Thoroughbred industry racing to find solutions to fatal breakdowns

[clevfan]

May 11, 2008


Thoroughbred industry racing to find solutions to fatal breakdowns

Industry seeks end to fatal breakdowns

By Jennie Reesand Gregory A. Hall
The Courier-Journal

The public's revulsion over the high-profile breakdowns within thoroughbred racing has reached a crisis point that demands a strong and determined response from the industry, according to prominent horsemen, including breeders, trainers and jockeys.

The filly Eight Belles' fatal breakdown in last weekend's Kentucky Derby -- coming less than two years after Barbaro's eighth-month fight for life caught America's attention -- has led to widespread calls for racing to intensify efforts already under way to make the sport safer and to explore new solutions.

While racing's leaders have been working for more than a decade to create safer racing surfaces and resolve controversial medication issues, those in the industry say more must be done to achieve real success. For instance, many believe that if real, long-term solutions are to be found, the industry must deal with breeding practices that some say have created inherent weaknesses in the bloodlines that lead to dangerous defects.

"We're in the headlines right now, and I don't think it's going to disappear and it probably shouldn't," said trainer Rick Violette, president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association as well as of its national affiliate.

"I don't think the attitude should be 'this dies down and we move on,' " he said.

Bill Casner, co-owner of WinStar Farm, agreed.

"We are in a crisis situation," he said.

Eight Belles' death is "tragic; it's gut-wrenching," Casner said. "Our whole industry is rallying around this event. I think we're all trying to find ways we can improve the safety for our horses and riders."

The only consensus is that there are no easy or quick solutions, but that something has to be done.

"It could get to the point where if we don't do something about it, nobody is going to watch the races," said Stone Farm owner Arthur Hancock, a two-time Derby winner.

Among the potential solutions mentioned most frequently:

Synthetic racing surfaces: New surfaces have been installed in nine tracks across the country, including Keeneland and Turfway Park in Kentucky, and initial results are considered promising in reducing the catastrophic bone fractures.

Breeding soundness into thoroughbreds, rather than speed. "We've crept to a less durable horse," said Larry Bramlage, a prominent equine orthopedic surgeon from Lexington. "… Now a horse's value as a stallion is determined principally by how brilliant they were in a few events, not how many years they ground it out."

Medication regulations: After years of study, debate and compromise, state racing commissions have begun to agree on nationally uniform regulations that control what drugs with legitimate therapeutic use can be in a horse's system in any amount for racing. Now the debate is turning to the use of anabolic steroids in horses, both for racing and at sales.

AN Unfortunate history

Filly Eight Belles was justlatest in tragic breakdowns

This is not the first time the industry has faced the glare of scrutiny after the deaths of its stars.

Many of the programs today have developed since the racing world was rocked by fatal breakdowns of Go for Wand in the 1990 Breeders' Cup Distaff, Union City in the 1993 Preakness and Preakness winner Prairie Bayou in the 1993 Belmont Stakes.

On Thursday, The Jockey Club -- the official registrar of North American thoroughbreds -- announced a seven-member thoroughbred safety committee to review every aspect of equine health. That is an offshoot of two industry summits held after Barbaro's death. Foundations have spent more than $25 million to fund 400 equine welfare projects and workshops the last decade

"The perception of racing is that we don't care and that horses break down all the time and they're just pushed aside and 'next player,' " said Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella, who is active in many national and California programs involving equine welfare. "It's not. There's broken hearts that go along with it.

"… Nothing will ever be enough," he said. "There's no satisfaction until you've stopped it. But all I can say is there is a heck of a lot of work and good people trying to make things better."

ON THE SURFACE

Some support replacingdirt with synthetic track

Casner, chairman of the Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders Association and the owner of this year's sixth-place Derby finisher Colonel John, says installing synthetic surfaces at dirt tracks would have the greatest and most immediate impact.

TOBA plans to release statistics soon comparing the number of fatalities at tracks before and after they installed synthetic surfaces. Casner said injuries have decreased 30 to 50 percent after tracks switched.

"If we're getting 50 percent now from horses who have trained most of their lives on dirt, what are we going to have when these horses spend all of their lives on synthetics?" said Casner, who applauds the California Horse Racing Board for mandating that major dirt tracks be changed to synthetic surfaces for racing by this year.

"We can't change genetics overnight, but we can change our racetracks," he said.

But critics contend that while fatal bone fractures are largely reduced on synthetic tracks, there are still as many injuries. They wonder whether spending the same millions on improving dirt tracks and their drainage might have the same result.

Even advocates of synthetic surfaces say more needs to be learned about their maintenance, how they react in hot and cold weather and how the materials hold up over time.

"The synthetics have gone into tracks where there was a more obvious problem," Bramlage said. "… The track surface at Keeneland had a reputation for being hard on horses. But I think it's less clear that we should jump to synthetics on tracks with reputations for being relatively safe: the Fair Grounds, Belmont Park, Churchill Downs… We replaced the ones that had obvious needs of replacing, and now we need to assess what we know."

BLOOD WILL out

Industry may examinerecent breeding practices

In no area is the finger-pointing greater than the debate over whether America's breeders have produced an increasingly fragile animal while making speed and brilliance the objective in a mating at the expense of soundness and durability.

Doug Byars, a leading expert in internal and critical equine care, is among those who say there is too much emphasis on breeding a horse that will attract top dollar at sales -- with fashionable speed-oriented bloodlines -- rather than one who has the best parentage for longevity at the racetrack. "We've got to look at breeding to sell, not breeding to race," he said.

Many breeders counter that they must produce what the market wants to stay in business. Also, horses such as last year's Derby winner Street Sense and runner-up Hard Spun become so valuable as stallions that the economic pressure is to retire them after the 3-year-old campaign. If they don't race at 4 and 5, no one knows if they're likely to produce progeny resilient enough to withstand several years of racing.

While Casner says the breeding is unfairly becoming the whipping boy, he agrees standards are too lax for horses getting into the production chain.

"I really don't think it's as much the speed factor as . . . what does everybody do with a filly who can't run? Breed them," he said. "What do they do with a filly that can't make it to the races because of soundness? Breed them. . . . Horses in an earlier time had to earn their way into the breeding shed Fillies certainly had to be good racehorses and had to be durable."

One industry project involves compiling statistics designed to measure the durability of stallions' offspring.

BAD MEDICINE?

Regulation of drug usealso stirring new debate

Progress has been made toward states adopting similar regulations regarding which medications can be given horses in the hours and days leading up to races.

A major breakthrough came when Kentucky, which had the most liberal medication policies, adopted national guidelines that allow only bleeder medication to be given no less than four hours before post time and only one anti-inflammatory agent be given as close as 24 hours before a race.

The current debate turns on the use of anabolic steroids, both in racing and in sales.

As with human athletes, those steroids are considered performance enhancers, though they do have therapeutic value when used judiciously.

Hancock says that medication is intertwined with breeding questions.

"Horses are running on drug-induced abilities as opposed to natural abilities," he said. "And when you breed those you're going to be breeding more unsoundness."

A consensus of those interviewed also cited a decline in sophisticated knowledge of horses at the racetrack, from trainers to jockeys to stable hands -- although no one criticized anyone involved in the most publicized recent breakdowns.

"The whole industry, not just trainers -- grooms, hot walkers, exercise riders and assistant trainers -- they've all lost a lot of horsemanship in it," Mandella said.

That, in turn, means that the warning signs of an unsound horse could go unrecognized.

Finally, there is the economic factor. Trainers are under pressure by tracks to run horses to keep up field sizes.

Betting -- the engine that funds the racing industry -- increases if there are more horses in a race because the winning payoffs are higher. Some point out that the presumed watchdogs -- veterinarians employed by the track or state to ensure the fitness of horses who race -- may be reluctant to scratch horses as being lame, especially favorites.

"Sometimes the trainers are under pressure from the owners to run the horses more," said Chicago trainer Christine Janks. "And nobody makes any money if the horses aren't in races. So all the pressure is to run the horse no matter what.... There is no advocate for the horse."

And even as the industry seeks ways to improve safety for horses, many states -- including Kentucky -- are cutting regulatory budgets, which could mean fewer or less-qualified veterinarians who perform the pre-race inspections for soundness, less stringent testing for illegal drugs and less money for programs such as necropsies of racehorses who die at tracks and training centers.

Struggling tracks also might not be able to afford synthetic surfaces, which can cost as much as $10 million.

But Byars and others believe the industry must overcome those limitations.

"Barbaro and Eight Belles ... teach us how much we don't know, and that to me is the important thing," he said.

"Our industry does need to have tremendous change in its attitudes and focus. ... If we're pretty cavalier and apathetic about this and we get over it, we'll deserve to get shut down."

[Hartley]

Breeding soundness into thoroughbreds, rather than speed. "We've crept to a less durable horse," said Larry Bramlage, a prominent equine orthopedic surgeon from Lexington. "… Now a horse's value as a stallion is determined principally by how brilliant they were in a few events, not how many years they ground it out."

That would be the key. If thoroughbreds were built more like standardbreds they wouldn't have nearly as many injuries. Problem is, how do you monitor it? Also how do you convince other countries to follow suit?

[StarnetGypsy]

Originally Posted by Hartley

That would be the key. If thoroughbreds were built more like standardbreds they wouldn't have nearly as many injuries.

true story. quarter horses are one of the toughest breeds going. where i live on the ranch here he has six quarter horses and watching them cut & turn there's no way they'd break an ankle, let alone two ...