Factors Leading to Injuries and Breakdowns

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Bast
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Factors Leading to Injuries and Breakdowns

Postby Bast » Tue May 08, 2012 11:02 am

A thread for discussing factors and conditions leading to injuries and breakdowns, (with the exception of inbreeding, which has a thread of its own elsewhere), posting of informative links and personal experience, etc.
May 2013: Plan ahead now for the Phalaris/Teddy Centennial!
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A horse gallops with his lungs
Perseveres with his heart
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Toccet02
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Postby Toccet02 » Tue May 08, 2012 11:13 am

What about direct parentage (sire, dam, damsire) without inbreeding discussions? Want to consider that? I have some objective data to share.
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Bast
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Postby Bast » Tue May 08, 2012 11:17 am

Toccet02 wrote:What about direct parentage (sire, dam, damsire) without inbreeding discussions? Want to consider that? I have some objective data to share.


Direct parentage, yes.

This thread is intended to include everything except the "FB/NFB" inbreeding material. There is a whole thread for that.
May 2013: Plan ahead now for the Phalaris/Teddy Centennial!

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A horse gallops with his lungs

Perseveres with his heart

And wins with his character. --Tesio

casallc
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Postby casallc » Tue May 08, 2012 1:08 pm

Lasix!
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Bast
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Postby Bast » Tue May 08, 2012 1:24 pm

casallc wrote:Lasix!


I agree.

Could you describe the after-effects of Lasix, and the recovery period required?
May 2013: Plan ahead now for the Phalaris/Teddy Centennial!

*****************************

A horse gallops with his lungs

Perseveres with his heart

And wins with his character. --Tesio

Crystal
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Postby Crystal » Tue May 08, 2012 1:46 pm

poor understanding of equine conditioning and the reasons behind what healthy conditioning is vs. vet treatment.

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Bast
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Postby Bast » Tue May 08, 2012 2:20 pm

I'd like to know specifics of training in Europe and Australia without pharma support, making multiple starts in one month.
May 2013: Plan ahead now for the Phalaris/Teddy Centennial!

*****************************

A horse gallops with his lungs

Perseveres with his heart

And wins with his character. --Tesio

casallc
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Postby casallc » Tue May 08, 2012 4:08 pm

Bast wrote:
casallc wrote:Lasix!


I agree.

Could you describe the after-effects of Lasix, and the recovery period required?


Lasix depletes the sodium and electrolites causing both muscle and bone fatigue, the leading cause of breakdowns in racehorses. Results are different on individual horse but I'd say recovery time of a horse that runs on lasix is double that of one without. The average horse will lose 2 to 3% of their body weight after lasix dosage. Don't think that is though on a horse?

"Horses on furosemide continue to lose weight even after their race, which impacts their recovery. Bill Casner, who previously co-owned WinStar Farm, has raced his two-year-olds without Lasix, while his older runners campaign on the drug. Out of six starts without Lasix, only one has finished out of the top three, none exhibited bleeding in scopes, and all kept their weight. Casner said, “I look at the horses a day after they don’t race on Lasix. Every one of them is in the feed tub. They’re bucking and playing. It’s a statistically small sample, but when you put a horse (treated with Lasix) on the scales and you see that they’ve lost 100 pounds*, and then you see them behave after that race: they’re lethargic. They’re picking at their feed. You know it has to be a metabolic challenge for these horses.”
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Toccet02
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Postby Toccet02 » Tue May 08, 2012 4:17 pm

High Yield by Storm Cat ex Forty Niner mare family 2n Heart Disease
Unnamed 2005 colt by Storm Cat ex Gone West mare family 1g heart attack post workout

Hennessy by Storm Cat ex Hawaii mare family 8c heart attack

Sailors Warning by Storm Cat ex Private Account mare family 5f heart attack

Tabasco Cat by Storm Cat ex Sauce Boat mare family 12d heart attack


All of these conditions or attacks were diagnosed or caused death before age 18. One was 2YO and one was 6. This set off warning bells for me about Storm cat. His sons also seem to transmit heart problems but I'll only supply data if one is interested.
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Postby Shammy Davis » Tue May 08, 2012 7:20 pm

Some time ago, I came across this power point. Although it is dedicated to how not to train sporthorses, it may provoke some thought and discussion on this thread related to racehorses.

http://igsrv.org/PapersofInterest/Howno ... sesPPT.pdf

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Postby ratherrapid » Tue May 08, 2012 7:54 pm

Crystal. Ya! Lasix, whips. crystal got it right imo. Questionable understanding. My take has always been if our good trainers, by and large, would spend as much time training their horses as bathing them, the injury rate would be cut in half. Training at the upper levels is improving. Anybody notice the decrease in the number of Derby "outs" this year. The one injury in the Derby (that we know about) came to the horse with the weakest training.
What constitutes good training in terms of injury prevention is somewhat unknown and untested, imo.

As to lasix as a cause--that is rather ridiculous logically, although I'd normally fear such a debate with casallc. Simple logic. #1, they only get lasix once every two weeks at most, and thus, whatever mineral is depleted is limited to that day. Additionally, assuming ur trainer has any sense the horse will receive post race mineral supplement to make up for any loss. You r also wrongly assuming that loss of mineral from the blood stream due to lasix somehow leaches calcium out of the bones, and there's zero evidence that happens. Thus, after a lasix shot there may be a temporary lower electrolyte mineral content in the blood stream.

If u'd posted that most race horses fail to get enough sunlight and hence vitamin D, or that stalled horses likely get insuffient calcium except those who receive alfalfa, ya.

As to whips. Please. Get on a horse before u form an opinion on whips.
Misinformation(people with illogical agendas) actively injures the sport imo.

breeding--would certain body types related to weight and size be more injury prone

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Postby Shammy Davis » Tue May 08, 2012 8:16 pm

Lots of interesting stuff going on NY concerning safety. I came across this. The issue of lasix is being considered along with emergency claiming rules. There was a previous post on another thread with links to NY Times articles concerning older horses being run without proper preparation.

http://www.racing.state.ny.us/pdf/04301 ... eLasix.pdf

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Postby bdw0617 » Tue May 08, 2012 9:49 pm

ratherrapid wrote:Crystal. Ya! Lasix, whips. crystal got it right imo. Questionable understanding. My take has always been if our good trainers, by and large, would spend as much time training their horses as bathing them, the injury rate would be cut in half. Training at the upper levels is improving. Anybody notice the decrease in the number of Derby "outs" this year. The one injury in the Derby (that we know about) came to the horse with the weakest training.
What constitutes good training in terms of injury prevention is somewhat unknown and untested, imo.

As to lasix as a cause--that is rather ridiculous logically, although I'd normally fear such a debate with casallc. Simple logic. #1, they only get lasix once every two weeks at most, and thus, whatever mineral is depleted is limited to that day. Additionally, assuming ur trainer has any sense the horse will receive post race mineral supplement to make up for any loss. You r also wrongly assuming that loss of mineral from the blood stream due to lasix somehow leaches calcium out of the bones, and there's zero evidence that happens. Thus, after a lasix shot there may be a temporary lower electrolyte mineral content in the blood stream.

If u'd posted that most race horses fail to get enough sunlight and hence vitamin D, or that stalled horses likely get insuffient calcium except those who receive alfalfa, ya.

As to whips. Please. Get on a horse before u form an opinion on whips.
Misinformation(people with illogical agendas) actively injures the sport imo.

breeding--would certain body types related to weight and size be more injury prone


everyone in my circle knows i'm the horse racing guy so needless to say everyone was asking me about the derby this week. we had a little get together on sunday and some (stupid) chick brought up the fact that take charge indy was hurt and how "it's all cruel" the game of horse racing and the whole time i was stitting there thinking... you know.. maybe if he actually.. i don't know.. trained the horse.. he wouldn't have gotten hurt.

I mean, i do not profess to be the reincarnation of the bald eagle or anything like that, but in taking a pretty common sense approach to things, i don't see how people sit a horse in a stall for 2-3 weeks after a f,
race, work him 1 or two times and then throw him to the fire in a 20 horse field in a 10F race and expect him to come out of it, not hurt, let alone win the race. That baffles me.

This year when handicapping the derby, i tired a 10000% different approach. i did not even attempt to handicap the previous reasons. seriously i did not. at all. I did not look at trips, speed figures, whatever. I knew who all the horses were but i did not make any attempt to try to read too much into their last races. My entire handicapping consisted of studying the month of april and seeing how each horse was coming into the derby, the month as a whole as far as works, conditioning or what not.

on that list, 3 horses stood out like a sore thumb; Creative cause, i'll have another and went the day well. that ended up being the 1st, 4th and 5th place finisher in the derby.

I used to think it was breeding. I still do to a certain extent. I think alot of breeders breed horses with no intention in mind but to match as many popular names as possible. But I do not think this is the big issue. I watch too much aussie racing and seeing more than ready horses run 12F like it's nothing down there,come back and do it again next week.

As a whole i think we are doing something terribly wrong with the training of the race hoses. What I don't know i'm not a horseman. But i don't have to be Gastroenterologist to know shit stinks.


I don't think you can tie breakdowns to one specific thing. It's different things on differnet levels. At the highest level the theme seems to be keeping the dream going for as long as you can without ruining it by actually doing something lol. god forbid you find out your horse doesn't want to really run past a mile before the derby. I think some trainers look at every training/ race as a possible accident waiting to happen and the less events the smaller the amount of chnages to ruin the dream if that makes any sense.

On the middle level, the allowance / high level claiming level I think this is the most difficult to diagnose. Horses running in hollywood park tot he del mar polytrack I don't think that's very good and even worse coming right off that and working on dirt.


on the smaller level ironically it's the exact opposite of the top level. Tehy run the horses too much trying to squeeze every last once out of them. I know many of you read that pretty damning NY times article not too long ago that was on equidaily. The sad part about it is, you know it's true. You see it every day. I remember I was watching a race at mountainner, it was a turf race in july maybe 2 years ago and there was this like 11 or 12 year old horse and he had well over 100 starts i believe had made some money and I think this was even an allowance race not a claimer though i could be wrong on that and the horse on just broke down in the middle of the race. that was the lat time i have ever seen a race at mountaineer i can't take stuff like that. I refuse to play tracks lime mountaineer and penn national. by no means am i sayign everyone ther eis bad, but there is too much bad that goes on and everyone knows it is going on and no one does antyhing about it. i'm ont even saying you should have a save the race horse program but a let's not run every horse dead into the ground and give him ample time between races program would be sufficient enough.
"When the solution is simple, God is answering.”
- Einstein

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Postby zinn21 » Wed May 09, 2012 6:54 am

Crystal wrote:

poor understanding of equine conditioning and the reasons behind what healthy conditioning is vs. vet treatment.


Bingo...

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Sailor Kenshin
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Postby Sailor Kenshin » Wed May 09, 2012 7:05 am

If Lasix causes so many problems, why is it used?
Somebody bet on the gray!