Comeback Horses!
 

According to the DRF workouts search, Stevie Wonderboy and Sharp Humor are working again! YES!!!

I would not expect SW to be the same horse. It is very tough to come back 100% from a condylar fracture.

Isn't that the same injury that Brass Hat came back from?

I know Brass Hat came back from a broken cannon bone but I don't know if it was similar to SW's injury.

The horse who had a similar injury to SW was Afleet Alex. He had a condylar fracture and never made it back.

It was Insurance Premiums that kept him from coming back not a condylar fracture.

Yes, but I think that they pushed AA a little too hard which caused his premature retirement. Plus, I think it was a very bad move to put the screw in. SW doesn't have a screw in his leg does he? I believe that a screw causes more pressure in the surrounding bone. AA's injury that led to his retirement happened just above the screw. They have also given Stevie Wonderboy a lot longer off. His first workout was three fourlongs in 38 and change.

I don't know if he will ever be the same horse or not, but I do give him a better chance than AA.

No, that's not true. After Alex's first workout back, which was way too fast and way too soon, the bone broke again just above the place where they had inserted the screw. They did everything they could to try to bring him back.

It wasn't the insurance premiums. It was the injury. The owners had their hearts set on bringing him back. When I saw him work in the Fall, I could see he wasn't the same horse. He wasn't moving right. They did some more x-rays and realized that the horse could not run any more. The vets would not give him the go-ahead when they realized the extent of the damage to the bone. He had something called avascular necrosis which means the bone had become brittle and lost its spongy characteristic. According to Dr. Bramlage's diagnosis, the horse would have needed another 9 months for the bone to heal and even after that, the bone still would probably not have looked good enough for the horse to get the green light to run again.

So the best case scenario for AA was that there was a small chance that he could run again if they gave him a year off. That's not a very good prognosis. That's why he was retired.

Rose in his frustration let it slip that it was more an insurance issue than anything. The group that owned him was named Cash is King for God's sake. Yes, there were some new developments with the injury that did made him more of an insurance risk. In turn the insurance premium went up. If they wanted to bring him back the following year they could have but only while paying a much higher insurance premium. While I in no way fault them for their decision it was a decision to retire him, not a retirement due to a career ending injury. In the end cash was king.

If the horse was a $50,000 claimer, they may have tried to bring him back. Afleet Alex was worth over $15 million. As poor as the prognosis was, they obviously were not going to bring him back.

Even with a healthy horse, it would cost $750,000 a year to insure a $15 million horse. You are right that insurance is very expensive. Despite the fact that insurance is very expensive, they would have still brought the horse back if the prognosis was not so poor.

they are quick to get them in the breeding shed
their stock as a sire can only go down if they can't cut it in open company
not all 3 yr olds are good 4 yr olds

and vice versa

I don't think you would take the chance
look how many horses break down that aren't even racing

You should push horses hard, anyone ever heard of the term, "healthy as a horse"??

The reason why we are getting so many breakdowns is because horsemen have gone way overboard in efforts to baby the horses, they are over Dependant on the drugs that are allowed as well. The only way to get back to good sound horses is take away the drugs, train them hard, and race them more frequently.. the breed will start to turn around only when this happens. If not, the breed will continue to go downhill.

If you took away the drugs and trained them hard, there would be no horses left. It's hard enough to keep them sound when you baby them.

I'll give you an analogy. Let's say that you have a really sore knee and you need to compete in a big tennis match this Sunday. The smart thing for you to do would be to take it easy between now and Sunday. It wouldn't be good advice for me to tell you to go and train really hard all week on your bad knee. If you trained hard all week, you probably wouldn't even be able to play this weekend.

You have the same situation with most horses in training right now. Most of them have leg problems and if you work them really hard, you will break them down in a hurry.

Stevie Wonderboy is the Champ

we just don't want to see drugs used to the extent that all pain is eliminated and the horse is then running with an injury. if no drugs were allowed to ease pain, then we would know if the horse was really healthy or not by observing the walk.

They should get rid of most of the drugs. There are way too many legal drugs and most of them are not necessary. Pharmacology is probably almost half the game these days. It's ridiculous.

In my previous post, I was simply saying that if they trained the horses really hard that the horses wouldn't last. If they trained them hard, the horses would be much sore than they are now. If that happened, then the horses probably could not run without drugs.

Richi,

I know we have shared several posts about this topic, but do you think that if we did do what the poster suggested by training them hard and running the piss out of them, we would eventually get a sounder breed overall.

It would obviously take generations to weed out the weak lines, but don't you agree that there is a tougher form of thoroughbred underneath all of the high-priced yearlings and unproven sires?

Do you feel that the breed is just categorically unsound, and can't be pushed or expected to run drug-free?

By the way, did you read Alan Shuback's article on the German horse Soldier Hollow (3rd in the Arlington Million) and how he has never raced on medication and it is illegal to stand a stallion in Germany if they ever raced with raceday meds?

It was pretty interesting.

http://www.drf.com/drfNewsArticle.do...8&subs=0&arc=1

I don't know if that would work or not. It certainly makes sense. That's how natural selection works. The ones with the strongest genes survive. In theory it makes sense. As you said, it would take several generations.

In practice, it would obviously never happen but in theory it makes sense. People are not going to intentionally break down their horses in hopes that it will help the breed in the long run.

I'm not familiar with the German horse you mentioned. I will read the article if I have a chance.