Curlin And BB Post Script

For posterity, Curlin's 10/13/08 work at Santa Anita. I enjoyed watching the rider techniques in terms of controlling the horse and getting lead changes particularly initially. Push button horse that gallops easily and strongly. Anyone besides me raise an eyebrow at all of a 3f galloping warmup strictly on the left lead. Unknown how long they trotted before the gallop. Can they get away with this weak a warm up?. Somewhere on this blog it says "no". But, we get the "impression" of an iron horse working, below.


(edit--after this post I saw a different set of BB photos which do show a severe heel bulb lacertation. I was mistaken and fooled by the initial photos I looked at in calling the injury innocous.)I am reasonably certain that Big Brown's retirement--after looking at the Barbara Livingston photos--had little to do with the fairly innocuous heel bulb injury that would have completely dried out in 2-3 days and probably everything with the fact that the horse had his entire hoof wall reconstructed from the quarters all the way around to the back of the heel which during the breeze obviously failed to hold. Though they might have reconstructed it in an hour and put the horse back on the track tomorrow, the fear probably was that the extent of wall damage is so great that it might fail to hold creating a possible wreck in the Breeder's Cup. Looking at the extent of damage, retirement probably was the correct decision.

Ian McKinney killed that hoof wall with equilox, or whatever composite he uses. You simply avoid keeping that much wall covered with composite that long. The composite robs the wall of needed moisture essentially killing the horn, and, in this case obviously preventing growth at the coronary band. That is what appears to have happened to BB.

Training:
Mon. 10/13: Raining. We had wanted to finish the sequence with another nice gallop or riderless fast work. We got neither. Too wet to gallop, and the paddock track was so slippery the best the horses could do was about :15s. However, they were into it, and galloped riderless intermittent for about 15 min. Tough workout with plenty of steam coming off them at the end. 1 inch rain coming next 2 days. Weather havoc continues.