Indian Flare dies

[NiteOwl666]

http://racing.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=40453

Apparently fractured her pelvis in the Ballerina, went into cardiovascular shock -- is that a common injury (the fractured pelvis)? I've never really heard of too many horses suffering this in training or racing. I read somewhere else that Joint Effort had to be euthanized due to a fractured pelvis

[Skipitgirl]

Yes, a pelvic fracture can send you into cardiovascular shock. Depending on where the fracture is, bleeding can be severe due to injuries of the large vessels that pass through the pelvis.

[Des]

It was puzzling to me why she was stopping that badly...Now I know she was hurt as they usually are when they stop that badly.

[pembroke]

Cockney Rebel cracked his pelvis racing in the 2000 Guiness. In the Prince of Wales he ran out on the turn and finished fifth. They discovered the problem after the race. Obviously, it was not as bad as this one.

[Mood Swings]

That is very sad. Poor mare How does a horse fracture its pelvis while running? Genuinely curious here. I can reason that a lower joint fractured or broken is more easily explained by a mis-step but the pelvis is so well protected and large ...

[summerhorse]

That is very sad. Poor mare How does a horse fracture its pelvis while running? Genuinely curious here. I can reason that a lower joint fractured or broken is more easily explained by a mis-step but the pelvis is so well protected and large ...

They can hit the side of the gate or even have hit it earlier in the stall or fallen or something creating a fracture which might or might not hurt too much but when they explode out of the gate it puts a lot of pressure on it. For a horse that already has a stress or trauma fracture line that could break it or for a horse that creates that line in the gate just running on it could cause it to give later on in the race (as Indian Flare). I've seen several horses with broken pelvises (es??) and they are quite lame almost immediately so I think (IMO only of course) that Indian Flare had damage of some sort that gave way when she stopped so badly. Then bone ends or fragments cut some blood vessel or other. That can happen with any bone break actually. A horse next door to me broke his leg (up high) and it cut a vein or artery and he was gone in less than 15-20 mintues from fall to death. It was literally like the life drained right out of him (but the blood was all internal of course).

[Tucumcari]

Pelvic fractures aren't as rare as one might think. They are actually a fairly common injury.

[majxmom]

Magic's mother was thought by the vet to have had a pelvic fracture while racing. She fell in a $32k race at Santa Anita when she hurtled over a fallen horse, was entered back in five days, pulled up, and was shipped up north. She was entered in a $6250, won but wasn't claimed, entered back in a $6250, won again but was claimed, then went dead lame. She couldn't take a step. The rather incompetent vet at the track blocked several joints, couldn't find the source of the lameness, and pronounced it a pelvic fracture. I bought her for a broodmare and turned her out. Six months later she was looking pretty good, so I put her back into training, and she won again and was on the board a bunch of times. But as I have told the story before, she died foaling out her first foal. Several racetrack friends told me that they had heard that mares with pelvic fractures often couldn't deliver normally (information I could have used BEFORE I bred her).

Recently there was just a good racemare that retired with a pelvic fracture who died foaling her first foal; can't remember who it was. Apparently it doesn't inhibit ambulatory movement as much as we might think, but it displaces the bones enough to prevent the foal from moving down the birth canal.

[Mood Swings]

Summerhorse - thanks, that makes alot of sense.

Majxmom - that is sad about your mare I have heard about pelvic abnormalities causing foaling issues, thankfully I haven't dealt with it first hand.