Derby Seminar & Eight Belles

[jbelfior]

TGJB said that \"she is coming off four huge efforts, all of which will eventually take its toll.\"   How prophetic!!

If anyone wants to go after anyone in this matter, how about starting and ending with whomever made the decision to run a filly 9 times in 8 months without as much as a 30 day break in between.  


Good Luck,
Joe B.

[Eight Belles]

jbelfior Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TGJB said that \"she is coming off four huge
> efforts, all of which will eventually take its
> toll.\"   How prophetic!!
>
> If anyone wants to go after anyone in this matter,
> how about starting and ending with whomever made
> the decision to run a filly 9 times in 8 months
> without as much as a 30 day break in between.  
>
>
> Good Luck,
> Joe B.

Horses are individuals, Joe.  While others were running up at Saratoga last summer or at Churchill last spring, she\'d yet to start.  Was it harder for her to be running in maidens and allowances late last year than it was for those who were running in stakes and the Breeders\' Cup?

Be careful about wanting horses to take long breaks.  How much of an eye do you keep on research?  A horse who has more than a 2-month break are at 10 times more likely to suffer a catastrophic breakdown upon their return than those who stay in training.  With each passing week and short breeze, that figure drops to 6 times then 4 times then 2 times more likely to suffer breakdown until they\'re finally back where they\'re at no greater risk than the horse who remaining in training.  Their bones need the stress to remodel and strengthen.

It doesn\'t take a genius, however, to know that you have to expect the unexpected with an Unbridled\'s Song.  One day they\'re fine, and the next day they snap -- unless they\'re so weak all along that they have problems all along.  But what is a trainer supposed to do if a horse, even an UBS, hasn\'t had the first thing wrong?  Don\'t train, just because?  UBSs have problems because they\'re big and they\'re fast, and they\'re soft-boned.  You take your time, watch for problems, react to problems, and just do the best you can.  

Don\'t be blaming the trainer.  Trainers just do the best they can with the horses they\'re given.  Racing needs to take a look at breeding, track surfaces, and better injury detection methods.

[covelj70]

\"How much of an eye do you keep on research? A horse who has more than a 2-month break are at 10 times more likely to suffer a catastrophic breakdown upon their return than those who stay in training. With each passing week and short breeze, that figure drops to 6 times then 4 times then 2 times more likely to suffer breakdown until they\'re finally back where they\'re at no greater risk than the horse who remaining in training. Their bones need the stress to remodel and strengthen.\"

I think this argument may be confusing cause and effect here.

Horses that are coming off long layoffs are more likely to break down because, in most cases, the horses are getting the long layoff because they are unsound in the first place.

I think the idea if we give the sound horses time off, they are better off in the long run.  The stats you quote are misleading

[fkach]

I think you are both correct.

I\'ve also read reports about horses\' bones needing stress to remodel and strengthen, but I think it was mostly related to young growing horses. On the flip side, you are almost certainly correct that looking at a sample of layoffs is probably biased towards horses that have problems to begin with.

[TGJB]

\"Eight Belles\"-- You don\'t want to go there. I\'m dead serious about that.

Read my post \"Several Things\" from yesterday, and my entire seminar comments about the filly. And drop it.

[Eight Belles]

TGJB Wrote:
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> \"Eight Belles\"-- You don\'t want to go there. I\'m
> dead serious about that.
>
> Read my post \"Several Things\" from yesterday, and
> my entire seminar comments about the filly. And
> drop it.

Excuse me?  No thanks, I won\'t drop it.  And if you have something to say, then say it, this hinting around is terribly classless on your part.

[alm]

Sometimes knowing a little bit is worse than knowing nothing at all.

You are quite right about bone remodeling, but this filly was way beyond that phase of her life.

The only remodeling going on with her was a flattening of the bottom of the condylar bone.  As was pointed out she was likely a soft boned horse and sooner or later the repeated pounding wore through the soft tissue at the bottom of the bone, exposing bone to bone and an ultimate fracture under the stress.

A layoff would have made a great deal of positive difference in her life, as the rest would have allowed her bone to harden down there and preserved the soft tissue before it was destroyed.  Again, I quote the story of Tale of the Cat, whose connections did the right thing and ended up with a major winner as a result.

[TGJB]

Yeah, classless. Go read the \"Several Things\" post, second paragraph. This was not only predictable, it was predicted, back in March. And I tried to head it off, back then.

[fkach]

Here are a couple of articles on stress and bone development. As I said, they generally refer to very young horses.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Horse-Racing-2248/Negative-Positive-aspects-starting.htm

http://www.ctba.com/00magazine/oct00/news2.htm

[pj]

I\'ve been in the game for quite awhile.
 All you need to do is look at the \"tightness\" of the efforts. She was consistently faster than any other YOUNG three year old filly........ever, AND she was raced more than any other. Nuf said.

pat

[Uncle Buck]

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3382208&categoryId=2378529

[Eight Belles]

TGJB Wrote:
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> Yeah, classless. Go read the \"Several Things\"
> post, second paragraph. This was not only
> predictable, it was predicted, back in March. And
> I tried to head it off, back then.

Yeah?  So, what did Larry Jones have to say in response to your advice?  It\'s really not difficult to predict a horse getting injured since most all of them do.  It\'s about as difficult as predicting the sun will rise tomorrow.

How long have you been training, Jerry?  Must be a good 40 or so years of training many champions, given you know so much more than Jones or Jolley.

[fkach]

He\'s right about everything!

[cubfan0316]

missing the point, horses grow 30-40 percent between 3 and 4. they need time to recoup. ask d-wayne the leader in breakdowns.3 to 4 races a year till he stops growing.

[smalltimer]

I can see the whip going away.  That would be the first attempt to silence the critics.
The drugs are gonna be a part of the game one way or another.
I could see some type of age restriction measure put in place in the next year or so.
Artificial is here to stay.  
One more high profile, untimely breakdown in a major race on television and changes will be demanded. Eventually some people are gonna cave in.
The problem with PETA and all those other zealot groups is, once they get started they never quit. First the whip, then the drugs, then all artificial surfaces, then no horse can run more recently than 30 days.  It\'ll just go on and on and on.