I read a very interesting article in the Daily Telegraph late last week. The importance of the following article is second to none. Finally, there is a journalist who will speak up about the Thoroughbred Industry in black and white. Well done Ray Thomas.
WARNING TO THE BREEDING INDUSTRY.
By Ray Thomas - The Daily Telegraph
May 23, 2008 12:00am
SHE was straining every nerve and sinew in her body chasing American racing's new champ, Big Brown.
Her brave effort was rewarded with second in the Kentucky Derby - then it happened. Just strides past the winning post in America's biggest race, Eight Belles suffered a catastrophic breakdown. Both ankles broken. Her life ended just minutes later.
As a shocked America watched on, the Eight Belles tragedy, coming just two years after Barbaro, triggered a heated debate about problems in the sport that is gaining intensity some three weeks on.
The major issues centre on thoroughbred breeding practices, drug use in the sport, race programming and the unforgiving dirt track surfaces.
America's leading racing writer Andrew Beyer wrote in the Washington Post earlier this month: "America's breeding industry is producing increasingly fragile thoroughbreds. They may not break down, but they have shorter and shorter racing careers before going to stud to beget even more fragile offspring.''
Pat Ford on ESPN said: "The collective gene pool has been reduced and physical infirmities are being passed on like hair colour in humans.''
Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins described Eight Belles as having "champagne-glass ankles''. "Thoroughbreds are muscularly more powerful than ever but their bone skeletons seem to be getting lighter and more frail,'' she wrote.
These comments are supported by statistics. In 1960, American racehorses averaged 11.3 races per year. In 2007, that average has fallen to 6.3 starts per year.
American racing authorities allow the use of Lasix, the anti-bleeding agent, and butazolidin, an anabolic steroid, in most states. These drugs and their like can act as pain-killers and mask potentially serious injuries.
Earlier this week, Headley Bell, a fifth-generation Kentucky horseman, conceded "we have weakened our breed''.
"It began when everybody started racing on Lasix and Phenylbutazone, when it became customary, 15 or 20 years ago,'' Bell said. "They cover up a weakness. Whether it be the bleeding - Lasix is used to prevent bleeding - or other problems, and those weaknesses are now going into the mass herd of thoroughbreds.
"Horses that might have been unsound are now racing, and then breeding, and then put into the herd. You have to realise that the whole breeding industry has changed in the last 24 years ... it changed from being the sport of those successful in business, to being a business.
"The costs are so exorbitant, and there's so much money out there. I don't care who you are - if you're not a seller, you become a seller.''
The Jockey Club has reacted to the huge public outcry by announcing it had commissioned a seven-member Thoroughbred Safety Committee to review every facet of equine health, including "breeding practices, medication, the rules of racing and track surfaces''.
Horse racing has an image problem and is losing its market share worldwide. Australian racing is not immune to the problems currently facing the sport in America and authorities here should take heed of the warning signs.
WARNING TO THE BREEDING INDUSTRY.
By Ray Thomas - The Daily Telegraph
May 23, 2008 12:00am
SHE was straining every nerve and sinew in her body chasing American racing's new champ, Big Brown.
Her brave effort was rewarded with second in the Kentucky Derby - then it happened. Just strides past the winning post in America's biggest race, Eight Belles suffered a catastrophic breakdown. Both ankles broken. Her life ended just minutes later.
As a shocked America watched on, the Eight Belles tragedy, coming just two years after Barbaro, triggered a heated debate about problems in the sport that is gaining intensity some three weeks on.
The major issues centre on thoroughbred breeding practices, drug use in the sport, race programming and the unforgiving dirt track surfaces.
America's leading racing writer Andrew Beyer wrote in the Washington Post earlier this month: "America's breeding industry is producing increasingly fragile thoroughbreds. They may not break down, but they have shorter and shorter racing careers before going to stud to beget even more fragile offspring.''
Pat Ford on ESPN said: "The collective gene pool has been reduced and physical infirmities are being passed on like hair colour in humans.''
Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins described Eight Belles as having "champagne-glass ankles''. "Thoroughbreds are muscularly more powerful than ever but their bone skeletons seem to be getting lighter and more frail,'' she wrote.
These comments are supported by statistics. In 1960, American racehorses averaged 11.3 races per year. In 2007, that average has fallen to 6.3 starts per year.
American racing authorities allow the use of Lasix, the anti-bleeding agent, and butazolidin, an anabolic steroid, in most states. These drugs and their like can act as pain-killers and mask potentially serious injuries.
Earlier this week, Headley Bell, a fifth-generation Kentucky horseman, conceded "we have weakened our breed''.
"It began when everybody started racing on Lasix and Phenylbutazone, when it became customary, 15 or 20 years ago,'' Bell said. "They cover up a weakness. Whether it be the bleeding - Lasix is used to prevent bleeding - or other problems, and those weaknesses are now going into the mass herd of thoroughbreds.
"Horses that might have been unsound are now racing, and then breeding, and then put into the herd. You have to realise that the whole breeding industry has changed in the last 24 years ... it changed from being the sport of those successful in business, to being a business.
"The costs are so exorbitant, and there's so much money out there. I don't care who you are - if you're not a seller, you become a seller.''
The Jockey Club has reacted to the huge public outcry by announcing it had commissioned a seven-member Thoroughbred Safety Committee to review every facet of equine health, including "breeding practices, medication, the rules of racing and track surfaces''.
Horse racing has an image problem and is losing its market share worldwide. Australian racing is not immune to the problems currently facing the sport in America and authorities here should take heed of the warning signs.
