I first of all have to clear the air from yesterday's post. It isn't so much that I hate the sport of horse racing; I hope that was conveyed in my message. It's simply that I personally believe that the horses should be allowed to grow up before they put such incredible strain on their immature infrastructure. However, I have to be fair here if I am going to put a personal opinion out there for the world to read and digest. I have to make it a bit broader in my viewpoint.

What is it I'm inferring here, you ask? I am speaking of a variety of applications that horses today are utilized for and begun at the tender age of two. All the way from two year old futurities including reining, barrel racing, etc.

It is the general consensus that a horse should be started at two of which I totally agree with. In fact, I would actually like to see them being sacked out and started even younger that this. However, even a lope can put an undue amount of stress on those young joints, let alone running all out even for simple training procedures. This is quite normal. However, one only need consider that many horses do not stop growing until they are five years of age and in many of the warm blood breeds such as the Thoroughbreds that are run on the race track, often their joints are not done closing and fully matured until they are between five and seven years of age.

Now consider that many if not most of these great studs are retired and used for breeding by age three or four!!!! I suppose that says it all.

I also believe strongly in full protective gear for their young legs and beyond. Full athlete splints for front and back with the ankle joint support cups as well, or at least well placed polo wraps when in light training. It only makes good sense.

Now considering the size of Eight Belles, 17 plus hands and built like a brick house that was a great deal of strain. However, I have never heard of such an injury, first of all both ankles at nearly the exact same instance and though the ankle injuries are not terribly uncommon; bowed tendons and upper fractues are more common. In addition to the fact it sounds like they nearly shattered in thier reporting numerous compound fractures.

Who knows for certain, but perhaps it was in the process of pulling her up on the dirt track coming off the hard pace she was running, combined with the potential she was used to running on a synthetic surface as opposed to the dirt??? Yet, I heard even the track vet said he had never seen any injury quite like this one, being after the fact and such.

In any event, last night when I heard the trainer speaking on the national news broadcast I wanted to cry with him. Yes, he was teary eyed and clearly devastated by the horrific turn of events at the end of the race. My heart broke right along with his just hearing what he had to say. He stated the well known fact that many of us as horse lovers already know; that these horses are not just another animal but are family members. He went on to say "We put everything we have into them and they give us everything they have and she was willing to do it." At that point it appeared he couldn't talk any more as he was breaking down. It was a very sad moment and I can assure anyone from what I witnessed in his brief interview that he never dreamed in a million years such a thing could or would occur to this filly and had he considered the possibility, he would not have had her out there, at least on that day.

Now, all I can say is either he is a great actor or this was truly a very sad and impacting (probably even defining) point in his own very life.

With that much said, I hope that you understand where I'm coming from on the whole matter of horse racing as well as any other number of sporting events that put young horses under such physical stress.


Speaking of undue stress... Our Palomino Stallion, Murray decided to help himself to a new comer mare before asking like a gentleman. I believe it will be awhile before he is in the baby making business. I hope the swelling goes down sooner than later and that he is back to normal in a jiffy. And I most sincerely hope he learned a valuable lesson about unacquainted newbie’s! See, these horses have their own ways of really hurting themselves without any help from us!