Horse News: Horse ambulance 2

Find the story about the horse ambulance at

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/sports/othersports/26rescue.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Horse news: Horse ambulances

An intersting story from The New York Times News Service, about the horse ambulances used at most larger racetracks these days, like the one that was used to carry Barbado off the track after his injury in the Preakness.

It said the ambulances were developed by a pair of track veterinarians in the 1970s who were concerned that the ambulances at that time -- basically conventional horse trailers -- were inadequate to get horses safely off the track after a severe injury. So they went to a farm-equipment manufacturer with their idea and the company produced it for them, and tracks began buying them.

Regarding my post yesterday on the need for racing to do more to protect horses, this is evidence that those involved with racing have not been just sitting on their hands. They have, in fact, been working on different things to make racing safer for horses.

Even so, there were these sad figures in The New York Times story

"According to studies conducted by New York Racing Association, 7.3 out of every 1,000 horses who race sustain some significant injury, and 1.1 out of every 1,000 starters incur a fatal injury. The statistics are fairly universal. They include the career-ending, and potentially fatal, injury sustained by Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner, during the Preakness at Pimlico last Saturday."

Happy Horse news

This is from the Salt Lake City Tribune:


Seniors light up during a visit from Hoofbeats to Healing star Buddy

By Tabatha Deans
Close-Up Staff
Salt Lake Tribune

Paul Bruner, 95, has a long and loving history with horses. It started when he was 16 years old and rode a horse to deliver the local newspaper in Wichita Falls, Texas. He never got around to giving the horse a name, but his fondness for his equine friend has stayed with him. The last time Bruner rode a horse, though, Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House, according to Christina Curtis, administrator of Willow Wood Care Center in Holladay, where Bruner now lives.
   Bruner still wears a white cowboy hat and says he looks like John Wayne, only taller.
   When a pony trotted into Willow Wood on a recent afternoon, Bruner's face lit up. The miniature horse named Buddy seemed to take him back to another time. Bruner wasted no time petting the animal and taking him by the lead rope.
   Buddy, 7, also is house-broken and wears booties when he comes inside. He is part of an outreach program called Hoofbeats to Healing based in Palmyra in Utah County.
   The little horse is trained to interact with people and spends his days visiting residents of care centers and people with disabilities. Tamera Tanner, founder of Hoofbeats to Healing, said she has found healing happens wherever her horses visit.
     While Bruner was short on words, the connection between Buddy and Bruner was immediate. Within minutes, Bruner had Buddy's lead rope and was giving him a tour of the center from his wheelchair.
   Buddy followed like a dutiful dog and even nudged Bruner's wheelchair to keep him moving along.
   The two toured the halls, visited with other residents and sought out the resident cat, Precious.
      Hoofbeats to Healing is a nonprofit therapeutic horseback-riding organization that promotes physical and emotional healing for individuals with disabilities.
   The group was organized more than eight years ago and now consists of 28 horses and clients who visit from all around the world for therapy sessions with the horses.
   
    For more information about Hoofbeats to Healing, visit www.hoofbeatstohealing.com.


I haven't spent a lot of time around minis, although several of my friends have them. I've always been of the mind that if you can't ride a horse, what's the point in having it (with the exception, of course, of my old mares, who used to be ridden before they started having babies. Now they're pretty much done with both, so they just get to be in the pasture)

But the efforts related here about hoofbeats to healing are wonderful. I had heard of dogs going into nursing homes to brighten the lives of those living there before, but never horses. As much as I love dogs -- and I imagine most seniors are pleaased to see them -- I expect seeing a tiny horse clomping down the hallways of the home is really special for most residents.

It is truly amazing the different ways that horses can still be a benefit to people. Kudos to hoofbeats to healing for their efforts.
   

Happy Horse news

This is from the Salt Lake City Tribune:


Seniors light up during a visit from Hoofbeats to Healing star Buddy

By Tabatha Deans
Close-Up Staff
Salt Lake Tribune

Paul Bruner, 95, has a long and loving history with horses. It started when he was 16 years old and rode a horse to deliver the local newspaper in Wichita Falls, Texas. He never got around to giving the horse a name, but his fondness for his equine friend has stayed with him. The last time Bruner rode a horse, though, Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House, according to Christina Curtis, administrator of Willow Wood Care Center in Holladay, where Bruner now lives.
   Bruner still wears a white cowboy hat and says he looks like John Wayne, only taller.
   When a pony trotted into Willow Wood on a recent afternoon, Bruner's face lit up. The miniature horse named Buddy seemed to take him back to another time. Bruner wasted no time petting the animal and taking him by the lead rope.
   Buddy, 7, also is house-broken and wears booties when he comes inside. He is part of an outreach program called Hoofbeats to Healing based in Palmyra in Utah County.
   The little horse is trained to interact with people and spends his days visiting residents of care centers and people with disabilities. Tamera Tanner, founder of Hoofbeats to Healing, said she has found healing happens wherever her horses visit.
     While Bruner was short on words, the connection between Buddy and Bruner was immediate. Within minutes, Bruner had Buddy's lead rope and was giving him a tour of the center from his wheelchair.
   Buddy followed like a dutiful dog and even nudged Bruner's wheelchair to keep him moving along.
   The two toured the halls, visited with other residents and sought out the resident cat, Precious.
      Hoofbeats to Healing is a nonprofit therapeutic horseback-riding organization that promotes physical and emotional healing for individuals with disabilities.
   The group was organized more than eight years ago and now consists of 28 horses and clients who visit from all around the world for therapy sessions with the horses.
   
    For more information about Hoofbeats to Healing, visit www.hoofbeatstohealing.com.


I haven't spent a lot of time around minis, although several of my friends have them. I've always been of the mind that if you can't ride a horse, what's the point in having it (with the exception, of course, of my old mares, who used to be ridden before they started having babies. Now they're pretty much done with both, so they just get to be in the pasture)

But the efforts related here about hoofbeats to healing are wonderful. I had heard of dogs going into nursing homes to brighten the lives of those living there before, but never horses. As much as I love dogs -- and I imagine most seniors are pleaased to see them -- I expect seeing a tiny horse clomping down the hallways of the home is really special for most residents.

It is truly amazing the different ways that horses can still be a benefit to people. Kudos to hoofbeats to healing for their efforts.
   

Horse news: Barbaro

According to all the news I've seen, Barbaro seems to be doing fine. He's recovering rapidly and eating heartily and seems to be on the road to recovery.

The same cannot be said for horse racing in general.

There have been a number of news stories questioning whether racing needs to change its ways. One I saw today talked about the need for better track surfaces. I don't know if that would help, although until the Kentucky Derby, I think all but one of Barbaro's races was on turf, not grass.

Another piece, by John Pricci at NBCSports.com, said the Triple Crown should extend the time between races, so that all three races take place in a span of nine weeks instead of the current five.

That may help. Barbaro's trainer's had rested him as much as 8 weeks between races prior to the Preakness, so the fact that he ran hard on only two weeks rest may have been a factor in his injuries.

Not surprisingly, a letter in USA today took the whole horse-racing industry to task for the injuries, noting that serious injuries are a fact of life for race horses. The difference is, for claimers and other horses less valuable than Barbaro, such an injury means euthanasia or, if they do recover enough to walk, a trip to the sales yard.

I have some sympathy with that position.

I love horse racing and have attended races at a number of different tracks. My wife, daughter and I even made it to the Kentucky Derby in 2000. It's wonderful spectacle. And there is no sport quite as pure as animals running for the sheer joy of it.

But I have several friends -- two farriers and a former jockey and a one-time trainer -- who have spent a lot more time at tracks than I have. And they confirm what the letter writer said: While horses at the top of the racing heap are treated like royalty, those at smaller tracks or with only modest futures are routinely drugged, raced with injuries, pushed too hard, started too young and, if they're lucky, retired to become saddle horses by the time they're four.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I certainly wouldn't advocate banning racing, as some people do. But I would like to see the horses started later. If they ran their first short races as three-year olds, and big races like the Triple Crown were for four-year-olds or older, I think would help a lot.

And, there should be better veterinary control. But, especially at the smaller tracks, it's hard to pay enough to get good vets on duty and routine drug inspections.

Horse racing has been around since the second cave man jumped on the back of a wild horse, and bet that he could beat the first guy on a horse. It will be around for a long time to come. But it will lose fans -- not gain them as it has been trying desperately to do -- unless it finds a way to make it easier on the equine athletes that are the stars.

Deleterious DSL

I haven't been able to post the past couple days because our DSL was out.

Wouldn't you know it? Just two days after I launched my blog it goes out.

We've only had it about four months. One of the main reasons we got it was so that I could begin blogging.

It took an hour on the phone with two people, one from our Internet provider and one from Qwest communications, with me repeatedly explaining that yes, I had checked all of the connections and plug ins and it still didn't work.

But Qwest got someone out in our neighborhood today, as they promised, and he fixed something in the DSL link at the end of the street.

Getting ready for Moonrock

Today's trip to the farrier was in preparation for our trip next week to Worland, Wyoming, and the Moonrock 3-day event.

Even though we're both well beyond our primes, Bud, my big gray appendix QH, and I are beginner novices in the eventing world. We've done a handful of events over five years, but I never seem to have the time to work consistently to put together several in a summer and move up to the next class.

This year is no exception. I feel woefully unprepared. Bud is a fearless jumper and incredibly athletic, and he loves the cross country. Holding him back is the only difficulty, but after the first jump or two, he settles in nicely. So I'm not worried about that. And we have been working regularly on stadium jumping.

Dressage will be a disaster. Oh well, what do you expect from a one-time bareback bronc rider?

The great thing about Moonrock is there are a bunch of cowboys who have traded in their roping saddles skinny little jumping saddles. It's a fun event and the people are exceptionally friendly.

We're looking forward to it, even if we're not fully prepared. Nine days and counting.

More on Barbaro

Took my big guy to the farrier today. Since he spent the first part of his career as a racetrack farrier, he had a pretty good idea of what happened with Barbaro.

First, as I had thought, he said laminitis is a very general term that people use to cover a variety of hoof problems. It's not likely to be fatal "but he might die from all the drugs they're giving him," the farrier said.

He suspects Barbaro either got bumped or stepped on by another horse, or simply stumbled and slammed most of his weight onto his left hind leg, with the fetlock going all the way to the ground, shattering bones in the process.

If Barbaro had been anything but a top-level breeding prospect, he would have been euthanized on the track and hauled away, the farrier said, because the surgery performed on him and the recovery efforts are so costly.

Luckily, Barbaro is a great breeding prospect. Also, his owners have said they would do all they could to keep him alive, regardless of his breeding ability, because they're so attached to the horse.

Hope he gets well soon.

Update

This is from an Associated Press story Monday evening about Barbaro: It said the primary concerns in the wake of the surgery are infection and
"laminitis, a potentially fatal disease sometimes brought on by uneven weight balance."

Is there any horse that hasn't had some laminitis at one point in his or her life? And is it potentially fatal, other than if the horse has to be euthanized because it has become to crippled from severe laminitis to get around comfortably?

I have a visit with the farrier scheduled for tomorrow. I'll ask his opinion.

Barbaro

No way I expected that my first post would be about an injured racehorse. If anything, I thought I might be writing about Barbaro's quest for the Triple Crown. But the events at the Preakness last Saturday changed that.

I can't add anything to the abundant news stories about Barbaro's injuries and his five-hour surgery. My own veterinarian is very good, and has performed some amazing surgery of his own, but nothing like this.

Two question for which I'm trying to find answers:

1. Did Barbaro's injuries stem from his first, premature break from the starting gate, or were they entirely due to his efforts on the second start with the rest of the field? I know a vet checked him after the first start, and declared him injury free. But it seems too much of a coincidence for the two events to be unrelated.

2. What does this surgery cost? Could anyone with a moderately valuable working horse -- jumper, reiner, roper, etc. -- afford it if they had a reasonable insurance policy on their horse?

More later.

Silver Spike