Following last month’s article presenting statistics about the state of the modern American Thoroughbred, the final chapter of this two-part series looks into the science of how the breeding, handling, and resilience of the Thoroughbred affects the breed’s viability.
by Jonathan Horowitz

Original:Aug 30, 2024

Small margins made a huge difference for horse racing during a 40-minute window at Saratoga on Aug. 5, 2023.

Program Trading, the pacemaker in the Grade 1 Saratoga Derby, was passed by Webslinger in the homestretch but fought back to win by a head. “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” as Jim McKay used to introduce ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.” It’s what makes horse racing so gut-wrenching in the best way possible.

However, in the race before, a clear Maple Leaf Mel suffered a catastrophic injury just yards before the finish line of the Grade 1 Test Stakes. It’s what makes horse racing so gut-wrenching in the worst way possible.

The reason small margins make such a huge difference in horse racing – for good or bad – is because the nature of the Thoroughbred breed and the nature of the sport takes it to the extreme.

Baseball goes through it with pitchers pushing 100 miles per hour at the risk of the health of their throwing arms. Football goes through it with faster players that hit harder at the risk of body and brain injuries. The stakes are even higher in Thoroughbred horse racing.

“We live in a spectrum of abilities, and the Thoroughbred racehorse just happens to be closer to the breaking point than any other athlete that’s out there,” said Dr. Chris Kawcak, Professor of Orthopedics at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University, at the forefront of research for and funded by the horse racing industry. “It’s like a Formula 1 race car. It rides right at the end of its physical tolerance. That’s what makes it exciting.”

Kawcak keeps a photo of Go for Wand above his desk. The Eclipse Award champion and Hall of Famer that dominated Grade 1 after Grade 1 after Grade 1 but suffered a catastrophic injury in the 1990 Breeders’ Cup Distaff is a reminder of horse racing’s simultaneous potential and peril.

“In the wild, either they make it or they don’t,” Kawcak said. “Unlike human athletes and dogs and things like that, we’re dealing with an athlete that runs right up next to its safety ceiling, if you will. But, we’re dealing with a population of horses that have variable tolerance to withstanding that type of work in racing, and I think we’re now starting to identify which horses can go safely and which ones can’t.”

Welfare considerations should impact how far horses are pushed, especially as the pace and intensity of races continues to become more demanding, but there’s also the consideration, “Some of these horses, they’re pulling us to the extreme,” Kawcak said. “City of Troy is a good example. The horse just set the course record [in the Juddmonte International at York in England]. Aidan [O’Brien] is a great trainer; he’s just taking advantage of what’s already there. Some of these horses are absolute freaks as far as their talents and capabilities. That’s what they’re designed for.”

Does the modern Thoroughbred “design” hold up to the rigors of horse racing, and what does it say about the durability of the breed?

Last month’s Part 1 of “The Big Picture” on this topic was about how statistical trends call into question whether modern Thoroughbred racehorses hold up to the modern rigors of racing. Foal crops and genetic diversity are down. Racehorses run less than they used to. However, the rate of racing-related fatalities has decreased. And, mitigating factors like the desire to train into shape rather than race into shape and to choose to retire a horse sooner for soundness reasons or because of their breeding value or sporthorse potential mean that the statistics alone do not give the full picture to assess the viability of the Thoroughbred breed.

So, Part 2 now wades into the science and how breeding, handling, and resilience factor into the assessment of the modern American Thoroughbred. If statistics and science are not your first conversation choice, here are a few cute quotes to set the stage.

“Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” – Aaron Levenstein, economist

“Science is difficult and slow no matter who you are. The hours are long, and the glorious ‘aha’ days come only very infrequently.” – Bonnie Bassler, molecular biologist

It can be tempting to become too mesmerized by statistics, and scientific discovery can be tedious. The statistics shout that the modern Thoroughbred is weaker, but it’s been tougher to pinpoint where that weakness would most likely manifest itself scientifically.

“For years, we’ve been looking at bone density and bone strength as an indicator if the horse is getting stronger, if the horse is getting weaker, are there strong horses, or are there weak horses,” Kawcak said. “Looking at bone density in itself has never moved the needle. In the 30-plus years I’ve been doing this, bone density hasn’t changed. Everybody is blaming fractures on bone density changes getting weaker, and nobody has been able to prove that.”

Nevertheless, breeding decisions in pursuit of optimum racing ability may have side effects that should at least be studied and potentially acted upon in the best interests of the viability of the Thoroughbred breed. The Arabian breed is reconciling with this as breeders strive to produce show horses with more pronounced features. The same goes for warmblood breeds in pursuit of flashier movements.

Is the Thoroughbred of today different from the Thoroughbred of 50 years ago or 100 years ago? As a start, you can compare side-by-side pictures of a modern Thoroughbred with one from 50 years prior and one from 100 years prior. Some of what you might notice are thicker build, more downhill conformation, and longer cannon bones. The fact that certain modern Thoroughbreds are recognized as “old-fashioned” or “old-school,” like you’d see in the paintings of old hunt horses, is testament to an evolution that should be studied for its effect on soundness.

As an example, Buck Davidson compared his OTTB turned five-star eventer Sorocaima to the current standard of the Thoroughbred breed: “He’s sort of old-fashioned. He’s by Rock Hard Ten. He’s not crazy tall, but that sort of European horse you’d see at Cheltenham for the Gold Cup. He’s got big bones, and he’s not the little wiry speed horse. He looks like he’d excel on the turf, and honestly he should have been a Maryland Hunt Cup horse.”

There’s still range found in the Thoroughbreds, and Davidson’s belief is that Sorocaima’s type represents older desires for what the breed used to be.

Kawcak’s prolific colleague Dr. Wayne McIlwraith was one of the authors of the paper “The role of conformation in musculoskeletal problems in the racing Thoroughbred” published in the Equine Veterinary Journal.

“Long pasterns increased the odds of a fracture in the front limb,” was one of the conclusions. If we can quantify conformational changes in the Thoroughbred breed over time, we can apply some of the research about how conformation affects soundness. We’d be on solid ground with these conclusions deriving from the evolution of the Thoroughbred breed because of “the very strong relationship between pedigree and conformation,” citing the paper “Prevalence, heritability and significance of musculoskeletal conformational traits in Thoroughbred yearlings,” also published in the Equine Veterinary Journal.

Then, the next consideration after breeding is handling. Nature versus nurture.

“The Thoroughbred today is being asked to do a different job in a different circumstance than it was 50 years ago,” Kawcak said. “But, you always have to ask if it’s being optimized for its job today—not just in the case of speed but in safety, durability, and all those things.”

The handling of racehorses, particularly young ones, is an area where America differs from overseas and can do more to promote horse welfare. Horses raised in a pasture develop bone density, muscle mass, and stronger feet. They learn social skills and how to be naturally competitive. However, most American racing operations, reflecting the huge financial investment and value of Thoroughbred racehorses, opt for more controlled living situations.

At the International Forum for the Aftercare of Racehorses (IFAR) in Sapporo, Japan, on Aug. 27, The Jockey Club presented a video about how the retirement and rehabilitation efforts at the Center for Racehorse Retraining in Wyoming have brought out a natural resilience that exists in the Thoroughbred breed. They turn out horses into what they call the “out out” on the Wyoming prairies where the very much domesticated Thoroughbreds live like wild Mustangs.

“If a horse would come in with really any soundness issue – whether it was tendons, or feet, or backs – we would kick them out and then bring them back in for training, and that seemed to resolve a lot of our problems,” said CRR executive director Kate Anderson. “They’re out there running around barefoot on rocky terrain and living on prairie grass in the middle of Wyoming blizzards, and they’re doing great. So, we realized how adaptable even Thoroughbreds are and how little we actually, I think, know about keeping domestic horses. The Thoroughbred is resilient and misunderstood.”

It’s tempting to make grandiose conclusions like, “Shorter racing careers mean the Thoroughbred breed is weaker,” and then offer direct but unrealistic recommendations like, “Breed sounder horses.” The industry for breeding and racing Thoroughbreds is very much set in its ways, and any recommendation will face an uphill, maybe even impossible, battle. Instead, we can make a more concerted effort to define and understand the issues and implement realistic, viable changes in the best interest of the horses and the breed.