Am I crazy for feeling worse for the horse than the jockey?

NICKYTHEFISH · Oct 29, 2005

I just do. I get sickened when a horse takes a spill. If I were near the track I'd go to the horse and see if he was ok first. I have left the otb before after seeing it. It ruined it for me.

Wrigley · Oct 29, 2005

NICKYTHEFISH said:
I just do. I get sickened when a horse takes a spill. If I were near the track I'd go to the horse and see if he was ok first. I have left the otb before after seeing it. It ruined it for me.

Im sure the owners of the horse feel that way especially breeder cup horse
owners a BC horse that has to be destroyed cost them millions in breeding fees.

The horse that went down today was he put down ?

michael777 · Oct 29, 2005

NICKYTHEFISH · Oct 30, 2005

Thats too bad.

Sometimes though when the jockey is hanging on and hes flopping around I think its kind of funny. Saw one guy out at Hawthorne kind of flipped over the horse and was holding on to the thing by its neck he was in front of it and it kept going he fell off after a couple seconds and was ok.

vegasisstilldead · Oct 30, 2005

I was at the 1990 breeders cup at belmont when goforwand (sp?) broke down not 150 feet from where i was standing. Saddest thing i ever saw.Poor girl tried to get up and finish the race with half her leg missing.I can still hear the woman (i think she was the owner) screaming and see the devastation on her face in my head.Left right after that race.There were 2 other deaths that day as well if i remember correctly. Stayed away from racing for 2 years after that...:sad3:

quantumleap · Oct 30, 2005

vegasisstilldead said:
I was at belmont when goforwand (sp?) broke down not 150 feet from where i was standing. Saddest thing i ever saw.Poor girl tried to get up and finish the race with half her leg missing.I can still hear the woman (i think she was the owner) screaming and see the devastation on her face in my head.Stayed away from racing for 2 years after that...:sad3:

That reminds me of when I was a kid I was watching horse racing and saw a horse break both of its legs. Sure enough the horse tried to finish the race on the stubs with the lower part of the legs flopping around. I thought about that horse for weeks after that.

One of the saddest things I ever saw in sports.

Iceman · Oct 30, 2005

been going to the track for years and I almost feel dumb asking this question. But why do they have to put the horse down. I know it can't race anymore. I always heard it had something to do with a horse can't heal a broken leg?

Highdaddy · Oct 30, 2005

horse do everything standing up i believe, even sleep, so it cant support itself i think

Wrigley · Oct 30, 2005

ice man said:
been going to the track for years and I almost feel dumb asking this question. But why do they have to put the horse down. I know it can't race anymore. I always heard it had something to do with a horse can't heal a broken leg?

I found this

The most striking difference between horses and other species is the blood supply. To heal any broken bone there must be a vibrant, healthy blood supply. Sometimes the blood supply to the bone is augmented by surrounding muscles and other soft tissue.

The lower leg of the horse has no muscle to provide any extra blood supply and often in these high-velocity racing injuries the bones are so severely damaged that the bones' blood supply is also destroyed.

A damaged blood supply means the injury cannot heal even if there is surgery to repair the bone. In human surgery this leads to limb amputation. Because horses need to stand evenly on all four legs, amputation is not a realistic or viable option.