Breakdowns and Maturity

[diomed]

And Steroids.

[Shammy Davis]

Zinn21 wrote:

I guarantee you if we went back to 3 vets instead of 25 we would see average number of starts increase dramatically.

I'm not saying certain breeding practices may factor into current unsoundness but I think there is an awful lot of evidence indicating medications and inter articular joint injections are the primary culprit. Average number of starts began falling of in the 70's at exactly the same time medication and injections became a mainstream training protocol

I don't know if you have been following this thread closely, but the contradiction to all of this comes from the fact that Louis claims that the Vets on the CA backstretches are agreeing w/him.

[ElPrado]

Probably to get him out of their hair.

[TJ]

Louis wrote:

40 years ago before those FB arrived, we had 3 vets take care of 1500 tb, their average lifetime starts was 36, all NFB. 40 years ago before those FB arrived, we had 3 vets take care of 1500 tb, their average lifetime starts was 36, all NFB.

Today we have over 25 vets taken care of 1500 tb, their average lifetime starts is 6.

I guarantee you if we went back to 3 vets instead of 25 we would see average number of starts increase dramatically.

I'm not saying certain breeding practices may factor into current unsoundness but I think there is an awful lot of evidence indicating medications and inter articular joint injections are the primary culprit. Average number of starts began falling of in the 70's at exactly the same time medication and injections became a mainstream training protocol.

Hi Z,
I believe the time period you mentioned (70's) is very important. It was a period when we saw 3 Triple Crown Champions, we also saw the financial windfall such an accomplishment would bring about. Secretariat was syndicated for a then record six million eighty thousand dollars. Owner's and trainer's seeing this financial windfall changed their mindset and got the ball rolling to the point we are in now.....show early brilliance, win a GrI, syndicate and retire to the breeding shed. This is one reason we see less longevity in horses....the only good ones we see race after 3 are usually geldings. Another reason which cropped up in NY during the 70's was year round racing. This served a couple purposes, but not for the race horse. It helped the Vets, tracks and the States financially. The horses....many of which would get the winter off for repairs while awaiting the tracks to re-open (affording these horses a welcomed break and avoided...in many cases a career ending injury). Instead of this helpful breather, they now continued to race. As the wear and tear began to show itself, instead of getting that time off to heal prior to year round racing.....they were now injected, blocked, jugged, or dropped so they could continue to earn their keep.
Unfortunately that is what has become of the industry. It's about the bottom line of expenses versus the horses ability to earn. No one gives a horse enough time today unless they are top horses....so they go to the meds and injections and train them right along, withdraw in time to run and if they make it through that race the cycle begins all over again....till they are cooked!! To me that's the biggest change in racing and one of the main reasons why horses don't race as often as they once did. TJ

[ElPrado]

In the 70's the vets were only just starting to make the knee injections, give the lasix shots, inject the ankles, scope the throat and do myriad other things to keep the horses running year round. The vets meant well. Over time, we've come to realize that maybe they were approaching it the wrong way. We were better off with the break. The horses get a chance to unwind mentally with a month being a horse, not a machine.
Rachel had her winter break sitting in her stall. They had screwed her up already.

[wangkw]

Top male or female horses are put on production line and run 24 hours a day right from day 1 in studs.
Only geldings will get a true retirement provided that they survive a very long and competitive racing
career and earn enough. Indeed pathetic !

Sunday silence is a typical example. Believe he is the most prolific 4-legger in racing.

[ratherrapid]

vets might have been a factor in post 70s horse racing. i think the primary difference is that somewhere between 1975 and 1985 you begin to get a different sort participating in horse racing, both trainers and owners. A training transition reducing volume of track work might have begun with Woody Stephens. With Stephens success on the East Coast you had copy cats there.

I am suspecting a lot of that success from the non-training methods that commenced in the 1980s involved steroids. but, unknown. see also D.W. Lukas.

in this period anybody on the farm that could throw horse feed became a "trainer". had very little to do with athletics, knowledge of performance or injury prevention. and the advent of the trainer/medicine man/ use of the needle to attempt to keep horse running and winning might have come primarily in the early to mid '80s.

West coast was different. There they had Whittingham as the example, and then Frankel. Different sort of training style there.

[ElPrado]

Those mares aren't racing in the studs.
You're in Singapore. How many pastured horses have you watched? Damned few, I imagine. They don't gallop around full blast in a pasture. Their heads are down cropping grass. The speed they are travelling varies from a dead stop to a walk. They may canter over to a favorite spot. Many mares are never stalled. There are run in sheds where they are fed grain and escape weather if they want to. Many horses never lay down to sleep.

[wangkw]

I didn't say mares are galloping in studs.

[zinn21]

This is probably an argument that will never resolve. I don't think genetics are that much different today than 50 years ago. But medications and how we race horses has dramatically changed from 50 years ago.

I'm old school. I don't spend much money with vets. 80% of the time nature will solve a problem. The other 20% are usually acute requiring medical expertise. The last four horses I raced (3 bought as ylngs and 1 I bred) have started 50, 32, 30 and 25 times to date with three of four still running.

[wangkw]

just curious how do these 4 runners fare so far..in terms of no of wins and place and perhaps prizes they brought you ?

I ask in order to have an idea of how feasible to be an leisure horse owner ? If it is too private to tell then please ignor it
and I would fully understand.

[zinn21]

1. 50 starts 7 wins 8 place, 7 show $107,000 claimed off me for $16,000

2. 32 starts 9 6 4 $122,000 claimed off me for $8500

3. 30 starts 5 3 6 $38,000 claimed off me for $6250

4. 25 starts 1 5 5 $20,000 sold privately

2,3 and 4 still running for current owners.

[wangkw]

Thanks for sharing..so the money less cost should give you total net intake of about 120k ? Here I assume your holding cost is 40k
per race horse (over 3 years) before being claimed off...My assumption could be topsy turvy.

[Shammy Davis]

http://www.grayson-jockeyclub.org/newsi ... asures.pdf