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Originally Posted by Dixie Porter
I have trained and run many bowed horses and horses with suspensory problems. Only one was ever vanned off after a race and he bowed a fresh tendon in that race.
Won many races with these rejects. First and Finest, who I claimed from Harbor View, won a stake in Md. Concerned, who I bought from King Ranch for $5000, went on to win 7 more races up to starter's handicaps in NY.
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I know that in a lot of cases if the tendon is not that bad, the horse can last for a while. But we know there are other cases when it is that bad and running the horse would put him at serious risk.
For example, one of my trainers had a horse about a year ago who had a pretty serious issue. I can't even remember what it was. I think it was a tendon. The horse was a home-bred and the owners were somewhat fond of the horse. I think the horse was basically a $50k type horse. Anyway, with the injury he had, they had two choices. They could either retire him or they could run him for $10,000 and hope to win and get him claimed. My trainer thought he would definitely win if they ran him for $10,000 but they were very worried about what would happen to the horse. They didn't think he would break down that day, but they thought he would be very likely to break down in the near future if the person who claimed him continued to run him, which I'm sure he would have. Anyway, they decided to retire the horse. They didn't want to see the horse get hurt. This type of thing is pretty rare these days. Most people would just run the horse and try to get him claimed and they wouldn't care what happens to the horse. People are pretty much playing "hot-potato" with a lot of these claiming horses that have serious issues.