TG and Injuries

[BitPlayer]

Ironic that the horse who inherited the win after New York Thunder broke down was sired by that paragon of soundness, Army Mule, who started three times.

[jerry]

I’d say we as horse players will witness a slower version of horse racing. Without the change I predict we will witness a faster death of horse racing.

Beyond our community of horse players is a much larger and faster growing community of animal rights activists of which I am one. If you want to see the sport survive you have to make it safer. Slow it down.

[kencbs]

I remember years ago when one of the Hancocks said they wouldn\'t consider a horse for stallion duty unless he had at least 25 races.  Maybe they should make that a rule for the whole sport.

[TGJB]

There have been a lot of unsound racehorses that made great stallions.

Hail To Reason, Hoist The Flag, Raise A Native, Kris S, Danzig…

[richiebee]

On a much more local scale, Compliance was a son of Northern Dancer who was winless in 3 starts.

Compliance sired Fourstardave and Fourstars Allstar, both of whom proved rather durable.

[Boscar Obarra]

horses are injured for 1000 different reasons, having nothing to to with genetic soundness

[kencbs]

Don\'t agree on Raise A Native.  Here\'s Bill Nack\'s column on the 8 Belles breakdown and the Raise A Native line:

https://www.espn.com/sports/horse/triplecrown08/columns/story?columnist=nack_bill&id=3399004

[kencbs]

A follow-up to points Nack made about the Raise A Native line and the use of joint injections -

I looked up the breeding of Maple Leaf Mel on Pedigree Query - I see Raise A Native twice, Mr. Prospector (a son of Raise A Native) twice, and other descendants of Native Dancer.  Can\'t be good.

I just read today NY Thunder received joint injection(s) 2 weeks before both the Amsterdam (big new top) and his last race.  Plus he was a vet scratch from the Woody Stephens in June and was on the vet\'s list, listed as lame, in April.  I wonder why horses like that are allowed to run.  HISA rules say a horse can race 14 days after a joint injection; maybe this should be lengthened.  Or maybe joint injections should be banned.

[Roman]

Should not be allowed to run, obvious the horse had issues, and needed time off. And it is not the first “sore horse” that the trainer has had. Lightening Larry was transferred to that guy, ran huge and was injured.

[BitPlayer]

I\'ve looked at the HISA plan of action following the fatalities at CD, Laurel, and Saratoga as well as the report on the fatalities at CD.  It appears that HISA has not looked, and does not intend to look, for connections between move-ups and injuries.  And if they don\'t include some form of performance data in their database, even with AI they are not going to find any connections if they exist.

Have you thought of offering some part of your database (leaving out the most recent year or two to prevent anyone from using it to build their own) to a grad student in data analysis looking for a thesis project?  I doubt you have fatality data in the database, but looking at horses that DNF\'d in their final start might be a good proxy.

[TGJB]

We don’t need a grad student, if they give us the horses names we could knock this off in a week. I talked to someone last night who might have some influence.

[Roman]

Read this today before i read this post.

https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/letter-to-the-editor-the-unspoken-safety-factor-in-horse-racing-fatalities-from-the-handicappers-perspective/

[kencbs]

This just shows how weak the breed has become.  In the late 1980s it wasn\'t unusual for a horse to run 10 times during the Santa Anita winter-spring alone.  And I looked up the record of 1961 Derby winner Carry Back - he raced 21 times at age 2 and another 7 times at age 3 before the Derby.

[Roman]

I thought the same thing, ran once a month basically, never would of thought that was racing a horse to much or to hard .