I couldn't agree more. When I saw there was a Peta/Big Brown thread, I was expecting that they were going to be lambasting IEAH for pushing as far as they did with him knowing that he had the physical problems he did. And I'm not so sure I'd be able to disagree with them on that point either. This horse has exhibited problems with his feet from the start. It was never more evident than in the Belmont. Yet they continued to push on with him until it got so bad that they couldn't go on anymore. Then they retire him under the guise of doing what's best for the horse. Bullshit. What would have been best for this horse would have been to have been taken out of training a long time ago.

For what reason? To go to the petting zoo?

I just can't imagine that it was comfortable for him running on those feet. Maybe it was but I just can't imagine it was.

Did you mean taken out of training and retired or sent to a farm to give it a rest and come back as a 4 yr old?

I have noticed that this sire is not too bad, but very, very under utilized . A shame because he is probably the only Spectacular Bid standing . 20 years old now .
Note : I just checked and tbred times has 8 sons listed at stud .
http://www.bluehousefarm.com/

Big Brown looked rank at The Belmont. He was never like that before in a race. Can his barking dogs be part of the reason he was rank? Or is there something more typical that causes this in a horse?

I thought the "wheel" problem on Brown was getting worse as he was kept in light sporadic training on the turf.
I hope he is allowed to feel no pain and gets no serious infection.

As far as PETA.....No argument can be presented to change their agenda.

So, for the rest of us, eat a nice steak and chase it with a glass of your favorite beverage.

Many horses run on feet as bad or worse than his every day. You just dont know about it because there is no coverage of 99.99% of horses health outside of breakdowns. He had quartercracks, which alot of the time is due to hitting the ground in an uneven manner due to the way he is built as opposed to an injury that will heal with time. You could have given him a year in a field and as soon as he went into serious training he would have most likely had the same issues again.

hey, i didn't....
oh, the horse. j/k, i knew who you meant.

and danzig sired the most stakes winners on the continent, and with small books. it's a crapshoot for sure.

personally, i wouldn't breed to big brown because boundary didn't do a whole lot in his brief career at stud, and big brown wasn't a top 3 yo.. he's just the top this year...too many horses out there with better pedigrees and more talent.

wonder if their insurance would pay on the fertility insurance if they did this and filed a claim?! i'm betting no.

i thought he grabbed a quarter? yeah, he's had issues with his feet, but i doubt it applies in this instance.

Honestly it is about price also. If you could get to him for $20k you may take a chance he is going to do ok. But for $75k he is a huge risk for the reasons you said not to mention there are plenty of really good proven sires at that level. One of the mistakes that they made was letting the media make a big deal out of the feet issues. They simply talked too much. If you are staying in as a major stakeholder in a stallion the last thing you want is the media telling of the woes of your horses health over and over. There are quite a few major stallions that have gone to stud with far bigger issues than this horse has that you never heard about in the media.

They may have said he grabbed a quarter but it looks more like he grabbed the equilox off his patched up foot. The foot is the problem at least from what we could see in the picture but it is more of an unfortunate issue than a true injury.

doesn't rick dutrow usually keep his shoes off his front feet? i know i've seen horses reach up and pull their front shoes off...is this a similar occurrence, only instead of pulling off a shoe, he pulled off the patch?

75?! good god...is that what they really are trying to get??
and yeah, right now with farms reassessing fees, and people going cheaper with a lot of their mares, you don't want anyone looking at big brown and thinking worse of him then they would just based on him being a boundary. yeah, he won the derby...but so did giacomo, and he didn't get 75 grand--and i like holy bull better than boundary.
sunday silences conformation was pretty bad-it sure didn't hurt him in the end. but i'd think a poorly built horse would cause more hesitation than feet issues. how well is big brown put together anyway?

A lot of times you can train a horse with feet like this barefoot to kind of let the horses feet toughen up and let them naturally shape themselves. It looks like he pulled the patch and some of the foot off with it.

Between 60 and 75 and I am guessing the high end to give them a little wiggle room on the deals. I honestly havent seen Sunday Silence in so long I cant remember what his conformation was like.

so... will they start breeding horses to race instead of racing to breed

Big Brown's shoe got stepped on and bent down from another horse as they left the gate.

It is not an exact science. There are a things that breeders have done that are probably not ideal but it is a really hard thing to do well. The vast majority of people who crave stamina and complain about the breed dont breed, own or race horses.

Is there a fast gene? Is there an endurance gene?

I wonder why horses that win races are more highly bred than those that never break their maiden? If genetics plays no role in soundness, or a minor role, then it seems logical it should play a minor role in speed and endurance.
Yes?

Of course it is not an exact science. But honestly to say there is a minor genetic component...?
WE have completely changed horses in a very short time evolutionarily speaking. Especially for a mammal that takes longer than us in the gestation period.
Just like we have done with so many domesticated in animals and plants.

No because soundness is not the same thing as talent. If a horse steps on a nail he will be unsound for a period of time. If he is slow he will always be slow. There are certainly fast twitch and slow twitch muscles. Alot of what is passed on is size and shape. For the most part a heavily muscled, short cropped horse wont have the same amount of stamina as a tall, rangy horse. They can inheirit the size and or shape from either side of the pedigree.

So soundness has nothing to do with conformation?
And conformation is not genetic?

A horse that steps on a nail will also be slow.
I think what you are saying is that feet, because they take so much abuse, can have very random things happen to them. Things that are clearly not genetic, I agree. But to imply that all horses are born with the same hoof/foot durability is imho, not true. To say that genetics has very little to do with hoof/foot durability because randomness (nails, stones, etc...) plays a much larger role is a very different arguement.

-Humbly yours.
Dr. Phil Garden

No conformation has a lot to do with soundness but conformational defects are not a given and there are degrees of which are critical. 10 horses with nearly identical conformation can have completely different soundness levels in their lifetimes due to a huge amount of outside influences including where they are raised, the weather and soil content, the manner in which they are raised including how much time they spend outside or in larger paddocks or with other horses, the diet they are on, the type of grass they consume, if they are prepped (worked) for a sale or left alone till they are broke, the way they are broken including different styles and the amount of time spent on each horse, the surface on which they train, the amount of time given when minor non conformational issue occurs (cuts, step on rocks, kicked by other horse), how hard they are pushed to make a race early in their career versus allowing them t develop at their own speed, etc...

This was my etc...

I think you see what I am saying.
I am around people that are obsessed with horses feet.
When the youngsters are born, they are constantly looking at their feet
and commenting about being more careful with so and so because
the frog... blah blah blah I get bored... her feet are like Dad's she will
be fine blah blah blah... These are Hunter-jumper/Dressage types, so it
may be a very diff. concern. Also the soil around here is rocky.