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Tackling the Mystery of Breakdowns
by Kenneth L. Marcella, D.V.M.
Reproduced with permission from
Thoroughbred Times
As
horse racing seeks to broaden its market through the National Thoroughbred
Racing Association, perhaps no issue looms larger than on-track breakdowns.
Approximately one in 600-to-700 Thoroughbreds sustains a catastrophic
injury, and occasionally these injuries occur when a large audience is
watching, such as the1990 Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1) with Go For Wand
or the 1993 Belmont Stakes (G1) with Prairie Bayou.
Public reaction to these events invariably is revulsion, and the sport
for the longest time has been unable to explain why these calamities occur.
Too often, the response has been that breakdowns happen, period, and the
public generally finds that answer to be unsatisfactory.
In the 1990s, two events have coalesced to provide more information on
breakdowns and their causes, although it remains unclear whether a definitive
explanation of breakdowns is on the horizon.
In 1990, the California Horse Racing Board established a program in which
a complete examination was done on all racehorses that died or were euthanized
at one of the state's racetracks. A national monitoring system to provide
a common format for regulatory veterinarians to record injury information
was implemented in 1992 by the American Association of Equine Practitioners
(AAEP) and the Association of Racing Commissioners International.
These two programs generated a wealth of information that has led to the
publication of many ...
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