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Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin
There are some quarter cracks that are a big deal and others that aren't. It depends on the severity and the location. From all the experts that I talked to who saw the picture of this quarter crack, they said that this was a really bad quarter crack. They said that it was in a bad spot and it was very likely to bother the horse in the race. It's not an exact science and you never know for sure, but there was a very good chance that the quarter crack would bother the horse.
If the connections were going to run the horse, they had to downplay the injury. If they admitted that the quarter crack was bad and that it might bother him, then everyone would have said, "Why are you running the horse if he has a bad quarter crack?!"
So they really had to downplay it. Don't get me wrong, I think that Dutrow honestly believed that it wouldn't be a problem. I think that he thought that the horse was so much the best, that even if the quarter crack did bother the horse and he regressed by 5 lengths, that the horse would still win.
The problem is that you just don't know how much it will bother the horse. Another horse with a quarter crack that looks identical, may have only regressed by a few lengths. You just don't know for sure. It's not an exact science with these types of things.
I can tell you one thing though. Practically every trainer I talked to a few days before the race said that there was no way that they would run that horse if it was their horse.
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after reading yesterday about most QC's being in the left fore, and the explanation about left turns...well, big brown didn't have it on the turn. i wonder if he felt some stress to his hoof at that point. couldn't have felt great, that's for sure.
horse is smarter than his people.