Ellen Parker's comments on ESPN: The DNA of a Breakdown

[springboro]

read it

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/ ... id=3399004

[Elles]

If you do a search on the tbheritage site for the word broken:
http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u ... gle+Search
There are quite some references to broken legs and broken down horses. And there seems to be no connection between the different horses.

[Hold Your Peace]

read it

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/ ... id=3399004

The only person who considers Ellen Parker an authority on breeding racehorses is Ellen Parker.

You can go to her site and read about some of the matings she found “really exciting” several years ago and then look up those resulting foals today and you see results like “unraced, unplaced, and unraced”.

[Gold Digger]

[Shammy Davis]

Hold Your Peace posted:

The only person who considers Ellen Parker an authority on breeding racehorses is Ellen Parker.

Could not have said it better.

[majxmom]

The only person who considers Ellen Parker an authority on breeding racehorses is Ellen Parker.

You can go to her site and read about some of the matings she found “really exciting” several years ago and then look up those resulting foals today and you see results like “unraced, unplaced, and unraced”.

In 2000, I received a free pedigree analysis from her through Victory Rose Thoroughbreds. As a formality, I asked her for references: i.e., what breedings could she point to that she had recommended which resulted in a good racehorse? She sputtered and said that no one ever took her recommendations. She did not name a single horse.

She did make some good points in this article, though. I wouldn't take it all on faith, but there were some interesting parts to consider.

[diomed]

What kills me is the thing she said about introducing "other" blood(another breed) into the TB to make them sounder.
Did she even remotely study genetics? I take it she has no idea what a hybrid is.
Stupid.

[geowarrior]

I was under the impression that Raise a Native bowed tendons, not that he had problem ankles. Native Dancer did have osselets which were pin-fired before the Derby. However I believe that sometimes osselets are caused by over-racing before a horse is sufficiently mature, which does not necessarily indicate a genetic problem. Osselets and bowed tendons are two different things are they not?

[soundfast]

Eight Belles sire Unbridled's Song was retired after a break was discovered in his right front leg. Half Ours his son out of a Storm Cat mare had 7 starts and fractured a hind leg and retired to stud. Half Ours has an outcross pedigree. Buddha also Unbridled's Song x Storm Cat mare had only 4 starts also an outcross pedigree. Both of them have only 1 to Raise A Native in the 5th and Raise A Native did retire because of bowed tendons and 3 of his full sisters had more than 23 starts. Rags To Riches( A P Indy) had a fracture after only 7 starts with no RAN. A P Indy x Storm Cat mare produced Jump Start retired after 5 starts because of a fracture. A number of horses who broke down have had Storm Cat as grandsire thru a son or daughter and more than 1 had Unbridled's Song or A P Indy. Storm Cat is the most frequent in the breakdowns list I have checked so far.

[louis finochio]

Wait till many breeders start inbreeding double up to SC, those average starts will plumet to new lows.

[Joltman]

This sort of thing should be easy enough to verify statistically. i.e. For all horses with 1, 2, 3 occurences of Raise a Native (or any other alleged source of unsoundness) - how many starts do they have compared with the rest of the gene pool. Maybe more importantly, how do these compare to those without any instances of this horse?

So often one instance is supposed to 'prove' the case and it winds up being so much misinformation.

jm

[Bunty Lawless]

Eight Belles sire Unbridled's Song was retired after a break was discovered in his right front leg. Half Ours his son out of a Storm Cat mare had 7 starts and fractured a hind leg and retired to stud. Half Ours has an outcross pedigree. Buddha also Unbridled's Song x Storm Cat mare had only 4 starts also an outcross pedigree. Both of them have only 1 to Raise A Native in the 5th and Raise A Native did retire because of bowed tendons and 3 of his full sisters had more than 23 starts. Rags To Riches( A P Indy) had a fracture after only 7 starts with no RAN. A P Indy x Storm Cat mare produced Jump Start retired after 5 starts because of a fracture. A number of horses who broke down have had Storm Cat as grandsire thru a son or daughter and more than 1 had Unbridled's Song or A P Indy. Storm Cat is the most frequent in the breakdowns list I have checked so far.

I do believe Unbridled Song is a source of unsoundness. But so are the inconsistent surfaces and the inconsistent drug rules and certainly the lack of ability to train a horse as an individual anymore. (Too many horses on the track in the morning and too little time to give them what they individually need.)

The combination can surely be deadly. But in Eight Belles' case, I think her heart and her will, coupled with the Unbridled Song genes sealed her fate when her owner insisted on running her where she would have to try so hard, when she could have run against the fillies.

Ellen Parker seems to be married to her beliefs, which makes learning anything new difficult at best.

[Worksoplad]

Eight Belles sire Unbridled's Song was retired after a break was discovered in his right front leg. Half Ours his son out of a Storm Cat mare had 7 starts and fractured a hind leg and retired to stud. Half Ours has an outcross pedigree. Buddha also Unbridled's Song x Storm Cat mare had only 4 starts also an outcross pedigree. Both of them have only 1 to Raise A Native in the 5th and Raise A Native did retire because of bowed tendons and 3 of his full sisters had more than 23 starts. Rags To Riches( A P Indy) had a fracture after only 7 starts with no RAN. A P Indy x Storm Cat mare produced Jump Start retired after 5 starts because of a fracture. A number of horses who broke down have had Storm Cat as grandsire thru a son or daughter and more than 1 had Unbridled's Song or A P Indy. Storm Cat is the most frequent in the breakdowns list I have checked so far.

I do believe Unbridled Song is a source of unsoundness. But so are the inconsistent surfaces and the inconsistent drug rules and certainly the lack of ability to train a horse as an individual anymore. (Too many horses on the track in the morning and too little time to give them what they individually need.)

The combination can surely be deadly. But in Eight Belles' case, I think her heart and her will, coupled with the Unbridled Song genes sealed her fate when her owner insisted on running her where she would have to try so hard, when she could have run against the fillies.

Ellen Parker seems to be married to her beliefs, which makes learning anything new difficult at best.

Running against colts had absolutely nothing to do with it. Even 2yo fillies run against colts in Europe day in, day out, year in, year out. (Indeed, 2yos, including 2yo fillies, are allowed to run against older horses in all types of races with no distinction, except for a 5ib allowance, to no ill effect.)

Furthermore, 3yo fillies have beaten their male counterparts throughout history, all around the world, and even in the US, e.g. Rags to Riches last year in the Belmont. Miesque won TWO Breeders' Cup Miles, not to mention 2 Prix Jaques Marois (Fr G-1), and a Prix du Moulin (Fr G-1) amongst other races against males.

[soundfast]

I read that Eight Belles was given Bute prior to the race which indicates she was not totally sound. I do not understand why horses can be run on Bute. Horses running on Bute are more likely to break down. I also do not think Larry Jones should have been riding her as much as he weighs ever. I read he weighs 215 pounds which is more than any horse that age should have on their back and may have been why she was given Bute. She may have been sore from carrying so much weight just a few days before the race. More A.P. Indy's with fatal or non fatal broken bones on my list and 2 by Jump Start both euthanized because of fractures. Do some breeders ever think about the fact that a horse sired by one that had a fracture might be more likely to have one? There are things that make fractures more likely besides heredity and doing those things increase the odds of a fatal breakdown but if they would start by breeding to sound hard boned horses fatal breakdowns would decrease even if drugs are not totally eliminated. Track surfaces have definitely been an important factor in some breakdowns.

[Hold Your Peace]

I read that Eight Belles was given Bute prior to the race which indicates she was not totally sound. I do not understand why horses can be run on Bute. Horses running on Bute are more likely to break down. I also do not think Larry Jones should have been riding her as much as he weighs ever. I read he weighs 215 pounds which is more than any horse that age should have on their back and may have been why she was given Bute. She may have been sore from carrying so much weight just a few days before the race. More A.P. Indy's with fatal or non fatal broken bones on my list and 2 by Jump Start both euthanized because of fractures. Do some breeders ever think about the fact that a horse sired by one that had a fracture might be more likely to have one? There are things that make fractures more likely besides heredity and doing those things increase the odds of a fatal breakdown but if they would start by breeding to sound hard boned horses fatal breakdowns would decrease even if drugs are not totally eliminated. Track surfaces have definitely been an important factor in some breakdowns.

Virtually every horse in Kentucky runs on Bute and that indicates nothing about their soundness. They run on Bute because it's allowed. And horses on Bute are not more likely to break down. If you think a little bit of Bute will make an unsound horse appear sound, you greatly overestimate the effects of Bute.