The Ultimate equipment change

     I'm glad I was listening, because I caught this comment on today's televised horse race, The Suburban Handicap at Belmont Park.

    (for those who don't follow horse racing, an 'equipment change' usually means the horse has had a tack change of some sort. Usually that means something like "blinkers on" or "blinkers off".

   But today's NBC presentation of the race card at Belmont Park produced a real doozy. I'm going to paraphrase it.

Commentator, in reference to a horse named Coach Inge:

"Last year he had the ultimate equipment change: he was castrated."

Finally!!!!!!

     By golly, he did it.

    American Pharoah won the  2015 Triple Crown. (despite having a misspelled name).

    37 years after Affirmed won the Belmont, we finally have #12 in the Triple Crown winner's list.
American Pharoah ran in front wire to wire. He won by a comfortable five lengths. The time was only a few seconds off Secretariats mighty win of 1973. No horse will ever equal Secretariat's incredible 30 length lead. But then again, there will never, ever again be a horse of Secretariat's caliber. Those bloodlines are gone. Although it was a pleasure to see Secretariat's breeder and owner, the Grand Dame of Racing, Penny Chenery, in the stands. What a lovely lady. The last of her kind.

    Bob Baffert, the trainer, did something right. Now, I've never cared for Baffert. He had a reputation among the other trainers of being a pompous asshole. During his 'salad days' he flaunted his wealth...a blonde bimbo in a fur stretched across the hood of Baffert's car (which may have been a Mercedes, or a Jaguar). The unkind things he said about other trainers. He wasn't the nicest of guys, and there's no call for being a shithead.

   However, he seems to have mellowed greatly since having a heart attack..or losing several Belmonts that were THIS close to being won. 
 The bimbo is now his wife, and maybe she managed to shove a bit in his mouth and give him a bit of a tweak on the reins. Or maybe he is still a pompous asshole. The media isn't showing that part of him anymore.

   What I think happened was..he, like other horse trainers, was forced to go back to being HORSE TRAINERS.

  When Eight Belles broke down at the finish line, having been the Place (#2) in the Kentucky Derby in 2008, revulsion filled the country. Horses have been breaking down with depressing regularity for years now, but something snapped in the collective American horse racing public's psyche. No more. No more horribly broken horses in front of millions of watchers. No more.

    I think that at that moment, if Someone had said, No more racing in the US, the vast majority of racing fans would have agreed. It was too horrible, watching the gallant filly staggering on the splintered ends of her cannon bones. People began to bitch. Loudly.

   The Jockey Club, a hidebound and antiquarian association that in the last fifty or so years has succumbed to Money itis (if someone has enough money, the JC will change the rules to accommodate their outrageous demands), had always ignored the average non horse owner before. But this time, people got pissed enough to say, you know what, I think I'd rather watch golf than see another horse die. And die they did, because the trainers and the Jockey Club allowed horses far too young (sometimes only 18 months old) to race, and allowed them to be drugged into insensibility..all for the goddamned dollar. 

   Somehow, we got through to them. It may be a case of too little too late...horse racing is dying, at least in the US..but they did change some rules. One was, no horse hits the track until it is an honest to god 2 year old. And, I believe, they scaled back the unbridled use of drugs.

  That's why so many horses broke down, and why we've not had a Triple Crown winner since 1978. It's because trainers ('horsemen') no longer had to train. They no longer had to be a horseman. They depended on the drugs to keep the horse fit. They depended on the drugs to keep the horse running.  Drug the colt to the gills and run him. The owner wants a return on his investment, the businessmen doing the breeding don't know a colt from a coat hanger. Breeding race horses had devolved into a business arrangement, not a studied match made on understanding equine bloodlines.  As the president of the WA State Thoroughbred Breeder's Association once put it, 'we're not in the business of breeding race horses. We're in the business of selling 2 year olds."

   When you devalue the animal to that point, it becomes nothing but a stock market  certificate. Oh, they're still incredibly expensive. But the business, the TB industry, had become an Industry, not a rich man's hobby. The horses stopped being horses. They became pawns on a chess board. In the game of chess, the reason pawns are the most numerous pieces is because they are 'dispensible'. They are nothing of value. You can lose every pawn you own and still win.  

   The horse racing industry and the Jockey Club had grown complacent. Breakdowns stopped being a tragedy, a painful thing to see, and became "collateral damage'. Breakdowns became 'the cost of doing business'. The cruelty of how the horse got to that point was conveniently forgotten.

    The problem is that it is ethically and morally wrong. Horses are living,breathing beings. Yes, they are Animals. Animals have no rights. But the public doesn't like seeing a gorgeous race horse treated like an animated bicycle. And the bettor doesn't like seeing his money thrown away on a horse that may or may not have won. Bettors don't think that way. They bet on a 'sure thing' and when that 'thing' becomes a "DNF" (did not finish) because its legs snapped, they've lost their money. 

    I might be wrong. But it seems to me that once certain restraints were imposed on the TB business..that of letting a horse mature a little, keeping the drugs out of his system, they had to go back to being Horse Trainers. This meant, no more milk shakes, no more Lasix/Bute etc hiding problems. No more thyroid medication to put artificial muscle on a horse. They had to go back to the three things that made a race horse: Conditioning, feeding, and individualized training. The owner had to be made aware that this was an animal, not a machine.

   The thought strikes me that perhaps the Trainers welcomed the restraints, slight as they may be, that the Jockey Club was forced at gunpoint to impose. Now they had an out..."Well, I'd love to drug this colt, but....you know, they JC says I can't anymore. Sorry." Because I do believe the trainers love their horses. But they don't own them. Most of the big guys, like Baffert, are in the business to train the horses, and have many, none of whom are 'theirs'.

   Baffert did a good job of bringing his horse to the peak of condition at the precise time he needed to be.
That takes time, effort, and an eye for the horse. I will give him that. 

   Will we have another spate of winners in the coming years? I hope so.

  

Endurance riding diversifies

   Sometime during the mid 70’s, (perhaps 1975), I witnessed my first endurance ride. Even then, in its infancy, endurance was a sport of Arabians.

At that time in my life, I was a fan of Arabians. All other breeds (and there were fewer, back then) were below Arabians, in my view. Not that I disliked other breeds, it was just…I was devoted to the Arabian breed.

   Finally free from parental prison, I went solely to wallow in horses. I had no car and no way to get to it, other than a hugely expensive taxi, but I was a horse crazy Yankee in a not so horsey state called North Carolina, and I had been horseless for too long. So I attended what may have been the Old Dominion Ride.

   Of course, being horseless, carless and a stranger to all, I didn’t have much in the way of ‘fun’ but I did learn a few things. One was: one doesn’t snag an aged mare out of her pasture, throw a silver encrusted western saddle on her and ride 20 miles without repercussions. The owner, an idiot through and through, had no idea what ‘conditioning’, ‘training’ or even ‘sympathy’ meant. He thought, it’s a horse; I’m going to compete on her, despite the fact that she’s spent most of her life being pasture jewelry.

 

   The mare staggered in after a hot, humid 20 mile forced march and collapsed. She may have died. She certainly looked as if she were dying, and most damning of all, the owner wasn’t concerned. He was angry. Stupid horse. That’s how it was back then, with many folks-horses were merely animated machines.

   Twenty years later, I was living in Texas, was older, wiser, and now a professional equine massage therapist. The vast majority of my clients were endurance Arabians. I attended several rides, this time working on horses for money.  

  The difference was astounding. Endurance horses now were  athletes, as highly trained and fed as any human Olympian. Diets were finely tuned to each horse. Electrolytes were added to the water.  The riders rode in endurance saddles that may have weighed ten pounds. The sport was highly regulated, with veterinarians in attendance checking every aspect of the horse (screw the rider!) and pulling a horse in a newyorkminute based solely on his or her subjective opinion. If a horse was pulled, the rider seldom bitched. In fact, the rider often was the one to make the difficult decision, should I pull him or should I ride on. Most of the time, they erred on the side of caution and pulled…and no one derided her for her decision. Public opinion, that of his or her peers, had more influence on the rider/owner than the desire to ‘win’. The phrase was, (and still is, rightly so) “to finish is to win”.
     Endurance had become a sport, not a competition. It had also morphed into more: a team effort. It mattered very much now, what condition was the horse, how willing was he to ‘go the distance’. It is no longer ‘winning is everything’. The highest accolade at an endurance ride is NOT ‘who came in first’, although that is important. No, the highest achievement, the highest compliment one can pay to an endurance rider is: Best Condition. If your horse crosses the finish line looking a bit tired but willing to go another 100, that is the highest of compliments on the rider/trainer/owner.

   But one thing hadn’t changed: the vast majority of horses were Arabians. Up until the 90’s (and mind you, this is just my observations), it was an odd duck indeed for the horse to not be Arabian. One ride I worked at, Bandera, had over a hundred entries and only a handful of horses weren’t Arabian. In fact, two were mules.

   (Mules that, at the 35 mile mark of a planned 50 mile ride, both decided to stop. Not a step further would they go. Indeed, the “ambulance’…a horse trailer dedicated to rescuing a horse that broke down on the trail…had to be dispatched to get them both. They willingly loaded, in fact they ‘JUMPED” on the trailer.  They were ridden by a mother and daughter team, and  boy, you should have heard THEM bitch when they finally got back to ridecamp. That’s how I learned that the mules had stopped solely out of mulishness. Nothing was wrong other than they decided they were done.)

   Six or seven years ago, I did another endurance ride, this time as a scribe for my horse vet. I began to see a change. There were a few more breeds competing. Appaloosas, especially, were beginning to compete.

First vet check

   This past weekend, I scribed again for the same veterinarian. I saw a BIG change in the population. It isn’t just Arabians anymore, although they still are the dominant breed to ride if you want to win, or even compete at a high level. But there were several appaloosas, mustangs, outright ‘grades’(a term designating an unregistered, parentage uncertain horse  that is almost extinct in this day of registries), pasos, Tennessee walkers, ponies, and, most encouragingly, Thoroughbreds.

 

Trail rider

   Thoroughbreds! Now the TB has always been a breed that has been used not just for racing, but hunting, eventing, and jumping. But seldom has one been ridden in endurance. To see several doing endurance just tickled me. My vet and I, like all horsemen, would ask the riders their horse’s breeding. In this race’s case, all of the TB’s we saw..at least four! were off the track. One was not only a beautiful dark bay, but had a perfect chevron on his forehead.

   They were doing endurance. Endurance! No one-not even the riders-expected them to turn in the fastest times, but the fact that folks are using them in yet another sport is wonderful. Thoroughbred racing is a dying sport. 

    Horse breeds that are unable to adapt to changing cultures and sports don’t survive. When was the last time you saw a purebred Saddlebred, (not one crossed with an Arab)? (in my opinion, the only reason anyone still has Saddlebreds is to cross them with Arabs, resulting in a """National Show Horse""". This ''breed' combines the worst characteristics of both breeds). 
    Saddlebreds hardly exist anymore. During the 50's, they were the darlings of the show world. That was when a 'gaited horse" (even if the gait was artificially induced and enhanced with chains, blisterings, and shoes five inches high) was all the rage. But you seldom find a Saddlebred anymore. They have too many problems: wobbles, spinal issues, low fertility and stallions with a reputation for being vicious. The things the breeders/show breeders did to the poor beasts' tail and the way they were shod in order to get that 'big lick' should be a crime. They were bred solely for the show ring.
 Click on the following link to see what I mean: http://www.writingofriding.com/in-the-media/artificial-horse-abuse/

Saddlebred tails have to be BROKEN in order to get them to  "flag", and must then be kept in a 'set' for the rest of the horse's life.

 

Saddlebred's feet. This website, by the way, is excellent and this is my way of trying to cite it.

Could a Saddlebred, naturally shod, do endurance? I doubt it. Only because there's been almost a century of breeding them for one specific trait, and an artificially enhanced trait at that. 

Thoroughbreds are still athletes, with the urge to GO bred into them, and I am happy to see them. 

   Another breed substantially under represented in endurance is the quarter horse. They dominate trail riding, but not endurance.  I saw only one horse at this ride that was a ¼ quarter horse. QH’s were bred to go very fast, to be able to turn on a dime, to hustle cattle, NOT go 100 miles in a 24 hour period. They just don’t have the physiological makeup for it. I’m not slamming QH’s…when it comes to herding cows, or barrel racing, or rodeo, there is no better horse breed. 
      However, most Quarter Horses can’t even do that. It comes from breeding for the show ring.  ‘Show breeding’ has destroyed the original Quarter Horse. Having worked at my neighbor’s QH breeding farm during my teen years, I can tell you that QH’s were bred to LOOK good at halter. But the fashionistas ruined them for riding. They were bred for fashionably small feet that usually developed into navicular at a young age, and sloping backs that couldn’t carry a saddle (see “Impressive back”  named for the stallion by that name). My neighbor’s stallion was 15 hands, weighed 1200 lbs.  (550 kilos) and had 00 feet…the same size feet of a small Arabian. Even more telling, my neighbors would breed 80 mares a season, and none of the resulting foals were handled or trained to do anything more than carry a halter. So many of their foals developed navicular (sometimes as early as two years old) that I was forbidden to answer any questions about it from prospective buyers. 

     QH’s bred for the halter ring, and lately, ‘western equitation’ have navicular almost from birth, and saddles just don’t sit right on them without a lot of padding. Impressive, also, was the stallion responsible for the disease HYPP. There’s also a disease from another overbred line that results in the subcutaneous skin to ‘dissolve”.

    For some reason I cannot fathom, the QH show breeders want their horses fat. I mean FAT…I remember seeing an ad for a QH stallion that was advertised as being 16 hands (big for a QH) and 1600 pounds (730 kilos)!! Why? Well, fat hides a lot of faults. 
Take a look at this ad I clipped from the 'net, from "Ellis Quarter Horses". Read the caption. This picture is (I believe) taken of the horse as a YEARLING:

Can anyone out there who knows anything about breeding horses explain why he "had very few foals"??? I mean, Duh??. I'd be scared to death to let this monster mount a mare...but then, most QH's are bred AI, so perhaps the point is moot.
Here is another picture of a QH mare, this one with Impressive in her lines:

   My god, she looks like a Beefmaster steer. I feel so sorry for horses kept like this. This mare, also, had problems holding to a breeding. Keeping horses fat keeps veterinarians in business.
    There is no way you would dare to put a horse like this in an endurance race. Not only would they overheat, they'd have problems getting out of their own way. That is, if you could find a saddle to fit the horse.

    Just to balance things and to prove I'm not really anti-QH, I tried to find a picture of a fat arabian.
I couldn't find one. I think that means NOT that Arabs can't be fat, just that Arabians have a different physiological attributes. QH's are bred to be bulky, Arabs are bred to be thin.  

     In the last, oh, twenty years, all the spirit seems to have been bred out of the Quarter Horse. The show breeders didn’t want a horse that had any ‘let’s go!” in them. They wanted a dead quiet horse, one that would plod along at western equitation speeds, ‘loping’ (cantering) so slowly that a human in boots could easily keep alongside the horse, and ‘jogging’ (trotting) that the same human could WALK the horse in hand. I even heard of people injecting the horse’s tail with botulin in order to kill the nerves, so that the horse’s tail hung perfectly quietly. The fact that the horse could no longer use the tail as a fly whisk didn’t mean a damned thing to these shitheads.    

   Wait, I just thought of another ‘set’ of breeds: warmbloods. Haven’t seen a Warmblood doing endurance yet.  Warmbloods were bred to be riding horses. I know that, having had the distinct pleasure to ‘graduate’ to warmbloods after a lifetime of riding ‘other breeds”. Once you’ve ridden a Warmblood, you know what a riding horse REALLY feels like. But, at this time, I don’t see them being used for endurance. Yet. 

   Before I close up this post, though, I have to mention another change. It seems the AERC (American Endurance Riding Council) has grouped a lot of endurance related sports together. There was the regular Endurance ride. There was a small, elite group that was FEI regulated. They even had to be kept separated from other endurance riders, why, I don’t know. There were “trail riders”…folks who, I guess, were there merely for the fun, not attempting to win points, and finally, Ride and Tie.

   R+T was a sport that came about, again, in the 70’s. I thought it’d died out, but no.

It was based on the supposedly Indian (Native American) way of moving a lot of people fast with relatively few horses. The modern way is the same as the original strategy: two riders, one horse. Both start at the same time. The rider rides out a set distance (of course, quickly outdistancing the second person, who is on foot.). Rider rides, say, 5 miles and dismounts, ties the horse to a tree, and starts running. Runner runs five miles, finds the horse, mounts and rides fire miles, passing the first one on the way. I believe they did the R+T at distances of 25 miles.

 

Ride and Tie Canadian team-look at the tutu!

   There were three teams. One team was a mother/daughter team (with a grey Arabian, of course) who’d driven all the way from WHITE HORSE. (For the non-North American, White Horse is a town in Yukon Territory, Canada, a distance of 1800 miles (2918 kilometers) from Trout Lake, Washington State. I can tell you, bringing a horse across the international border is NOT for the easily intimidated by pencil necked Border agent. Be prepared for a lot of harassment. )

   Not only did they do this solely for fun, they had fun doing it. They dressed in spangled tutus. I am not kidding. While the rest of us 'southerners' were in layers three deep (you can't see it, but the wind was blowing hard and it was COLD.), these Canucks were dressed, well, like this. It was mostly because they were going to be running, but STILL...
    We appreciated their sense of humor. I was told by my vet that in endurance riding, ‘if you see a horse tied to a tree, LEAVE him there’. He  also told of a ride he worked where both runners came in on foot. Where was the horse? Still tied to a tree in the woods, fifteen miles out…

    Endurance has changed. For the better.