HASKIN: Expect Animal Kingdom status news today..

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by RolloTomasi

Afleet Alex's arthritic ankle was likely the result of his unorthodox, yet much ballyhooed, "twice a day" training regimen, as a opposed to a single incident like the stumble.

This doesn't make much more sense to me than asserting that Premier Pegasus's injury or Uncle Mo's health problems are due to them NOT galloping twice a day. Trying to find cause/effect is pretty tricky business.

Originally Posted by MaTH716

I think another factor that might have furthered any type of injury (if there was an actual one that wasn't caught) is that both horses raced in all 3 Triple Crown races.

As have many horses that emerged unscathed. see avatar. And it probably doesn't merit mentioning that there is no shortage of injured horses that have not run in any TC races.

It would be interesting to look at ALL horses that have run in all 3 TC races over the past 20 years and see how many were injured soon after the Belmont. But again it would be difficult to interpret the data. Any horse that does very well in the TC is going to be gone over VERY carefully, in a way that is more likely to turn up minor injuries.

--Dunbar