Breakdowns Mar First Weeks of Racing on Santa Anita 's New Artificial Surface

The Daily Racing Form is reporting that 11 horses have been euthanized since September 24 at California's Santa Anita racetrack near Los Angeles. The fall "Oak Tree" meet is the first to be run on Santa Anita's new Cushion Track surface and also the first to be run there there since the state of California passed a rule banning toe grabs on front raceplates.

Five horses have died during training and six horses have died during races. The latest death is a three-year-old maiden filly.

Tendon Rehab Specialist Adopts Gait Analysis to Monitor Healing Parameters

When War of Attrition, the famous 2006 Cheltenham Gold Cup Winner, suffered a serious foreleg tendon problem in March 2007, an all-out effort was made to aid his recovery and bring him back to compete again in the jump racing world.

A new breed of company in the British Isles was tapped to micro-manage the horse's treatment and recovery. "Tendon Works" operates in-patient equine treatment centers--the equivalent of an intensive-care equine clinic crossed with a layup farm. At a center near Canterbury, south of London, England and a new one in Fethard, Ireland, horses undergo ten-week programs of biomechanical and clinical assessment followed by treatment and rehab.

“War of Attrition presented with an obvious and significant tendon injury to the right fore superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT), and early signs of damage to the SDFT on the contra-lateral side,” says Dr David Chapman-Jones of Tendon Works.

“Following as assessment on the treadmill, (in my opinion) it was clear his front limb loading and hindquarter action were also not right," he continued. "Russell Guire of Centaur Biomechanics assessed the horse using Equinalysis video-based screening, and the results surprised us all by showing a problem with the horse’s left fore and also a problem in his pelvis.

“We assessed the horse holistically and decided to change his saddle to one with a carbon-fiber tree and air flocking, which reduced the pressure on his back. We also adjusted his shoeing, which made a difference to the strain on the forelimb flexor tendons, and used specific exercises to ensure he engaged his back end more productively, which reduced the fore limb loading and gave the tendon treatment the best chance to work," he explained. "War of Attrition is now back with trainer Mouse Morris in Ireland, and I estimate that his tendon injury is nine-tenths recovered – he is currently undergoing an appropriate training regime to manage stress to the limb.”

The combination of Equinalysis’ locomotive assessment and Tendon Works’ cell regeneration treatment, which claims to boost the damaged tendon’s electro-chemical signaling process with stem-cell technology, means equine healing and recuperation can be accelerated.

Equinalysis technology records and collates physiological aspects such as a horse’s stride length and joint flexion, providing owners with a baseline of data; the screening is performed by trained clinicians and data is collected using a laptop computer and single or multiple digital cameras. The screening service is available to all horse owners, and is recommended for ‘benchmarking’ a horse to assess its locomotion when sound.

Going forward, Tendon Works will be incorporating Equinalysis screening into their injury prevention evaluations at the new Fethard Equine Hospital in County Kildare, Ireland.

Please visit: www.equinalysis.co.uk for info about the screening technology, or www.tendonworks.com for details of Tendon Works’ treatment regimen and services.

WEG Promo Counts Horseshoes of a Different Sort

Perhaps no one would notice this but me….BUT…a new promotion for the 2010 FEI World Equestrian Games (to be held at the Kentucky Horse Park, first time outside Europe) is using horseshoes to mark off the years. The promo launched last month, with one year/horseshoe crossed off, while three years/horseshoes remain.

Their choice of horseshoe style intrigued me. I don’t think that St. Croix/Mustad or Diamond is a sponsor (yet) but there is a lineup of one or the other company’s basic toe-and-heeled shoe.

I had to chuckle because it is not likely that a single horse in the World Equestrian Games would be shod with that shoe. Meanwhile, the hilly country of Kentucky is surely home to a lot of trail/pleasure horses that would be wearing those shoes.

The farrier world missed a great opportunity here. The shoes chosen for the graphic could have been the specialized shoes you’d see on eventing, jumping, endurance and reining horses that will be competing at WEG in 2010. Not to mention driving, dressage, and vaulting shoes (if there is a vaulting shoe!).

Although, by 2010, who knows what types of shoes the sport horses will be wearing—or if they might all be barefoot or booted or laminated or glazed!

Tooth Floating Debate in Texas Draws Attention from Abroad

This week's issue of the prestigious British newsmagazine The Economist looks askance at the controversy in Texas, where veterinarians are supposed to be taking over tooth-floating of horses.

The Brits think this action is downright unAmerican and take a look at the ethics of licensing or changing the playing fields of previously unregulated trades and professions. While Britain is highly regulated, they tend to think of America as the land of free enterprise.

Come to think of it, so do a lot of Americans.

This article is worth reading, no matter where you stand on the various campaigns for veterinarians to take over responsibility for all aspects of animal care, from tooth floating of horses in Texas to clipping of dog claws in California.

Breakdown, Euthanasia at the Breeders Cup: Barbaro’s Classmate Put Down on Monmouth Track

There was always a “PS” to the Barbaro story last year. At the same time that Barbaro was winning the Kentucky Derby, his stablemate from the 2003 crop of foals bred by Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s Lael Stables was excelling in Europe. “George Washington” went on to dominate the three-year-old ranks in England and Ireland. His success must have been some small consolation to Mr. And Mrs. Jackson as they struggled with Barbaro’s surgery, convalescence and eventual tragic death when laminitis overwhelmed his recovery odds.

We never heard much about GW over here, but at the end of the racing year, he was retired to Coolmore to stand at stud. Everything looked rosy until it became obvious that the mares bred to him remained open. GW had a low fertility rate.

This spring, the Jacksons’ Kentucky Derby winner was euthanized, never having sired a foal. And in Ireland, their other star product was a dud as a stud.

Undaunted, the Irish connections sent GW back to the track, where he had a modicum of success in a 2007 comeback career. At least he didn’t embarrass them too badly. His trainer, the ever-successful Aidan O’Brien of Ballydoyle, shipped GW to Monmouth last week to enter the Breeders Cup Classic, a race he had failed to win in 2006.

Just as the horses were preparing to enter the gate, the ESPN commentator gave a quick insight into GW’s connection to the Jacksons and Barbaro. Was it a human interest quip or a curse?

Three minutes later, George Washington was dead, euthanized on the track in front of the grandstand, as burly Curlin charged across the finish line.

The screens went up, the horse ambulance arrived. People ran up the track. Who are those people?

George Washington shattered his cannon bone and then dislocated his fetlock, according to a 20-second interview by ESPN with AAEP On Call veterinarian Larry Bramlage DVM of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. The dislocation destroyed the blood supply in his lower leg and the trainer quickly made the decision to put the horse down then and there.

I realized I had been holding my breath through seven races, breathing a half-sigh of relief when all the horses cantered across the finish line, no matter how far up the track. They all finished, at least in the races I saw. And then, in the last race, the one horse with an eerie connection to the world’s most famous breakdown met his end.

It was not a Hollywood ending; it was more of Greek tragedy. We know how it ends. But we keep watching.

Breeders Cup Tragedy: Interview with Wayne McIlwraith, AAEP "On Call" Veterinarian for ESPN

The following is part of a transcript of an interview with Dr. C. Wayne McIlwraith of Colorado State University by Eric Wing of the Breeders Cup press office, in response to the breakdown and subsequent euthanasia of the 2006 European champion Thoroughbred stakes horse George Washington in the Breeders Cup Classic at New Jersey's Monmouth Park two hours ago:

ERIC WING: We are live in the interview tent right now. We have with us Dr. C. Wayne McIlwraith, the (designated) On-Call veterinarian of the American Association of Equine Practitioners. We saw George Washington was eased late in the race. Can you give us an update on what is going on with George Washington?

DR. McILWRAITH: George Washington sustained an open fracture of the cannon bone in the right front fetlock joint and disarticulated the joint at the same time and had both sesamoid fractures broken. So it was a hopeless injury as far as repair, and he has been euthanized.

ERIC WING: Is this anything that can be attributed to a sloppy racetrack or not?

DR. McILWRAITH: No. You know, there's been no comparative work done scientifically as far as the nature of the track. You know, at times, a sloppy racetrack at the end of the day, you could have some concerns, because they are running in the base; and then obviously the base is not made for them to be running on directly; like it was a very sloppy track. You know..the rest of the races have gone off well, but it's always a concern.

Q. It looked, watching the race, as a spectator, that George Washington was maybe having a little trouble negotiating the course early on. He seemed to be struggling, at least relative to the other horses. Is there any knowledge whatsoever about when during the course of the race this injury might have occurred?

DR. McILWRAITH: Well, typically these injuries occur in the last part of the race. They are more fatigued so they have got less support to the joint. And that's when the injuries normally occur. As you know, he's -- I think this is the first time he's raced on a dirt surface. And he could have had trouble with being less coordinated on that, as he's used to racing on grass; those are possibilities.

(continues)We generally consider these fractures to start as associated with earlier damage, so they can sustain a small degree of damage and then it can escalate into a fracture. So it is quite possible, especially when you have a horse that's relatively inexperienced at that surface and racing on a different surface.

We talk a lot now about investigating the cause of these fractures, minor incoordination or just not landing on the leg as exactly the same way as a horse that's completely used to that surface does.

ERIC WING: Were any of the three owners or trainer involved in the decision prior to euthanization, or is it an open-and-shut case, pardon the term.

DR. McILWRAITH: The decision was made very quickly. Aidan O'Brien was on the racetrack with the horse right after it happened and he requested euthanasia.

Q. I wish to point out, George Washington raced in the Classic at Churchill last year, but races on grass and switches to a track with a lot of water and slop, does it have any meaning, meaning is this a bad example?

DR. McILWRAITH: You mean a bad example to switch it to a sloppy track?

Q. Are you saying it's not a wise move that it should be or should not be done?

DR. McILWRAITH: No. I was being asked for sort of possibilities as to, if you can have contributing factors, and you can certainly have many contributing factors. But, no, I certainly did not imply that it's not a wise move.

ERIC WING: I don't mean to take you outside your field of expertise or your focus today, but as an onlooker and an observer, can you characterize in any way the emotions of Aiden O'Brien or the owners from where you stood?

DR. McILWRAITH: Well, we weren't there. (Dr. Bramlage) and I, we were across the racetrack. So we have no -- we weren't present for that. But I'm sure he's extremely upset about it.

ERIC WING: Doctor, as always, we appreciate your expertise and your speed in getting in here and updating us on the situation. Thank you very much.