What? I'm talking frequency, not # of breakdowns. Of course there are more breakdowns on ****ing small days.

Does souping up the track make it better? To me it offers a bias like in 2006 BC where the rail was like a conveyer belt.

Ever wonder why horses hardly break down on turf on big days? Because the track superintendent cant do anything to soup it up.

would we be having the same discussion had EB gone down on Oaks day?
would EB run any less hard chasing or matching strides with Proud Spell?
someone mentioned the synthetic surface, instead of having dirt tracks faster on big days, keep the softer, deeper, slower ALL the time. it has to be safer?

Darren -

We'd be having the same discussion when the next horse invariably went down on Derby or Oaks or BC Day at Churchill. Four breakdowns in five days doesn't seem like a coincidence.

oh...well damn joey, forgive me for not reading between the lines and understanding that when you said 'more' that you meant frequency and not number of.

I never understood the purpose of sythetic tracks for racing.
Horses spend more time training so they should develop training tracks that are synthetic

That sums it up and this discussion will start again the next time it happens on national tv.....don't wanna sound insensitive, but time to move on.

Less days washed or frozen out for the track.
Santa Anita of course has reversed this supposed
advantage.

the thing about Eight Belles breakdown is that to me it looked to have nothing to do with the surface. from watching the overhead she suddenly slows dramatically and looks to start falling forward, like a collapse. as she falls she tries to catch herself but her legs get caught in an ackward position causing the injuries. to me it makes more sense because its hard to see how a bad step, etc, injures both legs at such a slow speed.

i've heard of horses getting injured during a routine gallop in the morning, i can see that it would happen after a race during the gallop out as well. just because it's rare doesn't mean it can't happen.
i believe what a song broke both legs during a morning gallop. anyone who knows horses, or has been around them, knows they can suffer some weird injuries that you wouldn't think could happen.
hell, look at st liam at the farm. just walking, gets antsy and ends up falling and breaking his upper leg. a horse a few years ago lost his balance after breeding and broke one of his withers. when had anyone ever heard of that before? i hadn't.

I have to tell you that I find it really irritating when someone comes on and tells everyone to move on, times up. says who? what should we move on to?
how about letting everyone decide for themselves when they've had enough?

Sorry dude...didn't mean anything by it.

I know about losing someone suddenly also, so I see your point.

On the Big Brown isolated stretch run, Eight Belles bobbled, not particularly dramatically, but noticeably nonetheless with a furlong to go. She immediately bore in towards the rail and practically leaned against it the length of the stretch. Just nearing the wire she bobbled again before going out of view.

In all likelihood she suffered both injuries during the race. On the gallop out, when the riders typically give their mounts "their heads", I would imagine the lax and uncollected strides she was taking on already injured limbs resulted in further, irreparable damage.

Just seems interesting, considering the constant complaints about the highways Churchill creates on its big days.

I saw what you are talking about.

But I find it very difficult to pin it down like that.
Did ligaments get little tears, or tendons, or bones already spliced
and just split all the way? Lots of little bones and
connective tissue down there. I think thats very difficult to say.

i just watched a couple times. i agree with you. it looks more she was collapsing from being tired and tried too catch herself.

That's pretty much the gist of it. Certainly if she was pulled up midstretch she wouldn't have the same catastrophic injuries she had past the wire...but I would bet that she would have had some detectable injury (-ies), likely at least one 'hairline' (ie incomplete) ankle fracture. Most race-related injuries are the result of cumulative trauma (and this would include before the race, too), not single bad steps.

By the way, I'm not trying to say the jockey should have pulled her up. Just making a case for the initial injuries to have occurred before the gallop out.

Totally agree with your perspective Jim. I think the fractures occured after she collapsed, for whatever reason. Very sad. Also agree with Deb. It's a sick part of the sport I try not to think about.