Cheltenham's the Place to Be Today

Last year at Cheltenham, the celebrity riders, trainers and familiar faces got together and recorded a song about the race meet that they all love so much for a charity fundraiser.

UPDATE: Watch the video of today's unbelievable Cheltenham Gold Cup on YouTube!

In Gloucestershire, England they run a four-day National Hunt race meeting that is like no other in the world. It's like Saratoga on steroids: the best horses, the (hopefully) best weather, and a few hundred thousand of your very best friends all make sure that you have an unforgettable time.

Today, Friday, is the last day and it all culminates in the Gold Cup. Old rivals--and stablemates--Demman and Kauto Star may be eleven now, but they're heading out again. Kauto Star has won it twice. Denman won it once and was second twice. Oh, and there are some other horses in the race, too, like Imperial Commander, who beat both of them last year. (Denman was second, Kauto Star fell.) That these three Gold Cup winners could be back to challenge each other again is the flip side of the chronic unsoundness we take for granted in racehorses. These jumping horses, at their age, must have tendons of steel. The Gold Cup is three miles, two furlongs...with hills.

The sad thing is, this will probably be their last meeting. Safe run, you old boys!

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.
 

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Global Hunter Takes a Detour to the Winner's Circle, Via Surgery at Alamo Pintado

It was a game finish to the American Handicap at California's Hollywood Park on the Fourth of July. While the rest of us were on the barbeque and fireworks circuit, a nice racehorse was being pulled up after winning the race by a neck. They called it a "bad step" in the racing press. In spite of the win, a nice horse became a statistic, and almost a fatality.

Global Hunter never made it to the winner's circle. The veterinarians took over and the Grade 1 stakes winner was vanned that night to Dr. Doug Herthel's Alamo Pintado Equine Medical Center in Los Olivos, California. That's a long van ride; Los Olivos is north of Santa Barbara. But it was worth the trip.

Radiographs apparently showed that the horse dislocated his fetlock but did not actually fracture his leg, although I am sure more detailed images have been taken now, and the surgeons may have found some damage. Virtually all the racing publications, web sites and TVG reported that the horse went into surgery at Alamo Pintado under the care of Dr Carter Judy, and that he seemed to recover well afterwards and was standing on all four legs. Dr Carter's surgical repairs used plates and screws to realign and stabilize the lower limb.

Now begins the vigil. A Global Hunter Facebook page immediately popped up and will hopefully keep a flow of news available to those who care about the horse

Global Hunter is a seven-year-old Argentine-bred son of Jade Hunter who has done well racing in California. The Grade II American Handicap was a turf race.

About the joint: The fetlock, or metacarpophalangeal joint,  is a relatively straightforward joint that flexes and extends with the changing segments of the horse's stride. The cannon (third metacarpal) bone meets the long pastern bone (proximal phalanx) and the knob-like proximal sesamoids to form this joint. A small sagittal ridge between the condyles (rounded ends) of the cannon bone creates a sort of stabilizing bar within the joint so that it only opens and closes in a flex-extend acceptable range of motion. This ridge and the condyles of the cannon bone sit perfectly into the joint cavity created by the long pastern bone. Such a nicely designed joint architecture is held in place by a network of short, tight ligaments that prevent both side-to-side motion and dangerous knuckling forward of the joint. In addition, the two proximal sesamoid bones are points of attachment for the branches of the suspensory ligament (interosseous) and the deep digital flexor tendon rides across the back of the two sesamoids. In summary, the fetlock is much more than a mere joint: it is an intersection of both soft and bony tissue and one of the most critical structures for both weightbearing and locomotion.

Global Hunter will no doubt remain at Alamo Pintado for the time being. The hospital made this video available about its fracture repair services. While Global Hunter's injury may not technically not a long-bone fracture, the process to repair it is similar to the fracture repair and surgical processes detailed in this video, so I thought I would share this. He is a lucky horse, but we will find out in the weeks to come just how lucky. Maybe someday he'll make it back to the winner's circle at Hollywood Park for his win photo from the Fourth of July.

To learn more: An excellent paper on the structure and function of the fetlock joint and the how-and-why of injuries in racehorses is Articular Fetlock Injuries in Exercising Horses by Elizabeth M. Santschi DVM of the College of Veterinary Medicine at The Ohio State University. It is published in Performance Horse Lameness and Orthopedics, Volume 24 No. 1 (April 2008) of Veterinary Clinics of North America: Equine Practice.

Video courtesy of Alamo Pintado Equine Medical Center in Los Olivos, California

Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog at Hoofcare.com
© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing


Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.

Palm Beach Footing Post Script

Palm Beach International Equestrian Center's International Arena during a recent night class

After posting on Friday about the footing at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, Florida, I have a few more comments to add.

I think this is the year of the surface: whether its show arenas, home schooling rings, or racetracks, everyone is talking about (and obsessing over) footing! No matter whom I'm with, the subject invariably comes around to it. And no, I don't know about much new research!

One vet said that he thought he had seen more bruised feet this season at Wellington but seemed genuinely pleased overall with the footing.

Show circuit farrier Jack Miller, who happened to cross my path at the airport this afternoon, concurred with the veterinarians' comments. We sat down to chat for a few minutes. He said that the new footing was much more consistent and enabled the show to go on, even after a downpour of six inches of rain. "The new footing was great," he said, "but a little sluggish. The horses were maybe jumping an extra two inches, because they were sinking in. It stopped them. And it cupped a lot out of the bottom of the feet. But it was a lot better than it has been, and they didn't have to use as many studs. We didn't see too many 'Spruce Meadows Specials' (supersized studs) this time."

Also at the airport today, I ran into another vet, Dr. Liz Maloney from here in Massachusetts, who has been flying back and forth to Palm Beach all winter to compete her horses in the amateur owner division at the WEF. She said that her horses, who are shod by "banana shoes" expert Danny Dunson from Tennessee, handled life on the showgrounds very well, although she didn't always compete in the newly renovated "Hong Kong footing" arenas. She said it was great to not to have to use studs, since she worries so much about the injuries they can cause. "It feels hard when you land, but it's not, really," she said of her impression from the saddle.

Other comments I heard were about the hunter ponies that compete barefoot and wore booties to get from the stable area to the arena and schooling rings, since the pathways were crushed stone. Show hunters want as little knee action on the flat as possible so no shoe or the very lightest aluminum shoe is usually the answer for them.

Everyone seemed pleased that the winter season in Wellington was unaffected by disease (EHV closed the showgrounds last year in the weeks before the show started) or disaster (hurricanes have been a threat the past few years) and that the upper echelons of the hunter/jumper/dressage showing scenes seem (so far) unaffected by financial woes troubling other sectors of the US economy.

Thanks to the Winter Equestrian Festival and Kenneth Braddick of Horse Sport USA for the excellent photos and reports shared with this blog all season. Now it's time to pack up and move on. See you next year!