6 Minutes prior to post in the Preakness...

[bellsbendboy]

Your posts are nonsense.

[TGJB]

That\'s enough, children. Everybody knock it off.

[Dana666]

That is by far the most intelligent observation I\'ve read so far.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is the most likely.

When I think back to Smarty Jones\' Triple Crown Bid,Barbaro reminds me a little of his

in a sense that people tried to reason all the ways he got beat in the Belmont, etc. All the riders went after Elliot, all that BS. Elliot rode him exactly the way he had in every race, and he rode him perfectly in the Belmont.

He was so sore he couldn\'t go on and finish like he had -- all the drugs keep them going for a while, but the tracks are too hard,and the triple crown toll is too high -- they can\'t last.

Whether horses were stronger years ago is debateable, but what\'s not is all the drugs that are around now. We push these animals to unnatural expectations and then we wonder why they fall apart. A horse like Barbaro, who raced so infrequently, gee, why would they give him so much rest between starts when they could have been running him at the highest level of the sport for all that cash?
It\'s such a tough question to answer.


Someone should seriously rethink the whole Triple Crown Mystique. Why do we care so much about it? It\'s rediculous and so damaging to the horses -- we all get so caught up in the spectacle and tradition. It\'s a brutal event and it takes no prisoners. The braver the animal the harder he/she goes down.

[marcus]

re-post of alms excellent post on the subject
alm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I posted a few messages about this subject, so
> this is a repeat.
>
> Those of you who assume something was wrong with
> this horse before the race are quite correct.  A
> condylar fracture, which was the cause of the bad
> step and the subsequent fractures to Barbaro\'s
> sesamoid and pastern, occurs from preexisting
> conditions.
>
> It has to do with immature or soft bones and the
> reformation or flattening of the condylar in the
> ankle or pastern socket, due to the pounding of
> training and racing.  Tale of the Cat is the
> poster boy of what happens if you stop on a
> promising juvenile and allow his bones time to
> harden with age.  He came back super and achieved
> a good career.
>
> Nobody connected with Barbaro will want to admit
> they knew about his problem, but almost all of us
> would have done the same thing they did.  This was
> a very fast horse capable of winning at the
> highest level and the Triple Crown only comes once
> in a horse\'s life.  
>
> He was medicated to avoid the pain and showed no
> gimpiness in his stride as a result.  He was raced
> lightly to keep the damage to a minimum, but it
> was getting worse all the time and I suppose it
> eventually got so bad that Prado could feel it in
> the warmup.  
>
> Basically this involves damage to the soft tissue
> below the condylar, which is invisible to ordinary
> xrays.  Fractures occur when the tissue is worn
> completely through and bone hits bone.
>
> I lost a horse in a race this way and learned what
> I am writing about through research.  You could
> look it up.
>
> Those of you naive enough to think these vets know
> everything and are always honest should just keep
> in mind what some vets bring to this business.
> It\'s not their job to protect the breed, but
> rather to protect their client\'s investments...and
> occasionally more.
>
>