Bluegrass Cat retired due to pastern injury
 

AUGH!!! :mad:

I can't come up with anything else to say, frankly.

:mad:

Oh that really stinks. Racing would drive me to drink if I liked to drink......I felt bad for BC yesterday, trying his heart out against a superior opponent. He was such a nice horse, gutty and talented. Does this mean he was injured during the running of the Travers or does the fact that he cooled off well mean it happened sometime afterwards?

Just when racing is on a high after this weekend, something like this happens. Sigh.

Its the chance that you take when you run one back off 20 days rest and a lifetime top number.
I'm sure that the Oliver Stone conspiracy club will be on here soon, explaining to us all that they made up an excuse and doctored the x-rays and that hes really fine and dandy, etc.

I think its a damn shame. His Haskell was really quite nice, and he might have been a beautiful four year old.
Best wishes to him in his stud career.

The best you can say is that at least he made it back from the race and will survive. Too bad though. What a nice career he had.

no doubt it happened in the race. not something that would show up immediately. that's why they always say lets' see how they come out of the race. too often you put up the horse that night and he's fine, come back the next morning early, and stiffness has set in...

and i'd imagine pletcher is absolutely beside himself. winstar dragged him into that race yesterday kicking and screaming. i appreciate that they wanted to be sporting...but pletcher isn't into running back that quick. and now this.

it's a damn shame. that horse was absolutely heading in the right direction--at least he's in the record books for his haskell. future races will be compared to his....

good luck in your next career cat. that guys going to be a hot commodity. succesful at two and three.

That sucks man....I liked this horse too.....he was all heart..always tried to the wire....when he got his heart broken by Bernardini he must have been trying and over-extending himself and it caused injury....sucks...

After Elliott Walden's interview at the Haskell I was under the impression that a wet fart gone wrong would send this horse into retirement.

I didn't like him being rushed back on the track so soon and he definitely looked like a tired horse yesterday. What a shame. Have a good retirement, big guy.

He was a good one. 4 graded stakes victories is a nice career, and in the two biggest races of the year for 3yo (Kentucky Derby and Travers Stakes) he ran big races. He just happened to come up against two superhorses (Barbaro and Bernardini) in those races, and so settled for nice seconds in both.

The quick urnaround is one thing but looking like a tired horse, give me a break. The winner of the race makes all look like tired horses. BC ran a very nice race and was very game he just got beat by the best horse. Anyone saying they could tell something was wrong are just sounding of after the fact. This could have very well compromised his effort but it sure didnt look that way.

bluegrass cat looked fine. didn't look tired, pletcher did a good job getting him there. bernardini was better yesterday, that's all.

pace makes the race. bernardini had things his way from start to finish. still hasn't been eyeballed. wonder if he ever will be....

This is the last thing I expected to read today.

quick turnaround pretty much means a tired horse. Not fully rested, etc. etc.

If there is legitimate speed in the race, Bernardini will be a stalker; I suspect that if there is more than one speed, he'll revert to his Preakness tactics (about 5 lengths off the lead). It will be hard for him to be eyeballed simply because he has such a brilliant turn of foot; he's often by horses before they have a chance to respond. However, he'll be meeting really good older horses in the Gold Cup, so we won't have to wait very long to see how he responds to that kind of pressure. Those horses are tough, experienced and talented.

Amen.

The way he ran was proof that horses can run very well off of 20 day layoffs. He smoked the rest of the field, and if Bernardini wasn't in the 3 year old class, he would have easily asserted himself to the top of the class. The short layoff is NOT an excuse for the injury.

This is not a surprise at all....Why a horse that was sound his whole career needed wraps added yesterday was a clear sign something might be amiss. Plus he was a washed out mess. I was shocked he hit the board. Wraps added from Pletcher is a sign he's trying to squeeze out another race or two out of the horse....This makes perfect sense.

had winstar not pressed it, pletcher would never have come back yesterday off 20 days...no bernardini, maybe he would have. no doubt the wraps were just one more thing on the list to help out the situation. TAP did everything he could. and now he's lost his best 3 yo. i bet he's beyond p'od.

very talented horse but 20 days was not enough between races.

Well, there is less than that between the Derby and Preakness every year so...I think it depends on the horse and about six million other factors! Easy to say now that it was too short...whether it had anything to do with the injury...pure speculation again! I will say this, Bluegrass Cat made a quick move on the leader coming out of the far turn and appeared to get almost even with him then suddenly seemed empty...was it Bernardini simply finding another gear, the Cat hitting the wall, the short layoff, or did the injury occur there? The final quarter was solid but not spectacular...I want to watch the replay of that part a few times!

That's a load of horse-hockey, as Col. Potter would say. Horses do it all the time; only these fancy stallion prospects can't do it, according to their trainers. Point Given did it (won the Haskell and Travers), but he was the best horse. Bluegrass isn't as good a horse as Bernardini; he's a good horse, no question, just not as good as some others in his crop (Barbaro included).

As to the injury; an athlete is more likely to be injured if he/she is trying to do more - run faster or farther, jump higher - than he/she has done before or than he is prepared to do. Trying to keep up with a superior athlete is falls into that category. Horses like Bluegrass, who keep on trying, are more likely to get hurt that way than a wussy horse. He wouldn't throw in the towel and ran so hard he hurt himself. Same thing happened to Lion Heart a couple of years ago; couldn't get 10f on a dry track, but kept on trying till he hurt himself.

OK ... you've convinced me ... now I know you're absolutely nuts.

The only way we know that a horse is the type who always keeps trying ... is to observe him keep trying. And the only way we can observe that ... is if he races ... something which injured horses can't do.

You fancy yourself as the great data copier and paster ... so ... go find some data to copy and paste ... to support this ridiculous yarn that you're trying to foist off on the rest of us.

I read on another board that it appears (per a publicist) that Bluegrass Cat kicked his stall in the middle of the night and that's what caused his injury. Obviously without an official quote, we have to take it with a grain (lots of grains) of salt...............

So are we now saying that Todd ran an unsound horse in the Travers? If he was not at his physical best, shouldn't he have scratched BC? I'm not buying the 3 weeks rest excuse - one week shouldn't make 8 lengths difference in a performance. BC just isn't as good as Bernardini. That being said, the horse ran a very commendable race and lost because he ran into a monster. If he was truly to tired to put in a representative effort, he wouldn't have run as well.

The lack of rest definitely made a difference- but I have a feeling that Pletcher, Johnny V, etc. . . were planning on saying that no matter how BGC performed (unless he won, obviously). That was pretty much the first thing JV said after the race- that his horse needed more rest. They were definitely trying to squeeze this last one out of him- like oracle (I think) said a while ago- BGC's goal was this race- Bernie's is the BC.

Horses are clearly much more fragile than they used to be- especially the top horses because the level they compete at just takes more of a toll on their bodies. Look how the horses that raced in both the Derby and Preakness ended up.

Barbaro- Hurt
Brother Derek- Hurt
Sweetnorthernsaint- Hurt?

Hello!!!

Bluegrass Cat retired with leg fracture....
 

...and i noticed he was wearing front wraps for the first time Saturday as they were warming up in the post parade......hmmmmmm....Was there something pre-existing going on there?....mighty fishy....

He also got his heart broken at the same time....I loved his grit and will to try, though, and I will miss his effort....he just wasn't in the same class as Bernardini but that isn't a knock on him...not many horses are...

And the uninformed uneductaed posts just keep on coming folks!!! He broke a rear leg, not a front one(where the wraps were that everyone noticed were added) So I guess I'm trying to figure out what, if any, link there could be between the two.

If you knew ANYTHING about racing you would understand that horses get off of what is hurting them and it usually causes injury elsewhere...If he was favoring the front-end then it would have compromised his action in the rear end when running full speed in the race and trying his ass off like he usually does...hence, more stress on the back end and SNAPOLA she goes...get it? Horses are smart animals and they know what is stinging them and what to get off of to take care of themselves...

Do I have to teach you everything about this game, Oracle?

I also noticed the front wraps and was worried. But his action wasn't at all different than his action in his other races and he also didn't act in any distress in the paddock. he was less sweated up than the last time he ran as well.
I think you just like tossing it out there(without making the direct accusation but doing so in an indirect manner) that Todd ran a sore horse. Todd was not real keen about running in the race off the 20 days and made no secret about it. Believe me, if he had any excuse at all to scratch out the spot he would have. He certainly didn't need to run the horse to earn the payroll for his barn.

You always think that I'm busting on your boy Todd and thats not the case...Unlike you, I don't do that s h it.....Let's face it, Storm Cats are not the most sound animals anyway and most racehorses in general run with some sort of problem(s)...

I was merely making a general observation that I was very surprised that nobody had caught or mentioned in the other related Bluegrass Cat threads in this forum - that is all...

When a horse goes front-wraps for the first time in a race and comes out of that race broken down - it'll make you think....the chances of coincidence are probably as good as the chances that the injury and front wraps were related....just saying

Joel I totally agree in the premise of what you are saying. Of course I noticed the wraps. I cancelled the ticket I had on him when i did ok? Its always a negative sign(most of the time). If he had injured himself up front I would completely agree. But those kind of breaks generally occur by freak chance, as you know very well.

Not mostly Mike, fronts added from a trainer who doesn't normally use them is always--always a bad sign. Whether you squeeze out a race or two more, it is a negative. And forget any horse that needs wraps on the turf.

bro derek returns in two weeks...sweetnorthernsaint is back with his trainer. i don't believe either had a specific injury cited. just needed a break.

Maybe Bluegrass Cat was wearing pacing hobbles ... which connect the front legs to the rear ones ...

... I didn't notice them ... but I was just watching the race on television ... so that doesn't necessarily mean they weren't there.

Yup, Mike ... that may have been the connection that the other guy saw ... and that maybe you missed.

I'm almost positive that Brother Derek came out of the Preakness with an injury. . .

i agree that most injuries occur when an athlete reaches for that something extra.

That is absolutely correct. Horses will often injure one of their good legs because they are getting off their bad leg. This is very common.

from bloodhorse:
After a four-week break, Cecil Pea****'s dual grade 1 winner Brother Derek returned to Santa Anita's main track this past Saturday to begin preparations for a probable start in the $1 million Haskell Invitational Handicap (gr. I) on Aug. 6 at Monmouth Park, trainer Dan Hendricks revealed.
The bay son of Benchmark was given some well-earned time off following back-to-back fourth-place finishes in the May 6 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) and May 20 Preakness Stakes (gr. I), his first significant break since being purchased for $275,000 as a Barretts Select 2-year-old in training in March, 2005.

"He'd been in steady training for more than a year since we bought him, so we gave him four weeks off," Hendricks said. "He's very healthy and doing great now. He'll probably work at the end of the month. We're looking forward to running at Monmouth Park."

Hendricks said that Brother Derek spent his off time "just hanging around the barn" and walking the shedrow under an Astride weight belt, which is a device that simulates a rider's weight on a horse's back.

-----I did some double checking to be sure i hadn't missed anything....i know they checked him out after the preakness to make sure there wasn't a problem....nothing was found.

What happened to my Bluegrass Cat front-wraps and breakdown post?...Must have gotten ugly over night and Steve deleted....hilarious....

There is a strong possibility thta there was something pre-existinbg that the barn knew about that caused this breakdown....he was wearing front-wraps for the first time....hmmmmmm