Breakdowns on Big days
 

Is there some co-realtion to Breakdowns and the Big Days of racing?

Barbabro, GEorge Washington, Eight Belles and Chelokee. There was also a Ogden phipps horse that broke down in the distaff in the 2006 BC.


How many breakdowns do we see on regular days??
There are some but percenatge wise seems like it happens more on the big days. Not a very good image for horse racing especialy on the national stage.

Why do they need to sup up the track on the big days. Maybe someone should look at that.

It's mostly Churchill.

Oddly enough, normally Churchill is one of the safest dirt tracks. Just some very unfortunate incidents lately, I'm afraid. :( Not a knock on the super there as 5" of rain is tough to deal with anywhere, but that track looked REALLY hard yesterday.

i don't think it's more on big days, it's just that big name horses get more press.
most of the time, if it's not an a list horse, you don't hear about it. you only know if you're there to see a horse go down, or are viewing on t.v.

Frankly, I believe that Eight Belles should have run in the Oaks and not the Derby. I believed it before the race and even though she ran teriffically, she had to run her heart out to chase that monster which probably contributed to her breakdown. It is a shame that Rick Porter wanted to get into the Derby so bad, they should have learned their lesson from Rags last year. While Rags won the Belmont, it was at the cost of her racing career. It is a shame, this one could have been one of the great fillies.

I don't blame the connections, and I don't feel it was the competition that led to the accident. If so, why didn't any of the overmatched colts break down? Weren't they chasing the same monster and running their hearts out?

Jim, they were, but this was her first shot against the boys and in the Kentucky Derby. All the previous fillys that won had run against the boys in the past. Most of the boys quit, she didn't and ran really hard. This is a clear tragedy, but after what happened to Rags last year, I just thought, and still do, that at this point it was best for her to go into the Oaks. I am not saying that this was the cause of it, just not discounting it either.

no, it's only when fillies face colts. colts chasing colts...well, that's another story. filly might be as big as a colt, as strong, as fast, she's still just a lousy weak female and thus a lesser animal who should be kept in her place.
you know, like rags, who got injured in her next start, not the belmont. a loss, to a filly, in a race vs 'her own kind'. not against colts. but that wouldn't support the theory that fillies shouldn't race against colts, so just ignore the facts surrounding her injury and when it occurred....

I agree but at the same time im thinking it was just a freak thing that happened. I told my girlfriend before the race I would gladly lose the money I bet yesterday on that race to see all the horses come out healthy and unfort it just didnt happen that way. I wish they wouldnt have shown her on the ground though...

I agree 100%. I am not the only one that questioned the decision. Deb, I think you read way too far into what I said. I didn't say that she couldn't run against the boys, but it is where she was spotted for the first run against them is what I question. If they wanted to go to the Derby, it may have been a better decision to run her against the boys in one of the preps. I am not a big fan of Porter and believe that he was just dying to get a horse in the Derby, which IMO, and it is only my opinion, had more to do with entering her in the Derby instead of going into a spot where she was better placed. As far as Rags, IMO, and again it is just only an opionion, she was never the same horse after the Belmont. It took quite some time to just get her into a race.

i think had rags or eight belles struggled in their races vs boys, you'd have a point. but putting in a good effort doesn't lead to injury. fighting an unfamiliar surface, or not running right due to discomfort-yeah, that can lead to injury. they both did so well, i don't think the fact that their opponents were of another sex had anything to do with it.
both fillies put in races equal to their male counterparts in previous races. the 10f derby was a first for all 20 horses yesterday.
for whatever reason, after the finish, eight belles went down. but i don't feel the fact she faced males was the contributing factor, nor the distance run.

and i apologize for my tone in my previous post. i'm in a foul mood, and i'm taking it out on the wrong people.

don't appologize....the filly had every right to be in the race....she beat all but one of the colts....her breakdown had nothing to do with the fact that she was running against colts...

yeah, but i don't have to be a sarcastic smart ass about it either....

i think we could/should have more fillies trying more colts, they do overseas. but then something like this happens, and it sets us back. there's no reason why they can't compete against each other. eight belles showed us that yesterday, rags last year. as for rags' injury, her value imo had more to do with her retirement due to injury than the injury itself. i just think it's a sad coincidence that eight belles broke down after racing colts, but i don't think the fact she had just raced vs them had to do with it. but that's just my opinion, and there's really no way to prove or disprove it-or those who take the opposite view. but the way rick porter and larry jones and co must feel..i just hate to see anyone pile on them about the decision.
we want sporting folks, and then this happens...second guessing follows.

Really? Four breakdowns in the last five big days at Churchill, two of them fatal, and it's not more on big days?

CBS & NBC Nightly News
 

Well, here we go again. Because the breakdown occurred on the big stage, both NBC and CBS have done stories on the evening news about the dangers of horse racing. The answer according to the "experts" is synthetic tracks.
The CBS report claims that horse racing deaths are down 25% on tracks that have converted to synthetic. How long do you give Churchill? A year? Two years? Seems like the only time our sport makes the news is when something like this happens. This is Bullshiat!!!!!!!

There was I believe, a breakdown in the first at Belmont today....

i don't know that it's more, or less. there are more small days than big days, so i guess there would be more on small days...just because of the #'s involved. you'd also think that big horses would be taken care of better than the other horses, so they'd have less breakdowns. but they'd also get more coverage.
i just think, based on the fact that about 80% of the horses being raced are claimers, that they would also have more of the injuries-but less of the press.

Interesting question. Tracks have been noted to "soup up" their track for some reason or another on big days. I've never understood it but we've seen evidence of it. Real handicappers know the unadjusted time is meaningless and I can't see non-racing fans getting all excited because a horse runs a 1:35 mile instead of maybe a 1:36 3/5 over a deeper track. But a harder track could contribute to more breakdowns.

The George Washington breakdown drew lots of criticism since many (myself included) felt that he had no business running in the BC Classic. Considering how EIght Belles ran, she certainly wasn't overmatched by the other 18 non Big Brown males. Have to also think that Grade 1 caliber performers might try a little harder and that riders may be putting forth as much effort as possible. Put it all together and I can see why there's more breakdowns in these scenarios.

Good point...also, if it's on national TV, it's a lock to make news for a few media cycles.

Fact is, as most of us are aware, this happens more often than we'd like to acknowledge. In my eyes, it is just as unfortunate when a 6 yr old $4,000 claimer breaks down in a race at Prairie Meadows as when a highly touted star like Eight Belles, George Washington or Barbaro does. The only difference is, at Prairie Meadows only the 38 people in attendance and simulcast watchers see it. On days like yesterday, millions see it, and hear Larry Blamalage lay it out cold that the filly had to be put down.

What? I'm talking frequency, not # of breakdowns. Of course there are more breakdowns on ****ing small days.

Does souping up the track make it better? To me it offers a bias like in 2006 BC where the rail was like a conveyer belt.

Ever wonder why horses hardly break down on turf on big days? Because the track superintendent cant do anything to soup it up.

would we be having the same discussion had EB gone down on Oaks day?
would EB run any less hard chasing or matching strides with Proud Spell?
someone mentioned the synthetic surface, instead of having dirt tracks faster on big days, keep the softer, deeper, slower ALL the time. it has to be safer?

Darren -

We'd be having the same discussion when the next horse invariably went down on Derby or Oaks or BC Day at Churchill. Four breakdowns in five days doesn't seem like a coincidence.

oh...well damn joey, forgive me for not reading between the lines and understanding that when you said 'more' that you meant frequency and not number of.

I never understood the purpose of sythetic tracks for racing.
Horses spend more time training so they should develop training tracks that are synthetic

That sums it up and this discussion will start again the next time it happens on national tv.....don't wanna sound insensitive, but time to move on.

Less days washed or frozen out for the track.
Santa Anita of course has reversed this supposed
advantage.

the thing about Eight Belles breakdown is that to me it looked to have nothing to do with the surface. from watching the overhead she suddenly slows dramatically and looks to start falling forward, like a collapse. as she falls she tries to catch herself but her legs get caught in an ackward position causing the injuries. to me it makes more sense because its hard to see how a bad step, etc, injures both legs at such a slow speed.

i've heard of horses getting injured during a routine gallop in the morning, i can see that it would happen after a race during the gallop out as well. just because it's rare doesn't mean it can't happen.
i believe what a song broke both legs during a morning gallop. anyone who knows horses, or has been around them, knows they can suffer some weird injuries that you wouldn't think could happen.
hell, look at st liam at the farm. just walking, gets antsy and ends up falling and breaking his upper leg. a horse a few years ago lost his balance after breeding and broke one of his withers. when had anyone ever heard of that before? i hadn't.

I have to tell you that I find it really irritating when someone comes on and tells everyone to move on, times up. says who? what should we move on to?
how about letting everyone decide for themselves when they've had enough?

Sorry dude...didn't mean anything by it.

I know about losing someone suddenly also, so I see your point.

On the Big Brown isolated stretch run, Eight Belles bobbled, not particularly dramatically, but noticeably nonetheless with a furlong to go. She immediately bore in towards the rail and practically leaned against it the length of the stretch. Just nearing the wire she bobbled again before going out of view.

In all likelihood she suffered both injuries during the race. On the gallop out, when the riders typically give their mounts "their heads", I would imagine the lax and uncollected strides she was taking on already injured limbs resulted in further, irreparable damage.

Just seems interesting, considering the constant complaints about the highways Churchill creates on its big days.

I saw what you are talking about.

But I find it very difficult to pin it down like that.
Did ligaments get little tears, or tendons, or bones already spliced
and just split all the way? Lots of little bones and
connective tissue down there. I think thats very difficult to say.

i just watched a couple times. i agree with you. it looks more she was collapsing from being tired and tried too catch herself.

That's pretty much the gist of it. Certainly if she was pulled up midstretch she wouldn't have the same catastrophic injuries she had past the wire...but I would bet that she would have had some detectable injury (-ies), likely at least one 'hairline' (ie incomplete) ankle fracture. Most race-related injuries are the result of cumulative trauma (and this would include before the race, too), not single bad steps.

By the way, I'm not trying to say the jockey should have pulled her up. Just making a case for the initial injuries to have occurred before the gallop out.

Totally agree with your perspective Jim. I think the fractures occured after she collapsed, for whatever reason. Very sad. Also agree with Deb. It's a sick part of the sport I try not to think about.