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Broken Stifle in racetrack death...

3K views 23 replies 13 participants last post by  xxEmilyxx 
#1 ·
I just saw the most terrible Youtube about accidents on the track from PETA. I decided not to post it, because it was so terrible. Has anyone ever dealt with an injured stifle and not had to PTS?
 
#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
From what I've read/heard, they can often be healed with rest.


A thread from here documenting the injury/recovery of a horse with a fractured stifle:
http://www.horseforum.com/horse-health/jingles-needed-stifle-fracture-141019/

*disclaimer - strong opinion alert*

JMO, but I would take everything PETA says with a pinch of salt. I won't watch any of their videos now, they're just rabble-raising, self righteous, narrow minded activists who are one step below the animal liberation front. Jus' saying.
 
#4 ·
I don't care for PETA, as like most animal rescue groups they are extremists.

However, I agree that racing is an ugly sport. As a child I was a huge horse-racing fan. Until I kept seeing horse after horse killed or broken down. Charismatic, Barbaro, Eight Belles, and some horses who's names I have forgotten.

My riding instructor was good at re-training racehorses. She re-habbed some horses that were nearly crippled. One of them was my favorite lesson horse- he broke his front leg racing and had to be put in a sling. She went to extreme lengths to save him, and it payed off in the end as he was a super quiet lesson horse.

Stifle injuries are tricky and it is extremely hard to find a home for a lame horse.
 
#5 ·
Sometimes, I think that for some horses being put to sleep on the track is better and more humane for them. These horses love their job, the ones that do it well. I think in some respects it was worse to do what happened to Barbaro. Where he languished in pain, on stall rest for the last 9 months of his life and was in all likelihood drugged for a portion of that time. Mostly because you don't go from running and exercising everyday for miles, to just standing around easily.

I have also seen some pretty horrible pasture accidents and flat out bad luck accidents. Horses are a thousand pound bodies on toothpicks when things go badly its a horror show.

PETA has a tendency to use out dated footage. Some of the video footage they use of research animals is over thirty years old and not an accurate representation of how things are done. They have an agenda and are basically just short of a terrorist organization in my book.
 
#6 ·
These horses love their job, the ones that do it well
This is a very good point - I went to the Thoroughbred Rehabilitation Centre earlier this year, and they often take their rehabilitated horses back for parades at the races. The ones who did well love to be back, their eyes light up and they spend their time in the parade ring strutting around, and if they could, they'd be grinning.
 
#8 ·
This video is being discussed on an OTTB FB forum I'm a member of. I have not watched it, and will not.

It isn't because I'm squeamish, it's because I refuse to so much as CONSIDER anything PETA puts out there. Are there issues in racing? Absolutely. But you can bet PETA did their usual "creative editing" trick to make it seem as if anyone who's ever been involved in racing is a terrible abuser who just wants to make a buck. PETA believes no one should own animals. ANY animals. They believe animals are better off dead than with humans.
 
#9 ·
Racing in the UK is very different from the US. There are nowhere near the fatal accidents with flat racing that there is that side of the pond. A lot of this is because mainly racing is on grass, no drugs are allowed and the horses are trained differently.

I am sure that it ha lot of horses in the US they might appear slightly lame, get given a couple of butes and they race. That slight lameness could have come from a hairline fracture. The stress of a race finished it off.

Many the time a horse has gone off to race and not returned home. It is sad and hard but, they were well looked after and doing a job they relished.

We had a mare that got brought down in a race, she was sound afterwards, slight swelling on her hock. Two days of light work then went schooling (over fences) hock was normal. She went down a line of fences and was walking home when she went three legged lame. She had a fracture on her hock. Box rest and she was put in foal. Never ridden again and was perfectly sound.
 
#10 ·
PETA is an animal rights group. They believe that animals should have the same rights as people, that we shouldn't own them, etc. Surprisingly, a lot of the members are really ignorant and know little about animal behavior or care, and don't even realize how much animal by products are in pretty much everything. They'll bash someone for a fur coat but don't think about their leather sneakers or car seat, LOL.

But to answer the original question...I know horses who healed completely from an inured stifle and I know a couple that had to be semi-retired to "light" work (walk/trot only but they can go for multiple hours).
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#11 ·
My father has raced trotters for 30 years and once lost a nice little mare to a catastrophic rear cannon bone fracture during a trial. She was PTS, the lower leg was hanging by a shred of skin, very sad. We buried her at home. My father was devastated for months. We suspect she had a hairline fracture from kicking in the float, but she appeared totally sound in the warmup, and trialled normally, but fell in the home curve (as a result, not cause, of the fracture). For what it's worth, she didn't seem to be in pain in the 30 minutes before the vet arrived, probably in shock. Drank water, we cuddled her, etc. You hear about people getting their arms ripped off in machinery and not feeling pain till quite a while later.

Very sad, but horses also break their legs in paddocks. The fabulous Danish dressage mare Blue Hors Matine did exactly that while pregnant with her first foal. Having said that, I am not a fan of steeplechasing because of the deadly combination of speed and obstacles, which for my taste is way too high-risk.

Canadian showjumping legend Hickstead blew a major blood vessel after a clear round at a competition in Italy, and expired in the arena. That was sad too, beautiful horse. A blood vessel can go in any of us at any time. It's more likely when blood pressure is up, but vigorous exercise on the whole has more health benefits than risks.
 
#12 ·
At present overall about 2 in every thousand runners are fatalities. Flat and All Weather racing accounts for around 0.6 fatalities of every thousand runners, Jump racing accounts for just over 4 fatalities of every thousand runners.

So, in the UK you have a very low percentage of horses running on the flat that have to be euthanised. I haven't been able to find out the percentage in the US.

Jump racing in the UK certainly leads to more serious injuries, even so, they are few and far between.

Personally in nigh on 60 years of riding I have had four horses die under me. All from a ruptured major blood vessel. All were fit horses, one had passed the vet a week before.
 
#13 ·
Foxhunter, were you riding them when the vessels went? The first racehorse my father lost was a young mare who had had an excellent first season of racing, gone for a few months' spell, and collapsed very like Hickstead after completing a flawless training session. The (limited) PM was inconclusive, could have been a vessel in the brain. The horse went from totally normal to suddenly staggering, collapsing and dying in a matter of maybe two minutes.
 
#14 ·
My boss had a horrendous accident to do with a blown blood vessel. She was escorting some holiday makers, cantering up the canter track in the lead and they were racing. She stopped and told them to stop once, carried on, but they continued. She was a way aways in front, so she stopped and turned again, and the horse behind her blew a blood vessel, and was a dead horse galloping essentially. The vet reckoned the horse's mental processes would have shut down, but the momentum kept it going, and it ran full pelt into my bosses' horse, killing it instantly. Her five year old daughter was in the middle of nowhere, with two panicking tourists, two dead horses, and an unconscious mother, before a time where mobile phones were common.

It can happen to any horse, at any time.
 
#16 ·
Yes, I was riding them at the time! The forts was a madcap jumping pony, he had one pace in the ring and that was fast. I was given the rode because he had carted everyone else. It was the jump off and as we went into the last fence, as he took off I felt a sort of thump. He landed, I thought he pecked but the speed carried us forward and he went through the finish before rolling over dead. Something similar when I was taking an exam. Horses were army remounts and my rode for the cross country was a lovely big bay with a bold eye. Examiners were spaced put around the course and an army officer, mounted was watching too. This horse was a joy to rode and as he leapt at a ditch and hedge with a slight drop on landing I again heard the thump.
The officer was yelling to everyone " keep hold of his head!" He horse just crumpled on landing, rolled over pinning me by his neck. The officer rode over saying "I told you to keep hold of his bloody head." To which I replied, "I still have a hold of his bloody head!"

The third was out Fox Hunting, we hadn't done much and were standing around. The horse spun in a circle shaking its head blood flying everywhere, I jumped off and couldn't hold him before he did a half rearm fell sideways and was dead.

Another time I was riding a young jump racehorse on the gallops, we were working at a hand gallop when I again felt the thump. I immediately quit my stirrups expecting him to go down, he staggered from side to side and pulled up. I have never seen a nosebleed like this one, both nostrils pouring. He was snorting and sneezing having difficulty in breathing. Some of the lads went back to the stables to get the horse box. I really expected the horse to drop at any moment. We got him home and the bleeding stopped, he must have bled heavily for 10-15 minutes. The vet arrived minutes after we got him home and wasn't to concerned saying it was just a blood vessel. I brought out my clothes, having changed, and the vet was impressed. He did not scope the horse for fear of starting the bleeding again. We never did find out what he had done. He was walked in hand for a week plus and when scoped nothing could be seen. He went on to race and never bled again.
 
#18 ·
I'd take everything PETA has to say with a grain of salt. They actually just protested my vet school because we were doing cancer research on animals (For the record these experiments were preformed on terminally ill patients as a last resort. None were kept in cages and all were sent home after treatment or kept in a hospice ward. The local chapter claimed that we kept them in cages and doped them every 4 hours with abusive drugs.)

As for racehorses liking their jobs I've seen some that do and some that don't. I never believed a horse could like racing as a job until we got an ex racer in for training and every other day me and my boss would go run him like they did on the track. He loved it and never quite settled into the whole 'pleasure rehab horse' thing. (Eventually he sold to a nice elderly couple who wanted a horse to race for fun, retired sound and healthy from the track at sixteen!) Most of the ex-racers we've picked up from the track have been ones who didn't like racing but were better at other disciplines. Do you have your bad apples, yes. Do those apples make up every race horse owner/trainer? No.
I've known some good trainers and some bad trainers, but that's just the horse industry.

As for injuries I had a horse go down from an anuyerism, one burst a blood vessel, and one break two of his legs kicking a horse trailer. Accidents happen everywhere, not just the track and not all are preventable sadly. I do think that some reform of the U.S racing system is needed but I don't let that color my opinion of the people who are good and fair in the industry.
 
#19 ·
Yeah but horses are not kids and these horses are bred to race. For a lot of trainers they have a limited future outside of racing or making more race horses. Kids were not bred to eat candy, trained to eat candy and are regarded as having a future outside of eating candy.

If horses knew how damaging racing was they would probably still do it. That is how they get hurt out at pasture. Heck all we need as a brisk wind for all our horses to act like fools and tear around, bucking rearing and twisting.
 
#20 ·
I agree. And not for nothing, look at humans. We jump out of planes, street race our cars... We do things that go above and beyond normal risk taking all the time. Why? Because it's a rush! I'm sure these horses are looking for the thrill just as much as any human.
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#21 ·
A funny news paper article here many years ago, with the headlines, "PETA helps hunters harvest deer", or something to that affect.... Aparantly, just prior to hunting season, PETA groups spent 100's of hrs capturing deer briefly (I really don't remember how) and placing hunter orange neon 'vest' type things on them to "Make them more visible"... So the hunter is thinking what? "Oh, I remember PETA doesn't want me to eat venison, so here's a deer w/a bright vest - better not shoot!" Apologize for many vague recollections in the article, but sure do wish I still had a copy of it! Hindsight is 20/20 :)
 
#23 ·
PETA did have a pretty ironic campaign for lobster. They had a guy dress up in a bright red lobster suit to protest lobster fishing. Lobsters are only bright red when steamed and dead. I also find the "sea kitten" campaign to be hilarious. In which, PETA wants to rename fish, "sea kittens" because fish and fishing has a bad connotation and people don't want to save fish. So now, instead of fishing I just go "sea kitten" hunting.

I think there are horses in pretty dire conditions all over the country. We are better off worrying about the ones in peoples yards who are suffering from a lack of good care than those who are injured and have their medical needs addressed ASAP.

I do think the jockey club and the TB industry needs to be overhauled. I just think that a PETa campaign makes that a harder fight to fight. They jockey club is going to listen to horsemen and women who they deem respectable as having input. PETA campaigns tend to get everyone concerned about animal welfare painted with the same brush. There are legitimate concerns in all aspects of equine care (or animal use) the problem is that they somehow get combined and associated with bogus ideas like sea kittens and suddenly everyone with a concern is easily labeled nuts.
 
#24 ·
My old barn rescued an OTTB with a broken stifle in 2011. They sold him last year. They weren't the most honest people and I don't think they told the new owners he ever had a broken leg. You wouldn't believe he did either...GORGEOUS mover, about 17.2 hh and he's becoming a jumper now I think. Not sure if that stress on the leg is really good for him, but he seems to be back to perfect health.
 
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