Quote Originally Posted by lizbud View Post
Thanks Richard, this does help explain this injury.

I tend to believe it's genetics & inbreeding that causes many flaws in
bone structure & breeding for speed. I just wish they hadn't pushed her
so hard down the last 1/4 mile ,just to place 2nd and die.
The breaks were also displaced fractures.

DF means that the bones were not "in line" after the injury.

Breaking bones is a real trip- I don't know enough about horse skeletal anatomy but those were bad injuries to an animal that depends on their legs for everyday movement...Even the on-call vet said that he had never seen a horse get injured that badly before.

There are pins, plates and screws that are used to put bones back together well enough for humans, but if the owner had tried a "Barbaro" approach to keeping the horse alive - it would have had the same result. And if there had been a way to save the poor thing you were looking at repeated surgeries, therapy and a 50/50 shance that it would ever stand, let alone run again.

At the least this will make the equine community wake up to the fact that they are sabotaging their own "sport". The last thing they need is horses breaking down at every major event.

Would Barbaro and Eight Belle's deaths be in vain if it caused the horse racing community to wake up and "smell the roses?"

I believe that tragedies will always be remembered as such - if we don't learn a lesson from them- if we can keep other horses alive it's a start in a right direction.