The Kentucky Derby Rocks & Sucks

It's almost Derby Day!

I love the Kentucky Derby. I also hate it, but we'll get to that in a few minutes. Focus on the positive: People get dressed up in huge silly hats, drink drinks they'd avoid at any other time, and are captivated by two minutes of a sport they don't understand, but love anyway. Gorgeous horses, intense action, incredible backstories-- it's all on display at the races! May 5th people-- mark your calendars!

I have a confession: I make my Derby winner pick by how awesome the horse's name is. Here's this year's field of runners (subject to change of course) and my name judgement:

Awful:
Bodemeister
Daddy Long Legs

Interestingly, there really is a complicated, rule-filled process for naming racehorses.

Daddy Nose Best
Hansen
Went the Day Well
Dullahan

Boring:
Creative Cause
Gemologist
Optimizer
Prospective
Alpha

Not Bad:
Trinniberg
Done Talking
I'll Have Another
Liaison
My Adonis
Rousing Sermon
Take Charge Indy
Union Rags

Awesome!!
El Padrino (The Godfather)
Sabercat

I think Sabercat is the cooler name, but I also love the way El Padrino flops his big ears slightly out to the side when he runs, so I'm rooting for him:

And you know what? This is a totally legitimate way to pick a winner, because basically, the horses are all the same. No, I'm not talking about the fact that they're all young (three) and have had relatively few races by which to judge their performances. No, I'm not talking about the fact that they're all basically brown except Hansen. I'm talking about the ROT that has seeped into horse racing: inbreeding.

Every single horse on the Derby field is a cousin to his or her competitors. Not just a cousin in the way that many horses of the same breed are distantly related-- we're talking close family ties here.

Go back up and click on each of the horses' names. The links will take you to their pedigrees. What do you notice? The same names, over and over and over again! Northern Dancer, Secretariat, Mr. Prospector, Bold Ruler, Seattle Slew, War Admiral and their immediate descendents were bred and re-bred and then re-bred to those they sired, effectively making the racehorse gene pool as shallow as a Kardashian in front of a camera.

"I buy myself a gift every year, so this year I bought everything I wanted." -- Kim Kardashian

The little colored boxes show when a horse has direct inbreeding in their family tree. So on Alpha's pedigree, they show that Northern Dancer is Alpha's great-grandpa AND great-great-great grandpa, and that Native Dancer appears twice as well. However, those little colored boxes just scratch the surface of the truth. Northern Dancer's grandpa was Native Dancer!

Now go look at I'll Have Another's pedigree. Northern Dancer appears three times, and Raise a Native (Native Dancer's son) appears twice.

We've just been following the Native Dancer re-breedings within five generations. Now go look at how many times the other famous horses were re-bred into family lines!

If Thoroughbreds were humans, this is probably what they'd look like:

So why does this happen? Well, of course racehorse breeders want to win, so they breed to winners, and re-breed to winners, hoping the offspring will get the magical gene combination of their illustrious ancestors.

"Winning" in this case just means the ability of young horses to go very fast for a short distance. Breeding purely for disposable speed, not for soundness/health or genetic diversity, has led Thoroughbreds down a dangerous path. As well all know, breeding heavily for certain traits results in dangerous health problems. In Quarter Horses, there's HYPP, in Arabians it's SCID, in German Shepherds it's hip dysplasia, many bulldogs can't give birth naturally because of the big-headed thing, etc etc etc.

 Thoroughbreds are being bred to look like greyhounds-- thin bones, long pasterns, skinny bodies, etc. It increases their speed-- but the delicate physique also results in more injuries. Added to the inbreeding and being raced at a young age, Thoroughbreds aren't so much horses anymore as much as they are living toys-- produced to be played with, broken quickly, then thrown away. American racetracks are complicit in this crime, allowing trainers to dope their horses with pain-killers, respiratory boosters and other drugs to maximize their horses' performances. Articles here and here. (By the way, European racetracks are much more strict about the use of drugs, and have far fewer injuries on racetracks.) The end result is thousands of off-track thoroughbreds being euthanized after serious injuries sustained at a young age, or sent to slaughter by age six.

That's why, as much as I love the Kentucky Derby, I also hate it. I hate that we've taken the athleticism a horse is capable of, and reduced our largest event celebrating it to a two-minute sprint. I hate that we're ruining horses, and maybe even the Thoroughbred breed, to win that two-minute sprint. I hate the cruelty competition like this can result in.

I'd like to see racing become a more diversified sport. Let's do away with sprinting-only races; let's add in some jumping, some real distance and some trail obstacles. That would require breeders to breed for more diversified traits, like soundness, endurance, temperament and intelligence. It would also encourage them to wait to race horses until they're old enough to be able to handle that kind of race. Oh wait-- we already have that. The sports are called Endurance Racing, Competitive Trail and Limited Distance-- my favorite equine sports!

Stone Bruises: Annie's Accident

I have a theory about horses. It's called The Equine Universal Bi-factor Dissonance Theory, and it states that, at any given time, the health of your horse is inversely proportional to that horse's current level of training/broke-ness. In other words, if a horse ain't lame, it's sassy, and if it ain't sassy, it's lame.

Sometimes they're lame and sassy!

I bring this up because just when Annie and I had been riding out alone fairly often, trying some new things, getting comfortable with the idea of going on a "real" trail ride, she got a stone bruise. Of course she did.

As I've said before, a horse will eventually take advantage of any opportunity to hurt itself-- which is why Annie's accident is actually my fault for allowing her to be around junk. I board on my family's farm, a gorgeous place on a dead end road, with 12 acres of pasture, with a barn and streams, right next to a huge tree plantation the owners allow anyone to ride on. It's fantastic...and totally free. Yeah, I can feel your jealousy burning into my brain across the internet. However, there's one little problem; my father is nearly a hoarder, and a few pieces of his junk have wound up in my horse areas. Nothing super dangerous, just some covered machinery, but still...

Recently, Annie decided to squeeze into a two-foot gap between a parked tractor/compressor and the wooden fence. (No, I don't know why, except that my horse has the survival instincts of a lemming.) Once there, she couldn't or wouldn't back out, found out 1,200 pound car-length critters like her can't turn around in two feet of space, panicked, and bulldozed through the fence. In the process, she got totally scraped up and jammed her hoof onto a nasty metal bit.

Of course this was the morning that my car chose to break down. As a result, the friend I had arranged to go riding with that morning found Annie first, still hung up, scratched to hell. This friend, Squidbunny, heroically freed Annie and called me.

The very least I can do to thank her is to plug her awesome, gorgeous western-steampunk webcomic again. Read it here!

Annie punctured the toe of her sole, not terribly deeply, but enough to cause bleeding. I knew immediately that she would probably get a stone bruise, and that is indeed what happened. I just thank God she didn't hit any major structures. You can see where it happened here, after my farrier got through trimming the hoof and further opening the wound site:

A stone bruise is caused when there's blunt-force trauma to a horse's sole, often from stepping heavily on a sharp rock. Usually there isn't even a puncture. Stone bruises cause lameness for days or even weeks. Worse, they are notorious for becoming abscessed. An abscess is a pocket of pus underneath the skin (or sole), and they'll make a horse even more lame until they burst, drain and heal. Unfortunately, when this happens inside a horse's hoof, it's very hard for the abscess to burst because it's surrounded by such dense, tough material. Often, they burst through the coronet band, heel bulbs or frog. Some horses (like thin-soled TBs) are so prone to these that by the time one heals, another has developed. Many horses develop abscesses if they're usually shod, then are suddenly switched to going barefoot.

The only treatment for stone bruises (and abscesses) is daily soaking, usually in Epsom salts and warm water. Soaking a horse's hoof is usually like trying to put a cranky toddler in a formal outfit; you may get it in there, but it's not going to stay in there for long. Luckily, Annie is as angelic about this as she is for nearly everything else, and I don't even have to stand next to her to keep her leg still.

Soaking the hoof draws out the pus and reduces pain and inflammation. The more you soak, the sooner an abscess will burst and drain. In Annie's case, the puncture already allows any pus to drain, but the soaking removes it faster, reducing the risk of a more serious infection to her coffin bone.

Often, it's a good idea to wrap, boot or otherwise protect a horse's hoof after a stone bruise. Doing so can prevent further injury by protecting the bruised sole from contact with rocks. In Annie's case, it's more about preventing dirt and bacteria from being packed into the wound. I was overjoyed to be able to use one of the expensive boots I had purchased for just this sort of occasion. Of course Annie got it off in 20 minutes. Thank God for vet wrap, the duct tape of the horse world. I also used Ichthammol around the puncture. It's a salve that actually draws infection out of a wound-- good stuff.

That's all for now folks-- tune in next time for daily reports on the Midwest Horse Fair! I just can't wait to tell you all about the seminars with Asia Voight, the animal psychic who charges $150 for half-hour telephone consultations. I also hope to be able to go to some local horse auctions.

Scary Moments in Horse Training

1,200 pound prey animals are inherently dangerous. Even if you've got the most well-trained horse EVER, stuff happens. When you're dealing with a young horse, well, watch out. Case in point: today's trailering fiasco.

If you've never seen a horse in this position, you've never watched a very large, fat horse try to turn around in a rather narrow trailer. Sorry about the bad art; even if I had had a camera at the time, I wouldn't exactly have wanted to stop and take a picture.

Annie and I were having a good training session. We took a little walk and brushed up our leading-nicely skills, longed, and she was good for everything. Since she was calm and well-behaved, I figured this would be a good time to work on our trailering. Annie has trailered before, but she doesn't like it, and it takes a while to convince her to hop in. Closing the door and getting her to come out are stressful for her. If we're going to any parks/events this spring, we have to do better.

Eventually I got her in the trailer without too much fuss; just a lot of patient bribing and waiting. She has no problem stepping up into the trailer (there's no ramp) and indeed, she practices it daily on the tack room steps, much to my chagrin. It's getting herself all the way inside that scares her. It's kind of dark and echoey in there, and she can't see what monsters might be waiting outside. This time, however, she was pretty calm. The bucket of sweetfeed certainly helped. I let her eat a while and petted her, and tried to make being inside this dark scary tin can a positive experience. Then it was time to back out.

Annie has no problem backing up, at least on the ground. In the trailer, it's way more scary for her. Again, she can't see out, so she doesn't know what she's backing her butt into (it's the totally familiar yard she's always been in, but it COULD have transformed into a lava pit while she was in the trailer). There's also a "big" step downward for her, which she can't see. Plus, and here's where my own idiocy didn't help matters, the back end of the trailer was a bit wet/slippery. Well, she backed up, hit the slippery spot, slithered around a bit, and came forward again all spooked and jittery now. Damn, I should have put sand down!

We tried a couple more times, and she just wasn't having any of it. She pooped nervous-green-diarreha stuff and made the floor more slippery. She got so upset that she started to try to turn around in the trailer with me in it. I stopped her, jamming my finger pretty good in the process, and got her eating again, but I knew this project was going bad fast.

That's when I abandoned ship. "Sorry kid, but I can't have you squishing me to death." I unclipped the leadrope, slipped past her and went out the back (having foolishly neglected to unlatch the escape door). Whew! I rushed to grab a broom, and attacked the mess at the end of the trailer. Annie didn't move, just stared back at me with a pathetic expression. I felt terrible.

She was still pretty calm, and I for a moment I thought she'd back out on her own, but suddenly she bent sideways and threw herself forward at the same time.

 

This is pretty much my trailer, except mine is green and the windows were boarded over during the winter of Annie's injury, so that she'd be warmer on the hour-long trip to and from surgery. As you can see, it's not a small trailer. You can technically fit four horses in it, if you can get them to stand closely side by side. However, it's not a wide trailer. I'd guess five or six feet wide. Annie is probably nine feet long. You can see how the math doesn't work out here.

 

She got stuck, then went down on her knees, practically staring at her rear toes. I was totally terrified, but at least I didn't start yelling or yanking. Annie seemed unhappy, but not panicked; she stayed in this position for a minute or so, and then heaved herself around with a heroic effort, scurried out of the trailer and stopped. I caught her immediately and gave her lots of sympathy treats and petting. She was uninjured, except for a bit of a scape on her side.

I can just imagine how well our next trailering sessions is going to go!

My hubby suggested backing her into the trailer in the first place. I'm not sure I can back her into anything I can hardly get her to go into front-ways, but at least it would save us the terrifying conundrum of backing out. *sigh* Poor Annie. I HAVE to do better next time.