Bluegrass Cat retired due to pastern injury

[Pedigree Ann]

Originally Posted by sumitas

very talented horse but 20 days was not enough between races.

That's a load of horse-hockey, as Col. Potter would say. Horses do it all the time; only these fancy stallion prospects can't do it, according to their trainers. Point Given did it (won the Haskell and Travers), but he was the best horse. Bluegrass isn't as good a horse as Bernardini; he's a good horse, no question, just not as good as some others in his crop (Barbaro included).

As to the injury; an athlete is more likely to be injured if he/she is trying to do more - run faster or farther, jump higher - than he/she has done before or than he is prepared to do. Trying to keep up with a superior athlete is falls into that category. Horses like Bluegrass, who keep on trying, are more likely to get hurt that way than a wussy horse. He wouldn't throw in the towel and ran so hard he hurt himself. Same thing happened to Lion Heart a couple of years ago; couldn't get 10f on a dry track, but kept on trying till he hurt himself.