown and the big Breeder’s Cup races? They are the ones that seem to happen early on the track program, where people bet heavily…and as the night wears on to the 5- and 6- year old races people drift out of the stands.
It makes sense to me to have a young horse go out, win some big name races, and then retire before they have a chance to lose. Stud fees are more reliable income that purses?
I don’t know if that is the case though. Thoughts?
It seems that the very top echelon of G1 SWs are raced until they have earned enough (today, that’s $1M+), and retired to stud. I’m sure retiring sound plays a part in a few of the decisions. I’m not so sure that the stud fees are more profitable than that of a top racehorse. The cream of the crop young sires, yes, but the rest, no. Very few stallions go on to be fashionable sires. Many of them are fashionable only for the first season, while their stellar racing careers are fresh in the minds of the public. If there are no super star runners in the first couple of crops, these stallions seem to disappear, or they will reappear in a regional area far away from KY or FL. That WA sale is a good example of this. Many of the sires of the horses in that sale are well-bred, yet weren’t big runners. They may have started out as big time expensive sale yearlings, and when they didn’t pan out, they were sold cheap. A smaller breeder sees the “big” opportunity to stand a son of so-and-so, and there you go. It’s funny, many of those stallions end up being leading sires in their state, yet would be very unfashionable if they were still in KY. Part of their success is opportunity. They may have done well if given the chance at the big time mares.
Racing is a game to most big players. Most have a goal to either breed a G1 SW, or to win a particular high profile race such as the Kentucky Derby or a Breeders’ Cup race.
Trainers play a huge part in the success of a horse, too. They can make all the difference between a failure and a super star runner. Many horses will run well regardless of who trains them.
Yes, the highest profile races are for 2 and 3yos. Not many in the U.S. breed for stoutness and distance/turf, whereas in Europe, that is the goal. The most money is in the speed horses, 6 fur to 1 mile, on the dirt, with the Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup races being the exception. The challenge is for them to breed a horse who has early speed, yet can also go a mile and a half, carrying top weight.
The biggest races on a card are usually in the middle or toward the end of the program, so not sure what you’re referring to there. The track prefers the betting public to “hang around” the whole card, and putting the bigger races toward the end is how they do that. For example, at Los Alamitos (QH racing, Calif.), the big stakes race of the night is usually race 9 or 10 on a 12 race program.
Horse racing is centuries old. It was always considered a rich man’s game, for the elite. Back in the late 1700s, early 1800s, most of the horses who ran were the stallions; they didn’t run the mares. There was a belief that if they ran the mares, it took too much out of them and then they wouldn’t be good producers. The emphasis has always been on the stallions, since they got the most attention, were the ones heavily advertised, and they were able to sire many foals. Men dominated the sport for centuries, and there was always this macho mentality with owning/racing/breeding a stallion. The mares had one foal a year if they were productive. Until recently, many farms didn’t even allow women in the breeding barn when the horses were bred.
How many people have you seen that get all puffed up when they proudly proclaim that they “own a stud”? That mentality is still alive today…LOL.
Racing is such a tradition, worldwide, and the things that plague that industry are not likely to change any time soon. It’s like many other segments of the horse industry – the good old breeders are slowly disappearing, only to be replaced by young people whose experience and methods are not the same. Breeders like Whitney, Bradley, Widener, Belmont, etc. are long gone. Personally, I see a decline in the willingness to learn about pedigrees and conformation, and the study of the history behind these horses. It’s all about the money today, and that’s not just racehorses. It’s all about the win, the prestige, the titles, and whatever it takes to achieve them.
The biggest races on a card are usually in the middle or toward the end of the program, so not sure what you’re referring to there. The track prefers the betting public to “hang around” the whole card, and putting the bigger races toward the end is how they do that. For example, at Los Alamitos (QH racing, Calif.), the big stakes race of the night is usually race 9 or 10 on a 12 race program.
*red* Probably because to me, the big race was always the ones my friend’s horses ran in.
Again, I don’t know about TBs, but at the harness track, it seemed like the stands always thin out after the 4th or 5th race. These were not usually the “big” races of the season though.
–> For further background, “the track” to me is Kawartha Downs, ON.
>>On the subject of them not being turned out:
Alot of times it is for their own good. They are to fit to be let in an open area to run. When a horse has that much muscle and that much conditioning they can literally go ape sh*t when in big spaces turned out. < <
Then how is it that we turn polo ponies out every freakin’ day when they come home from polo? I used to work for a guy who ran them out on 80 acres every night. We called them in with a bell, too. We had NO lameness. ZERO. No lameness, and I only recall one pasture injury, ever. Are you saying polo ponies are less fit than racehorses, when polo ponies have to run like hell for seven minutes instead of one?
I just don’t ever buy the “you can’t turn them out” excuse. Sure you can. If you turn them out every day, they won’t BE apeshit. If you’re that scared the first day or two, boot them up.
Again, I don’t know about TBs, but at the harness track, it seemed like the stands always thin out after the 4th or 5th race. These were not usually the “big” races of the season though.
I know absolutely nothing about harness horses (other than I know the difference between trotters and pacers) and the name “Hanover” seems to prevail. LOL.
“Why do all of these mares HATE people? None of my friends have any broodmares that hate people (other horses, yes!). What have you DONE to them? ”
I ask myself the same thing everytime I work with my OTTB mare. She can be so nasty, especially when tacking up. I’ve learned not to ride her on days that I don’t have 45min -1 hour to tack. Anythings fast brings out the nasty even more. It’s very sad because she has a great talent for jumping and could win someone a lot of ribbons if she didn’t have issues (she has lots, the list is just too long to mention). I’ll give her credit. She’s improved in the time I’ve had her, but I don’t think she’ll ever be one you could trust not to take your arm off if given the chance.
>>If one more person tells me an OTTB “isn’t ready” to canter, I am going to flip out. Hello, before it met you it was galloping under tack like a precision guided missile, and you are trying to explain to me it’s not ready to CANTER? Just hop on and ride it for crying out loud.< <
*giggles loudly*
I’m with you on this. It actually means the rider is not ready to canter something that will be, woo, fast and unbalanced. I have ridden so many of these and you know what, 99% of them are totally SAFE, they’re just fast and unbalanced. They are not gonna buck your ass off. You just need to learn to use your seat to slow them down and don’t get into a pulling war with them, because they will win.
The breed is the same and yet….I recently read a book, can’t remember the author, called either The Great Race or The Great Match Race. About an early 19th century race between horses owned by Northerners and Southerners. “Honor of the North/South” and all that. The Northern horse was the famous American Eclipse. As someone pointed out, the races THEN were run in four-mile heats, best two out of three, 20-30 mins between heats. If there were more than two horses in the race and a different one won each heat, there would be a fourth heat to determine the winner. Thus, a horse might have to run TWELVE MILES to win a race. Same bloodlines, same breed… but do you think any modern-day TB could do that and stay sound. But these horses did. Eclipse lived into his late 20s, early 30s. He was brought out of retirement to run the race described in the book. He was 9 at the time. After he won, he was again retired. It also said in the book that most horses then started racing at 3, not 2 – and the three year olds only race TWO or THREE miles!! LOL Also, some of the horses are described as being “big” horses: 15.2 h.h. What is the difference now? THen, they didn’t have the drugs, so a lame horse wasn’t raced? Better conditioning (Obviously – they galloped them for MILES every day). One could as well say that the modern bettor is the culprit: Shorter/faster races means more races on the card, more betting opportunties, we need more horses to file the race card, pump him out and be sure they’re fast, screw conformation. Sigh.
And I want to see pictures of Coffee Nudge’s brother. She is so cute. She will definitely have to come live with me when her breeding days are over. Who knows Chris Nelson who has racehorses in Washington? That is who got her.
Crazychickmia – That’s the same thing I’ve said about how to fix the AQHA/ApHC/APHA show stuff, too – we need a BIG MONEY futurity for 10 year old pleasure horses! If we could only do that, people would stop beating the shit out of them and ruining their legs. Why can’t we reward trainers/owners for keeping horses sound??? I swear if I were rich, I’d fund that futurity!
Sandy M – You’re correct. There is a difference between those horses and the ones today. Bone and feet. Those horses were much coarser than most of the TBs today in the U.S. You can see it in the old photos. And you can bet that those tracks weren’t as forgiving as they are today, too.
fuglyhorseoftheday said…
>>If one more person tells me an OTTB “isn’t ready” to canter, I am going to flip out. Hello, before it met you it was galloping under tack like a precision guided missile, and you are trying to explain to me it’s not ready to CANTER? Just hop on and ride it for crying out loud.< <
*giggles loudly*
I’m with you on this. It actually means the rider is not ready to canter something that will be, woo, fast and unbalanced. I have ridden so many of these and you know what, 99% of them are totally SAFE, they’re just fast and unbalanced. They are not gonna buck your ass off. You just need to learn to use your seat to slow them down and don’t get into a pulling war with them, because they will win.
December 4, 2007 7:49 AM
Hilarious, and true.
I rode a few QH’s off the track… they’d blow you off the back of a western saddle if you weren’t paying attention. Saw it happen with my own eyes.
Yes, my top competition horses are only turned out in smaller pastures to prevent injury, but other then that all the other guys live outside 24/7 unless the weather is bad in groups of 3-5 in larger pastures. The other reason they are in smaller pastures is do to the fact that if something spooks them and they get really going they are going to be able to clear the 5ft fences they are behind ( I have had that happen with my old Advanced horse and trying to catch a hot TB who felt it was ‘fun’ to try to jump anything in his way in peek fitness is not fun! )
On the subject of OTTBs. When purchasing them build is more important than bloodlines, though certain lines do have a tendency to produce better sport type horses then others. I have bought and retrained more track brats then I can count and they are by far my favorite horses to work with. Most have great work ethics, fast learners, and are easy to work with if you keep in mind certain things.
1. most of these horses have never been in cross ties
2. alot of these guys the only time they have one on one is their work time, so yes they may not be as loving as lots of horses but with time trust me will turn into attention hogs.
3 most of them you have to put the bridle on first then saddle them up and walk them a little bit (like you would be walking to the paddock) and then tighten the girth.
4. You will have to work on being able to get on them without a leg up. These guys are use to having light weight people legged up on to them, not ‘normal’ weight people getting on from a mounting block and expecting them to stand.
5. most of these guys will only run left. They will not walk calmly and the more you pull the faster they will go.
Now these are just what I have delt with, so by no means is this the rule.
On the subject of temperment they can be the sweetest horses, but you have to remember that they are coming off of top fitness and having ‘little helpers’ pumped into them.
TB stallions on the other hand can be the nastiest lil buggers. My old Advanced guy was gelded before he was raced because he literally tried to kill people. After he was gelded he was a sweet horse, but still could be crabby about certain things. there are some nice TB studs. My client has one, but he is hunter bred, and is easy to handle for everyday things and for breeding ( I prefer to handle him for breeding and not the WB studs!)
BUT he is an exception not the rule.
I do not like to deal with most TB mares off the track though. Alot of them have interesting heats, as they usually have extra stuff pumped into them on the track. Not all of them, but alot of them, and I just prefer to buy geldings.
Ok, off to the stables to work horses and yell at students.
Cheers all.
mattsontraining.net said… On the subject of temperament they can be the sweetest horses, but you have to remember that they are coming off of top fitness and having ‘little helpers’ pumped into them.
That comment made me think of my brother – he was a competitive swimmer all through high school and college, he came home one Christmas the year after he graduated and because of the upset in his routine and lack of a twice daily workout (he didn’t use “little helpers,” however), he was almost impossible to be around. He was so hyped up and full of energy, it was quite funny – everyone remarked on it, and we were all very happy when he finally decided he couldn’t take it anymore and started swimming at a local pool everyday. Hey – if it can happen to a “reasoning / thinking” human being who has control over the situation, think about the poor horse athlete who is suddenly pulled out of his routine and still having to deal with a “supercharged” body and mind.
George Washington, who recently was put down on the track at the Breeder’s Cup, was the saddest on-track death I have ever witnessed. Primarily because in my opinion he was ‘expendable’ in the eyes of the owners, trainers, etc. He was reportedly sterile and of no breeding use… so run him into the ground with horses he was outmatched against and if he breaks down… oh well! If he makes a little bit of money… even better! *Again, this is solely MY opinion.
I follow horse racing and own an OTTB and while I believe they run these animals WAY before they should (the legs of a 2yo are like spindles just waiting to break should they hit uneven footing, etc.) it doesn’t keep me from watching the sport. The reality of it is it IS a business and while I myself would NEVER consider getting on a 2yo, nevermind mounting a yearling!! If you are in the business you really don’t have much of a choice. You aren’t going to see fat, muscular, healthy 4yo’s running in the Kentucky Derby are you?
GW is a perfect example of the ‘business’ end of TB racing. I watched that horse hit the ground and looked over at my husband and said “He’ll be dead in about 2 minutes… he can’t breed so there’s no use for him anymore.” Putting him out of his ‘misery’ was surely the humane thing to do at that time… but for me, not running him in the first place was the RIGHT thing to do. But again, a horse that can’t reproduce has no other option but to run to make the money.
Word is that there has been a HUGE number of breakdowns at Hawthorne and Keeneland, especially in the mornings… The common denominator?? The horses shipped from the Arlington polytrack.
I do believe there was a problem with the Arlington track the season before last. People blame the trainers and such easily, but one must remember that many of those same trainers and horses shipped out of Hawthorne without problems the season before and the season after.
I can’t say how the polytrack changed things for our group as we got a new assistant trainer with the change in track surface. I would assume that the change in trainers has accounted for most of the improvement in soundness.
As far as breeding. Racehorse people as a bad as anyone, citing examples of good horses who came out of crap bloodlines. That was a big theme in the Funny Cide book. However, MUCH MORE good horses come out of good bloodlines. People don’t understand that to get a horse from a yearling to the track you’re looking at a $20k investment, you might as well start with something whose parents could run a little.
Storm Cat gets 15% stakes winners from foals. His average earnings per starter is around $121k. Yet people, including racing people, say that it’s all chance. LoL.
However, I want to say something. I absolve even the bottom people a bit. Why? At least these horses are bred *with a specific purpose*. Almost all are registered. Almost all are BROKE. Those that are in good programs, like an earlier person said, are actually GOOD broke. I am a *terrible* out of shape rider but there has rarely been an OTTB I wouldn’t get on.
This puts even the bottom feeders on steadier moral ground than the folks with 50 whatevers reproducing in the pasture.
Poor George. That was a gruesome injury and there was no hope of fixing it either.
George wasn’t sterile however he was sub fertile. I do wish they had just turned him out for a year and let him be a horse and they might have found a more mature George could handle the job just fine. It isn’t rare for a young horse (he wasn’t even 4 yet) to be subfertile in the beginning and with time end up normal.
He did fairly well back at the races in the UK. He didn’t win but he was competitive and came close. He was definitely not the same as he was as a 3 yo though.
What I don’t understand is WHY they would run a horse who already showed he hated the dirt (and perhaps the long trip), was not as good as he was last year when he ran a distant 6th in a lesser field in the CLASSIC against a very tough competitive field of dirt specialists. JUST to have a horse in the BC? What a waste. I have no doubt they mourn the less deeply, I also have no doubt that they made a very stupid decision bringing him over to run in the classic.
In regard to cantering retired racehorses: done it, no big deal. To the left. To the right could get interesting because they weren’t balanced, they weren’t comfortable on the right lead and they usually had mouths of stone. And most of them weren’t all that good at ninety degree turns in either direction. But what the heck, we were kids, we thought we were immortal. Git’r'done!
When I was riding OTTBs (late 60s to early 80s) they had usually been picked up cheap or free because they were unsound. We couldn’t really work them for three months because first we had to fix the bowed tendons. I don’t remember all the details of the protocol but it was based on necropsies of horses in various stages of healing after bowing a tendon and it was based on the day the injury occurred (which was Day Zero). Each day had a suggested amount of exercise and type of therapy which was thought to help the injury heal for optimal strength. For instance, Day Seventeen, we handwalked them up to a certain field and around the field in a certain pattern because it was a measured distance that was supposed to be the correct distance for that day.
From March until early November, there was a soaking hole in the local crick; that’s like a swimming hole but shallower. It was just right to stand these horses in for cold therapy. We’d take them down there to stand in the soaking hole and feed them carrots or crawl up on them once they were in the soaking hole in the stupid belief that it was okay when they were in the water (no one knew we did that). We were just kids, starting around 10 years old, what did we know?
Until they were sound enough for really working under saddle, we worked them on the ground. Not much longeing because these were horses recovering from injuries! Just enough work on a longe line at a walk to give them the basics of stay out there, walk, move away from the whip, stop, turn. A lot of ground driving since that could be combined with the handwalking they needed for therapy.
A lot of just being taken out and hand grazed. Not because they were so crazy they would hurt themselves but because they were lame horses and they were also horses that usually didn’t like humans much. We were mostly romantic kids who wanted the horses to love us.
By the time three months had gone by, they were usually sound enough to start conditioning under saddle, they knew a heck of a lot more about manners on the ground, turning and balancing themselves (at a walk while ground driving). They had a start on getting rid of the mouth of stone.
And they kinda liked us kids.
As for breeding mares without speed, back then the old breeders’ belief was that a mare with a lot of speed was hard to get pregnant and rarely had a foal to equal her. Some of the best broodmares couldn’t beat the lead pony (Somethingroyal being an example; no speed, mother of Secretariat and other stakeswinners).
The reasoning back then was that the really fast mares were thought to be “studdish,” meaning they were easy to muscle up and more aggressive temperaments. There may have been something to it; such mares may have had higher than usual testosterone/androgen levels.
But maybe not. I haven’t really kept up with the advances in horse repro.
Adrienne said… This puts even the bottom feeders on steadier moral ground than the folks with 50 whatevers reproducing in the pasture.
Ah, not so. I think that their “moral ground” is basically quicksand. The “folks with 50 whatevers” are not breeding and expecting to produce at the very least a few “throwaway” and expendable horses.
I’m not at all defending the BYBs, but the bottom feeder racehorse breeders are EXPECTING to produce expendable horses. They may well be deluded, but the ignorant BYB at least believes that they are breeding something someone wants.
Ignorance is not an excuse, at all – but it’s a lot better than going into breeding throwaways with your eyes wide open. The more reputable race breeders will hopefully, at least, try to find homes for the “rejects” – but I’m pretty sure that there are a lot of TBs who are loaded up into the double-decker because it’s cheaper than holding on to them until you find a buyer.
“However, I want to say something. I absolve even the bottom people a bit. Why? At least these horses are bred *with a specific purpose*. Almost all are registered. Almost all are BROKE. Those that are in good programs, like an earlier person said, are actually GOOD broke. I am a *terrible* out of shape rider but there has rarely been an OTTB I wouldn’t get on.”
That is a really good way to look at it, I guess. I supposed that is true. And certainly, they can be really, really sweet. My friend had one that she bought green. The horse did just about everything from dressage to even western pleasure at the county fair for fun. However, I still wouldn’t put a green rider on one without training in normal riding basics. The ring is different than the track by a mile.
My ex-husband and I had racing TBs. We lived in NY at the time. We were at Belmont Park for the Match Race between Ruffian and Foolish Pleasure, where she broke down and ultimately had to be put-down. I was devastated.
I divorced my husband shortly after that (not because of the Ruffian incident)and never went to another horse race again.
IMHO, TBs are started way too early “breezing” at 18 months and racing at 2 years. As far as I’m ocncerned, these horses breakdown so easily because of the severe impact and strain on their still-growing legs and bodies.
I’ve seen too many breakdowns, and I’ve even seen a horse have a heart attack during a race while coming down the stretch, where he fell and tried to crawl to the finish line. I’ll never forget Ruffian and that horse that had the heart attack for as long as I live.
So, I for one, will never set foot on another race track.
4Horses&Holding said…
Adrienne said… This puts even the bottom feeders on steadier moral ground than the folks with 50 whatevers reproducing in the pasture.
Ah, not so. I think that their “moral ground” is basically quicksand. The “folks with 50 whatevers” are not breeding and expecting to produce at the very least a few “throwaway” and expendable horses.
I’m not at all defending the BYBs, but the bottom feeder racehorse breeders are EXPECTING to produce expendable horses. They may well be deluded, but the ignorant BYB at least believes that they are breeding something someone wants.
Ignorance is not an excuse, at all – but it’s a lot better than going into breeding throwaways with your eyes wide open. The more reputable race breeders will hopefully, at least, try to find homes for the “rejects” – but I’m pretty sure that there are a lot of TBs who are loaded up into the double-decker because it’s cheaper than holding on to them until you find a buyer.
December 4, 2007 9:07 AM
I don’t think this is exactly true.
There are LOTS of programs in place for folks that don’t want to get rid of their own ex-racers.
CANTER, Second Chance, Thoroughbred Adoption Networks, ReRun… and many more.
Because of the PUBLICITY thoroughbreds receive through televised things like the Triple Crown races and the Breeders Cup, and the high percentage of quality individuals being adopted out and having successful retraining in other disciplines, these programs flourish.
I do NOT see programs like these for junk foundation quarter horses the likes that three-quarters of the world seems to be producing.
I do NOT see programs like these for the AraWalkaFriesAloosas that people try to pass off as ‘sport horses’.
While I don’t agree with the ‘disposable’ nature of the thoroughbred racing world, I don’t really lose sleep over it knowing that there are this many GREAT outlets for finding a large portion of ex-racers good homes.
I just wish I could say the same about the rest of the horse world.
OFCOL – I was refering to the “bottom feeders” that she mentioned, not the people who actually make an effort to find placements for their “rejects.”
I’ve heard about too many “unethical” TB breeders who will just dump the culls – they aren’t breeding and expecting every horse to be “in the money” – they’re hoping for a few.
4Horses&Holding said…
OFCOL – I was refering to the “bottom feeders” that she mentioned, not the people who actually make an effort to find placements for their “rejects.”
I’ve heard about too many “unethical” TB breeders who will just dump the culls – they aren’t breeding and expecting every horse to be “in the money” – they’re hoping for a few.
December 4, 2007 9:25 AM
Right, but a lot of the ‘bottom feeder’ horses wind up in this situation.
My point was that the percentage of horses being sold by the ‘bottom feeder’ types that slip through the cracks and wind up at slaughter doesn’t equal the amount of crap being produced by the rest of the breeders for which there ARE no programs like that.
I’m not saying some don’t wind up in a terrible place, of course.
I’m just saying that a lot of the other breeds have a FAR worse percentage for ‘happy endings.’
Fugly~ Nice too meet another polo groom, I usually keep that part of my horsey past secret as it seems to get me persecuted in certain circles!
On the topic of footing in racing:
(Comming from someone who studies it, as in ‘footing’ and ‘turf’ and is trying to develop an PhD project around it)
I know from experience the role the surface plays on horse performance, whether it’s a race, polo, dressage, or reining. True there are MANY MANY factors to consider….However, the surface is the ONE MEASUREABLE factor that the facilities (tracks, arena’s, etc.) can control and it’s also the one factor Insurance companies can quantify. This is why the tracks are switching to the poly-blend.
As to why the US doesn’t run as much on turf as the UK or the Aussies….There are 4 distinct growing climates in the USA each having it’s own native grasses which can vary widely from each other, thus making each track totally different. To grow the same types of turf on every track would cost some tracks a TON of labor and equipment and irrigation costs……put them all on ‘dirt’ you eliminate this problem, allowing a horse from NY to compete in FL or CA and vise versa….in the UK and Australia the turf growing climate is more uniform allowing for more controlled turf surfaces.
Are the poly tracks better?? I believe they are IF they are installed and MAINTAINED correctly, it’s not something you just dump on once and leave alone. THe underlying soil profile and the presence, or lack, of drainage must be addressed.
The quality of surface can be improved in all facets to reduce injury none more so than Cross Country courses and polo.
to this day it makes me tear up thinking my decision to save money by not irrigating cost a pony it’s life.
A horse is only as good as it’s legs and if it’s legs have an unsafe surface to perform on then what do you have???
OFCOL – I agree completely, at least I see the TB industry making a real EFFORT at rehoming/rehabbing/retraining…I’d like to see AQHA step up in that direction.
FHOTD – I hope you get Coffee Nudge. My former trainer loved La Saboteur babies and took in several when they retired from racing. They make EXCELLENT show hunters.
I haven’t read all the comments so if I repeat something already said please forgive me.
I’ve been a long suffering fan of horse racing for 30+ years. I say long suffering because there are certain aspects to horse racing that make it hard to remain a fan.
The most obvious of those things being the breakdowns. Early retirements of potential super stars doesn’t help either. Not to mention the crappy way fans are treated in general.
At one point in my life I worked at the track, walked hots, rubbed horses, galloped, and even broke a few babies on the farm. I do have a some hands on experience with TBs.
Like someone said there are WAY to many things wrong with horse racing to get into all of them here.
First and foremost in my mind is the use of race day meds. Too many drug dependant horses are allowed to go to the shed. 20+ years of breeding these drug dependant cripples has left the breed with overly fragile horses.
The yealing and 2 yr old sales part of the industry hasn’t helped either.
There was a time when breeders tried to bred out faults and tried to bred sound horses. Now days it seems that breeders are only breeding for the catalog page. As long as it looks good on paper they go for it.
2 yr old sales now require a baby to breeze an 1/8th of a mile in 10 seconds or less. If you don’t breeze fast, you don’t bring the big $$ in the sales ring. The Green Monkey sold for $16 million as a 2 yr old because of a fast breeze. He’s now 3 and has yet to win a race.
These just scratch the surface of what’s wrong with racing.
Racing needs to get it’s act together.
Someone needs to step up and take control of the whole mess. A large part of the problem is that there is no one governing body. There are too many seperate parts that don’t work together. Owners, breeders, race track owners, etc. No one works together as a team. They are all out for what’s best for their special interest.
IMHO it’s the Jockey Club who needs to step in a take some measure of control. The Jockey Club is the breed registery. They have the responsibilty to protect the intregity of the breed.
I think some stricter rules need to be put in place. I think horses who race on meds should be removed from the gene pool. They need to have their papers stamped that they are a non-breeding animal. If ya gotta run on meds you don’t belong in the gene pool.
This simple little change would all but eliminate the use of meds.
Secondly I think the JC should refuse to register horses who were conceived before either parent is 5 year old. This would help cutail the early retirement of sound horses. Plus unsound horses who are retired early would fall out of favor with breeders if they had to wait a year or two before breeding to them.
The JC refuses to register horses conceived by AI so I don’t know why they couldn’t inact these rules.
Comment from NZ here
In the US you can race on bute and lasix (for bleeders) here in NZ and Aussie we cannot race on any drugs whatsoever. I believe this has a huge impact on the breed. Horses are racing that are only staying sound due to drugs they are then used to breed more unsound horses.
In regards to the temperament thing some of this can be breeding (ie line of horses). As previously meantioned the Sir Tristrams are known for having a bit of a temper. But there are other sirelines with the same sort of issues. Most people that have worked with a large number of TB’s will be able to tell you some characteristics of particular lines.
When working with yearlings alot of the staff here are temporary staff working just the yearling season and not that knowledgeable. So you have a small core of all round staff trying to ensure that the newbies (As it where) are able to teach horses manners. Not an easy task with a yearling colt being fed up to look good for the sales. Most of these horses are handwalked and turned out during the night. But some places have less turn out. Hence you have hyped up young yearlings with inexperienced staff. *shudders* a real nightmare.
To be honest I don’t know many grumpy broodmares though. All studs that I know of and deal with the mares are run in mobs and left out 24/7
Our own mare is good to handle etc but will test you if she thinks you don’t know what you are doing. I would expect her to lay her ears back at a new person and maybe waggle a back leg when picking out her feet. But if you laugh and push her away or just tell her off she would know that you don’t care and not try it again. If you back off she knows that she has you and can do what she wants. This is typical of most broodies here. It is that initial meeting of someone new and testing the boundaries to see if they can get away with stuff.
Yet if we go in the paddock to get her she comes straight up and is an angel. I can go out to the paddock and worm drench her without a halter and lead. Could’t do that if she was bad tempered now could I lol.
All our racehorses are outside the majority of the time (at our stable anyway) we only box if really bad weather.
There is only one horse in work at the moment that I would put a lead on to change covers in the paddock and that’s mainly because he is 2 and still wanting to play a bit.
The others I can go out and change covers without anything. We expect manners and good behaviour in our racehorses and they oblige lol. Have found when getting new horses if they’ve been stabled alot their behaviours and attitude always improves once they’ve been here for a bit and left outside like the others.
Racing is like any other horse industry you have good trainers and bad trainers. Your good trainers will know which horses need to be brought along slowly and need time. They will alter their training and methods to suit each horse. The bad trainers are just rip shit or bust and if the horse can’t handle it too bad there’s another one backed up to take it’s place. But racing is now a more visible sport than years ago hence you hear about it more when horses do break down.
Thats my 2 cents worth anyway lol
summerhorse said:
“George wasn’t sterile however he was sub fertile.”
Sorry for the error.
I guess when you pay $2 million plus for a horse and he only earns you $1.5 million and can’t be earning at stud… you just run him into the ground! Hey… maybe the insurance policy on him was worth the other half mil and the owners broke even!! Sad isn’t it!
Does anyone else find it strange the BOTH GW and Barbaro were bred by Lael Stables???
Its always interesting to see something local on here (I’m from Kent/Renton area originally.)
I think I have been incredibly lucky in my dealings with the racing industry.
I was part of the Washington Thoroughbred Breeders Association youth broodmare program back in highschool (the first year they did it) THey give you an already bred mare to foal out, raise and prep for a yearling sell, and then sell it. THey gave us super nice broodmares (all bought from Kentucky) and they were all in foal to incredibly nice studs (mine mare was a washington champion descendant in foal to a stud that had run in the Kentucky Derby) You can check it out here: http://www.washingtonthoroughbred.com/BroodmareProgram/Broodmare_Summary.htm
Because of that program I also worked the Select Yearling sale a couple years for Halvorson Bloodstock (though I never worked the winter sale).The yearling sale only accepts the super nice yearlings though, so I only saw extremely high quality horses going through there.
This last summer I also worked at one of Washington’s leading trainer’s farm for a couple weeks (before I got an internship actually pertaining to my major haha). I know this is completely usual, but they cared for and broke there horses far better than most trainers in other disciplines.
And one of my riding students family had a couple horses in the Longacres Mile…so obviously nice horses and they got superb treatment.
So I find it hard to pass judgement on the industry as a whole, when I have pretty much had nothing but great experiences.
As for footing, there is some proof that that new stuff helps prevent breakdowns, but everyones worried about what will happen to horses used to working on the new stuff but then have to go race at a trak that has the traditional dirt.
I have to disagree that people just breed for speed. Sure, SOME people do. But while soundness is not the number one priority that is should be, it is a concern. Look at one of our local sires, Consigliere, he is well known for producing fast horses but ones that are known to be hard to keep sound. His stud fee is low enough to tempt some people, but not the higher level breeders.
Although I feel there are so many variables that need be taken into account on the subject, I really think poor quality and conformation are a bigger issue.
The gene pool has certainly been diversified, but not in a fantastic way. Granted there are many great stallions standing with great conformation and obviously a great race record, there are several who just have the race record to stand by. And for each of those poorly conformed stallions, there are THOUSANDS of crappily made mares that are being bred. Furthermore, there are well made stallions with nice race records who have consitently sired babies with the same flaw: Afleet Alex for example. Take a look at the babies in his brochure and every single one has a heavy,
ewed neck that will develop into a “nest” and they will be heavy on the forehand.
Also, I’m consistently suprised that competent, respected horsepeople involved in the industry fail to recognize their own faults. A good vet I know of has bred their incredibly crooked, roach backed, mildly insane,
yet well-bred, mare seven times. EVERY SINGLE resulting foal has aquired the crooked legs, very difficult personality and has subsequently broken down whilst in training. EVERY ONE. If they are fillies, she then keeps them to add to her breeding program! GAAAAAH! Why don’t you cut your
losses on your now large herd of fairly useless home-breds and focus more on quality. Why keep breeding shit, getting shit, and then not being able to do shit with it?
Perhaps the J.C needs to raise their standards or begin to employ some sort of stallion and mare testing to ensure the highest quality results possible. Too bad it’s money that makes the world go round, and not common sense.
“Does anyone find it strange that both Barbaro and GW were bred by Lael Stables?”
No. The Jacksons were offered millions (I think like $20 million or something, but definitely $13 million+) for Barbaro before the Preakness. They turned it down.
The horse was insured for like $13,000,000. Nobody would have blinked an eye if they had chosen to put the horse down but instead of cashing in a multimillion dollar insurance policy they spent probably close to $500,000 in vet bills to try to save him with a good chance he would only be pasture sound. Of course if he lived a year past the insurance policy they would get nothing if he then died after a failed attempt to save him.
I do not believe that their monumental efforts to save that horse were a business decision.
Them’s good peeps.
Well, of course, he doesn’t breed for the racetrack, but Denny Emerson stands TB and Irish horses. His TB stallions are very specifically horses that are (a) stakes winners, (b) had long careers, and (c) retired sound. But of course, he produces horses for the eventing/hunter/jumper market, though I suppose since one of his horses is the son of a Derby Winner (I think – Deputed Testamony/Reputed Testmony), I suppose some people breeding for the track MIGHT breed to his TB stallions – but he is breeding for the sport horse, not the race horse, market.
At present, apparently he only stands one TB, Reputed Testamony, but the three horses in the top picture on his stallion page are three TBs that he stood. I know Loyal Pal is deceased, don’t know what happened to Prussian Blue (sold?), but they were/are all TBs that fulfilled the a/b/c requirements above.
http://www.tamarackhill.com/Stallions/stallions.htm
Taldara said:
So the myth about TBs maturing earlier than other breeds is apparently wrong. (I have to say ‘apparently’ as I can’t remember where I read this. Has anyone else heard about this research?). If true – even more reason not to be racing them at 2!!
Here ya go:
Skeletal Maturation in Horses
Grainne dhu said:
I doubt it. The reason Barbaro had even a slender chance was that the leg broke and he only put it down once after the break (I’ve seen frame by frame video of it) and clearly without putting weight on it…
Nonsense. Barbaro’s lower leg was shattered. Ever see the radiographs? He had no chance for a even a remotely normal life without amputation.
Here is a stallion with a prosthetic leg. Severe lower leg injuries need not be fatal. This protocol was suggested by several knowledgeable experts but was poo-poo’d by Barbaro’s connections.
Gideon
FHOTD said:
OFCOL – I agree completely, at least I see the TB industry making a real EFFORT at rehoming/rehabbing/retraining…I’d like to see AQHA step up in that direction.
The TB INDUSTRY has little to do with these rescue organizations (CANTER, EXCELLER, etc.). They are completely run through the blood, sweat, and tears of volunteers. The Jockey Club could care less what happens to these horses.
Sorry coming in on the end again. Nothing to add to earlier comments re difference in UK v Oz training (the two with which I am more familiar though separated by a fair chunk of time so don’t like to draw too many comparisons about the differences).
Yep. Breeding for speed and fight to win, not for conformation or temperament. Yep, far too much emphasis on a quick buck out of short distance two year old racing then retire to stud before they get unsound.
And every TB I have ever owned and lots I have dealt with that I didn’t were super sweet horses. The exceptions were usually in hard work and boxed for 23 or more hours a day.
So all I am adding is to Taldara and Hairiebeasties and saying I think the situation is worse for horse sales in other states. Victoria seems to have a lot of sales and I know there were (pre EI) a few up round me in NSW . Not counting sales like Auction of the Stars obviously – not I suspect a haunt for doggers! But still nothing like we are reading about in the US. The tail goes to the doggers (or recyclers) the rest go as riding horses etc – the ones with reserves on them.
fantasia – thanks. I knew I wasn’t dreaming!!
Blackfluffies – wondered if there were more auctions interstate. Still means very few in Aus compared to the US. I really think there could be a connection between this fact and the over production in the US.
What does everyone else think?
One thing I neglected to mention is that not all Thoroughbreds should be bred for racing. My mare (Gray Thoroughbred) was a mediocre race horse, she was okay, won a few races, placed and showed a few as well, won $22k over 4 years. Not terrible, not amazing. Her Thoroughbred foal is also OKAY, I do’nt know how he did on the track, but I dont’ think it was all that good. HOWEVER, this horse now events novice down in California and does amazingly well.
As for her other baby, he’s half Trakehner, and is looking FEI, and possibly international, prospect. Some Thoroughbreds will just make better Sporthorse babies than racers. =)
*emmad said: In regards to the temperament thing some of this can be breeding (ie line of horses). As previously meantioned the Sir Tristrams are known for having a bit of a temper. But there are other sirelines with the same sort of issues. Most people that have worked with a large number of TB’s will be able to tell you some characteristics of particular lines.*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’ve owned two TB geldings, both from the same breeding farm, both descended tail male from Bold Ruler, a stallion with a reputation for having and producing a bad temperament, yet both my boys have shown simply lovely dispositions. My current one would be a lapdog if he could scrunch himself up that small.
But then, both were bred to be sport horses in a program that selects both studs and dams for the whole package — conformation and disposition as well as athletic ability. The result: A horse who’s a blast to ride and a favorite with everyone who’s ever been called on to handle him.
I have to agree with you on a lot of this. Track footing has been a major issue it seems as of lately. Not only that it hasn’t been changed out before its lifespan runs out, but also coming up with the correct ratio’s of “ingredients” for the location (temperature, humidity, etc.) of the racetrack itself. Another issue I feel is the people who are actually “working” the footing…track managers. I know in your blog on barn help you mentioned people being hired because people who really knew what they were doing were being paid poorly, the same seems to go for other positions than just groom. I also feel that poor breeding and genetics seems to be a huge issue in the number of breakdowns not as in Barbaro “type” horses, but horses on smaller tracks that are at the lower levels of racing. I’m not saying I’m against racing at all I make part of my living from it, but it has its flaws just as other areas/disciplines in the equine world.
bit late but I think the media has a fair amount to do with the ‘increase’ in occurances – but it possibly vaires from country to country.
There was an extremely well bred, well put together, proven, neat little horse that snapped a leg at the newmarket october festival a couple of years ago and while for a week after it was mentioned it was then confined to the archives and everyone moved on. Interestingly with this case, I had mentioned to a couple of friends that on paper this horse was almost a cert to win, but watching it up to the gates there was something not right about it’s gait (canter was coming up short). Jockey didn’t seem fazed though and it was loaded – out the gates it came, and within 3 paces had come crashing down. They reckon it had a stess fracture before it had got into the gate and the impact of start had caused the leg to go completely. It was shot on site
The ground was good, horse was fit, had raced previously with no problems, had a good reputable trainer and owner and good confirmation and breeding. Sometimes accidents happen, and most you don’t hear about -but with the internet and TV everyone now can find out about it.
For the AQHA haters – a couple statistics for you off the The Jockey Club website (I calculated the percentages from their numbers).
43% of TBs are involved in racing
4% of QHs are involved in racing
Is this why we are seeing such are big difference in issues concerning slaughter and retirement? Almost half of all TBs are involved in a short lived career path. Hmmmmmmmmmmm?
Statistics on breeding in recent years:
TBs 2.9% of population – new registrations
QHs 4.9% of population – new registrations
Is it really any surprise a more versatile, recreational type horse has a higher percent of new foal registrations?
Oops! Wrong link to the horse with a prosthetic leg:
http://tiny.cc/Gideon
I am a huge fan of Thoroughbred horses as well as a race fan. I am also a proponent of barefoot horses and all that encompasses a more natural lifestyle for the horse for it’s physical and mental health. I have been following this racing stable in England for almost 2 years now on the Internet. At first I was interested simply because they race their horses on the flat and over hurdles barefoot with much success, but more than that, the management of their charges and the way the stable and farm is operated is phenomenal! Oh dear god I can only hope this is the future of racing here in the States and the world over! I urge everyone to take some time and visit this site and learn why it’s called “Horses First Racing”: httpwww.horsesfirstracing.com/://
A Canadian gentleman by the name of Stronach who operates many of this country’s Thoroughbred tracks under the ownership of Magna Entertainment was until recently buying up troubled race tracks all over the country and improving them (and conditions for jockeys) because he too loved TB racing and wanted to help the industry, and of course make a buck too. But Magna Entertainment is part of the bigger Magna Inc., a major auto parts supplier in Michigan and other areas. We all know our economy and the auto industry are in trouble right now (especially in Michigan) and Magna has had to liquidate some of it’s holdings as well as back out of a new, state of the art, year round, multi breed race track planned for the Detroit area to cut losses for Magna Inc. One of the reasons race tracks in general are losing ground is because the gambling dollar is going elsewhere such as casino’s and off track betting where the betting is fast paced. Live racing at tracks is slower because only one race goes off every 20 minutes or so and the race card is only 10,12 or 15 races per day. Today we want our entertainment and gambling fast and furious! The tracks which have slots or other forms of gambling, the “Racino’s”, are doing much better because the other forms of in house gambling are supporting the live racing by contributing to bigger purses which bring in better horses, better trainers, and just help the people in the industry stay in the industry by being able to make a living and stay in the game. Right now owners and trainers are trying to stay in the game by racing horses who are already hurt and should have been laid up, trying to squeeze out one more win,place or show just to pay the Vet or feed bill.
I’m not saying the big money horses like Barbaro are breaking down because they are raced injured, (though we know that it happens) but I would look at the breeding industry and racing practices as a whole. Two year old futurities should be outlawed (racing and show). I believe horses are going to the breeding shed way too early before they have proven they have longevity and soundness on the track. Remember Seabiscuit? Horses in his day had a heavy race schedule and they raced for years before being retired for breeding, producing strong horses with staying power. Today they are retired to stud at 3 after a handful of races before they have a chance to show how fragile they really are or retired at 3 after a race ending injury to reproduce themselves. They are producing drop dead gorgeous progeny who are too fragile to hold up but show EARLY SPEED. The Thoroughbred breeding industry is making way more money than the racing industry. No wonder when yearlings with elite pedigrees are bringing sale prices of millions. It’s just savvy business to retire your early stakes winner to the breeding shed to make more money than you ever would have racing. Is this practice producing runners who are just too fragile to hold up? I believe it is.
I also believe it’s the practice of shoeing (all) horses that contributes to too many lameness’s. Now don’t go dismissing this idea out of hand as “…….. we’ve always put shoes on our horses and they were sound.” There IS science behind it. Learn more about it before you reject the idea. One of my horses is currently involved in a study of the barefoot (physiological) trim at Michigan State University Veterinary School at the McPhail Center with Dr. Robert Bowker and Dr. Hillary Clayton. It IS being proven to be healthier for the whole horse, not just his feet. If you want to know more, see hoofrehab.com as Pete Ramey is in the forefront of knowledge and research in this area.
And Thoroughbreds are not born with shitty feet! Just think about how they’re shod, early shod, and how long they wear shoes back to back to back. Even their careers after racing keep them in shoes, perpetuate the bad angles and contribute to poor feet quality overall. I have 2 TB’s with big, beautiful, sound, BARE feet!
Fantasia said…
Taldara said:
So the myth about TBs maturing earlier than other breeds is apparently wrong. (I have to say ‘apparently’ as I can’t remember where I read this. Has anyone else heard about this research?). If true – even more reason not to be racing them at 2!!
Here ya go:
Skeletal Maturation in Horses
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I’m going to enlarge and post this article for all my friends who give me grief for not riding my TB/WBs until they’re four! (and then only lightly).
Fantasia wrote in regard to my comments about Barbaro’s injury vs George Washington’s injury: Nonsense. Barbaro’s lower leg was shattered. Ever see the radiographs? He had no chance for a even a remotely normal life without amputation.
I have seen Barbaro’s radiographs and I disagree.
Yes, there were a multitude of bone fragments. However, the blood supply to the lower leg was not substantially damaged. The fracture was a closed fracture, meaning that it was never exposed to the outside environment until they deliberately opened it in surgery.
They were able to plate and screw together over ninety percent of the bone, removing less than ten percent of the bone in the form of fragments too small and damaged to heal.
As I recall, they only had to go in once to remove a single bone fragment that did not have enough blood supply.
As awful as Barbaro’s initial radiographs looked, they looked pretty darn good when compared to the necropsies I’ve seen of horses who continued to try to put weight on the shattered limb. I’ve seen lower legs where the very largest bone fragments were smaller than the smallest fragment’s in Barbaro’s leg.
All of Barbaro’s major fragments were large enough to support screws.
In the case of George Washington, the fracture was wide open and the blood vessels to the lower leg were all torn; there is no way they could stretch far enough to allow the hoof to rotate 180 degrees. So at first glance, there were already two major strikes against GW’s recovery and neither of them had anything to do with his value or non-value as a stallion. Had Barbaro’s injury been open and all the blood vessels torn, I think he would have been euthanized right there on the track.
Barbaro never had a good chance but there was a chance. George Washington had no chance at all. There is a difference.
Fantasia wrote:Here is a stallion with a prosthetic leg. Severe lower leg injuries need not be fatal. This protocol was suggested by several knowledgeable experts but was poo-poo’d by Barbaro’s connections.
The problem is that for every horse who recovers from a limb amputation and adapts to a prosthetic, there are 9-12 who don’t. The reason there’s a range is because of different ways of counting the successes. For instance, if the horse survives and adapts for three years, then develops gangrene in the stump and dies, was that a success or a failure of the procedure?
Those are roughly the same odds that Barbaro faced with the treatment they did opt for.
The most common reason horses with amputations and prostheses fail is due to laminitis in the opposing limb.
Hmmmm… Barbaro developed laminitis in the opposing limb.
It’s a lot easier to make decisions with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight; we know that the treatment they opted for didn’t work, so with that knowledge, we’d make a different decision and then maybe things would have turned out differently.
It’s hard to accept that sometimes, no matter what you choose, love and money just aren’t enough.
hcit:
My calculations have shown that QHs of all types (racing and non-racing) have a MUCH higher chance of going to slaughter than thoroughbreds.
(And we’re talking calculations as far as QH/General Population, QH/Slaughter Population, so the point that there are many more QHs than TBs period is taken out of the equation).
As far as breeding – There is something seriously wrong with the kinds of stallions that are popular.
I got a stallion this spring for free. He raced until he was 9 years old. He won a stakes race as a 2 year old and another as a 9 year old. He raced 41 times. He raced WITHOUT lasix until he was 5 (meaning he won a graded stakes race without lasix).
Yeah, he retired too late, people didn’t remember him as a graded stakes winner, they remembered him as a useful $50k claimer.
He got a decent number of mares, but low quality mares and fell through the ranks until he was forgotten about and given away to a good home.
This year, a daughter of his has won **12 times**. Most horses aren’t sound enough to START 12 times… much less win 12 times.
But this is *not* nor will it ever be the kind of horse the industry at large is looking for. There are many more examples of stallions in the same catagory.
Soundness *can* be bred in, I believe it.
I knew a lovely old mare.
http://www.pedigreequery.com/arctic+belle
Her average starts PER FOAL (included the two unraced ones) was over 30 starts. I mean, MY GOD, how easy is that?
Let me preface my comment with this: I love racing. My great grandparents bred racehorses in Japan.
George Washington’s death gives me a headache if I think too much about it. He was retired, pronounced subfertile, put back into training, and then put in a race where he didn’t belong. He was a top racehorse, yes, but on TURF, not dirt, and he did not belong in the BC Classic. He proved that last year when he finished up the track in the same exact race. I just don’t understand putting him in the Classic when the Mile or the Turf would have suited him much better.
The problem with poly and cushion tracks is when horses train over those surfaces, then ship out and run over conventional dirt. Poly/cushion is more forgiving than dirt – it’s more like turf. Which is why a lot of turf horses are successful over poly. There are horses who run well on both dirt and poly. These are horses who don’t have issues with soundness, I think.
Racehorses aren’t bred for disposition. Storm Cat is a stallion who even non-racing people know is a top sire – he’s not nice, and his offspring aren’t known for their sweet temperaments. However, I’ve ridden plenty of OTTBs and none of them were mean. Some were aloof and on the high spirited side, but you could love on them at least a little.
Breeding is a big problem, I think. The current trend is dirt speed, and that has led to precocious horses who break down at an early age. Also, conformation is generally overlooked. Many of the stallions being bred have less than ideal conformation (look up Point Given, who raced at 2 and 3, won the Preakness and Belmont, and was retired due to an injury before the end of that same year), and while many argue that a lot of horses who have flawed conformation are useful racers (ie Seabiscuit, Seattle Slew) and nicely conformed horses turn out to be duds, I think it’s a huge mistake to overlook conformation. There are stallions out there who retired sound after long careers (relatively speaking, I mean 3 or 4 years and 20+ starts) and have good conformation, but they don’t get the same caliber mares that Slew, Danzig, Deputy Minister, Mr P, and Storm Cat do/did, because they raced on turf, did not mature until 4 or 5, or have unfashionable stamina-not-speed pedigrees. A lot of good turf sires get shipped off to Europe too (like With Approval, Red Ransom), where they are better appreciated, which is great for them but bad for US racing. One notable exception to this is Barbaro’s sire, Dynaformer, who may be a nasty bugger, but he has a stamina laden pedigree (one of his sons, Dynever, won a 2 mile race in Saudi Arabia), sires both turf and dirt runners, and his babies run for a long time (generally). This leads me to believe that Barbaro’s injury was truly an accident. It wasn’t genetic (unless it came from his female family…), the Jacksons are fine owners and Barbaro wasn’t overraced, and Michael Matz and his team are the finest out there.
Barbaro had a chance, despite the shattering of his leg, because none of the bone fragments broke through the skin. His accident was nowhere near as bloody as, say, Ruffian’s or Go For Wand’s.
One of my favorite TB broodmares is Starry Dreamer, a mare who raced31 times over 3 years and was competitive on stakes races on both dirt and turf. Her oldest foal, by Pulpit (a fashionable speed laden dirt sire), retired recently at age 6 (raced from 2 to 6) after making 34 starts that included a G3 win. Her second oldest, by Danzig, retired after only 13 starts, but he was competitive in G1 sprints and retired sound (as far as I know). Her third racing age foal (by AP Indy) has made 22 starts so far, is a G2 winner and multiple G1 placed, all on dirt (twice she finished second to Pine Island, the wonderful filly who was mentioned by another person). All relatively sound horses who were managed well (all trained by Allen Jerkens, one of the best). My point being – it’s not just the stallions who are being stood at stud. It’s also about the mares. It makes me cringe when some fillies who were too unsound to even make it to the track are bred to studs who retired from racing due to soundness issues.
I have a lot more to say but people keep coming in and out of my office and I feel guilty. Teehee.
I just came across this blog and was thrilled to death to see an article about the racing industry. I’ve been around horses since before I could walk (figuratively, not literally – my mother wasn’t a retarded horse owner) and about ten to fifteen years ago, we started taking retired racing mares on our modest farm so they could have a spoiled retirement. When I say spoiled, I mean it! Our cousin was a vet and always happy to come out if it meant her kids could be around the girls. Our mares, unlike some, were sweet and loved people. Riley, my first horse that was “mine”, was the most affectionate mare and horse I’d ever been around. Of course, I bribed her with treats…
I guess my point is, once I got back on track, is that racing can be great or horrible. It’s scarring to see a horse go down, especially a horse you know. We had a good friend that lost a three year old in her first race. A lot of people in the stands groaned, and someone even said “Oh man, there goes a whole career!” This illustrates the point that there are two kinds of people in the racing industry – those of us that absolutely love horses, and those of us that absolutely love races.
We were, and have always been, a very, very small horse farm. We’re picky in breeding and we’ve only had one, maybe two foals. Our community in general is close-knit and if we DO sell, they go to those people. It’s more like a family operation than anything. Now that, keep in mind, is QH racing, not TB. I don’t know the first thing about TB racing or TBs in general. But I’ll gladly talk your ear off about my AQHA babies and make fun of their enormous butts.
So I guess my point is, there’s the good side and the bad side of racing just like the other horse enthusiasms. While a lot of us are in it for the horses and absolutely love taking care of them and training them, others only care about the race. I hope that it’ll never become all about the races.