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Re: [RC] Barbaro - rides2farI listened to a book on cassette last year, seems like it was something like "A Horse of a Different Color". Written by a guy who used to be an editor at...The Chicago Times?? who retired, started breeding TB's and actually bred a Kentucky Derby winner. He went into a lot of detail about how the really expensive sales for TWO year olds have time trials leading into them. Some of these horses aren't 20 mo. old and setting records for speed for just a few furlongs, so you know they've been on them for a while already. It's crazy but it brings lots of money from our ol friends the sheiks and you know how tempting that is when you hear everyone else is cashing in. National Public Radio has actually covered the Barbaro story pretty closely. Just now they had a segment on Arlington Park saying that since this meet started in May, they've already had 17 horses destroyed for breaking bones in races, and 5 more in training this year compared to 12 in the entire season last year. They're testing their track, looking at stats, etc. trying to figure out why the upswing. My guess is competition. Look at what endurance horses *used* to have to do to be contenders for the WEC. Now, because of the training techniques of numbers in the Middle East, look what one has to do to be competitive. You just have to get closer and closer to that ragged edge. I don't think Barbaro is the best poster child though. It seemed from what I saw that he was trained and competed more conservatively than most. Just shows there is no justice. :-P The TB industry is just different than us though. I was visiting a major TB farm in Kentucky and looking at a gorgeous bay standing in a stall eating straight alfalfa. He was big and filled out, looked about 4. The owner said he was a long yearling being prepared for the Keeneland sale, but right now he was dealing with epiphesitis (sp?). I asked him why then he was eating straight alfalfa since a super rich diet and growing too fast causes that problem. He just looked at me like I did not have the ability to understand and said these horses had to grow for the sales. The stallions that sired the horses there had stud fees of $75,000 and up, and they're killing them wanting them to *look* like 4 year olds when they're 18 mo. old . :-P Angie On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:07:09 -0700 (Pacific Standard Time) "Jo Ann Knight" <jknight61@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: I have been told that in Europe they cannot start racing till they are 4 or 5 can't recall but that is hearsay. I need to check that out. Yes to bad the rules won't change here Jo Ann Solution: Do not allow profesional horse racing until the horses are 60 months old. Prognosis: The rules will never change. Ed Ed & Wendy Hauser 2994 Mittower Road Victor, MT 59875 (406) 642-9640 ranch(at)sisuwest(dot)us =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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