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The stallion soundness dilemma rears its head again. Pour Moi was an excellent racehorse but wasn’t sound enough to stand training beyond his Epsom win. Should he be a commercial stallion?
Now should Wings Of Eagles (sired by Pour Moi and proven unsound himself) be allowed to enter the gene pool?
I suppose we shall see given that Pour Moi is marketed as a NH sire and WoE probably be likewise…if their progeny start falling to bits landing over hurdles and fences then we’ll know, but I suppose it would take a few years and a fair few broken horses.
A real shame, who knows how he would have got on yesterday without that injury or indeed how he what more he would have gone on to achieve.
For those of you calling this a ‘mediocre bunch’ – The Derby form has not received one knock, in fact it’s received boost after boost. The 10th & 14th finish 1st & 2nd in the Edward VII, the 5th defeats French Classic form to win the Hampton Court and the 1st, 3rd, 6th from Epsom finish in front of the “French Derby” runner-up.
We won’t know how good they are until he big test which will be when they start taking on the older horses, which starts at Sandown next week where Cliffs Of Moher & Barney Roy are 1st & 2nd in the betting.
Am I being a bit cynical by thinking his injury seems a bit timely? By not backing his Epsom win up yesterday it sort of proved (if it needed proving) he’s not necessarily the best of his generation. Any further defeats would have driven his stud fee right down. As it is he’s retired with a Derby win and place in the bag.
Cynical or…..
Aidan showing the X-ray to everybody on course, as shown on ATR, Boycie said even he could see the damage.
But I guess he could be showing an X-ray of a different horse, to keep the conspiracy going
I really think it’s in the interest of the sport and the industry to exclude horses like Pour Moi and Wings Of Eagles from stud duties. If soundness was the most desirable asset, I think we’d have a much more solid and sustainable thoroughbred breed.
The breeding population would be changed and less talented performers would get a chance, but I’d rather see the thoroughbred racehorse survive for hundreds of years at the expense of a little speed. Fewer racecourse breakdowns would be good for PR and it would help thousands of struggling trainers if they could depend on their precious (not to mention expensive) sales purchases to actually stand up to training and have good moneyspinning careers on the track.
Am I being a bit cynical by thinking his injury seems a bit timely? By not backing his Epsom win up yesterday it sort of proved (if it needed proving) he’s not necessarily the best of his generation. Any further defeats would have driven his stud fee right down. As it is he’s retired with a Derby win and place in the bag.
Cynical or…..
Nah, that’s nonsense imo. Admitting that the horse has been crocked is much more damaging to the initial stud fee than merely being a run-of-the-mill beatable Derby winner. Besides, breeders aren’t stupid. I don’t think anyone in the industry has ever regarded Wings Of Eagles as special. He could have scrambled home yesterday and even won a bad King George and, understandably, nobody would be bowled over. I think this is just a mad conspiracy.
Was just a theory anyway. Just heard the news break in work so was unaware of any x-rays.
I just use the sportinglife website for replays. You have to register but it doesn’t cost anything. You can do the Pick 7 with the same login details.
Thanks greenasgrass
They won’t let me register as they said I have an account that was closed and I have to contact Customer Services so waiting on an email. JacThings turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...Have you got an account with bet365 Jac…?
They have a replay serviceBlackbeard to conquer the World
Am I being a bit cynical by thinking his injury seems a bit timely? By not backing his Epsom win up yesterday it sort of proved (if it needed proving) he’s not necessarily the best of his generation. Any further defeats would have driven his stud fee right down. As it is he’s retired with a Derby win and place in the bag.
Cynical or…..
I must admit that was my initial gut reaction
think he will have a very low stud fee anyway, maybe 2k or something, for a derby winner. a nice horse but with his overall race record he will surely be remembered as one of the worse derby winners.
I just use the sportinglife website for replays. You have to register but it doesn’t cost anything. You can do the Pick 7 with the same login details.
Thanks greenasgrass
They won’t let me register as they said I have an account that was closed and I have to contact Customer Services so waiting on an email. JacJac, all the Irish Racing has free to air replays on the ATR site. You don’t need to register, just pull the race result up on the website and there are yellow buttons on the right hand side of the page to view either the full race, or just the closing stages.
http://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Curragh/1-July-2017/1720
Enjoy
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
I really think it’s in the interest of the sport and the industry to exclude horses like Pour Moi and Wings Of Eagles from stud duties. If soundness was the most desirable asset, I think we’d have a much more solid and sustainable thoroughbred breed.
The breeding population would be changed and less talented performers would get a chance, but I’d rather see the thoroughbred racehorse survive for hundreds of years at the expense of a little speed. Fewer racecourse breakdowns would be good for PR and it would help thousands of struggling trainers if they could depend on their precious (not to mention expensive) sales purchases to actually stand up to training and have good moneyspinning careers on the track.
I could not agree more. Natural selection. Any horse that cannot stand training and racing on the well kept surfaces of major training establishments and tracks is a massive doubt. Somehow also gone now as well (cannon bone). Too much inbreeding? Where is Titus Oates!
A bit hasty to assume WOE was genetically unsound: fracture could have been caused by the terrain.
A bit hasty to assume WOE was genetically unsound: fracture could have been caused by the terrain.
It’s the percentage call to assume he has physical flaws. His sire only managed 5 starts after all.
There are handicappers up north who get to over 100 career starts on all sorts of wonky surfaces.
Have been out all day Louise, and got in to read these headlines and this thread’s change in direction … A shocking day for soundness issues, which shows where we are with the modern TB. Personally, I’m with Lost Soldier over this one. I don’t think unsoundness and fragility should be being perpetuated in the gene pool, and current in-breeding practices only increase the likelihood of reinforcing such qualities. But, we all know such restrictions will never happen – the advances in veterinary science now enable many fractures to be repaired, and too much money is at stake when we are talking about potential stallions being ‘saved for stud’. What I would like to see introduced is a halfway house – a soundness register for all TB breeding stock, which doesn’t preclude breeding from unsound stock but which makes information clearly available. So, if Stallion A was retired from racing following a fracture that would be clearly flagged as such, and reproduced in all pedigrees containing that stallion; likewise if Stallion B’s racing career was curtailed by, say, a tendon injury, that too would be flagged as such. I’d like to see a similar system in place for all broodmares. In that way breeders would actually have this important information to hand to inform decision making, rather than having to rely on memory, whispers and Wikipedia (!). If this system was in place, Wings of Eagles would be recorded as a sesamoid fracture; Pour Moi would be a severe over reach, which can happen to any horse (eventers, dressage horses, show jumpers as well as racehorses).
What worries me particularly about WoE is that he is almost certain to start off on the Coolmore NH roster, or at minimum as ‘dual purpose’. He’s a Montjeu, and – somewhat unfairly to my eyes – he’s been widely seen as a poor Derby winner, who merited attention more for being the ‘wrong winner’ ridden by the ‘wrong jockey’. That’s hardly going to result in a great long queue, unless they pitch him straight in at €5000. As concerning, though, is how all this will intersect with the NH broodmare herd in Ireland (see the NH breeding thread). Royal Ascot showed just how desperate Coolmore are for Caravaggio to give them the Scat Daddy ‘outcross’ for all those Galileo/Danehill mares (effectively an extra ‘half-line’) but if WoE heads in the direction we think he will then it is seemingly ok for unsound versions of even more of the same to be bred in large numbers to more of the same … For those of us who love NH racing, these are worrying times in NH breeding.
Pour Moi was retired due to a severe over-reach during exercise which damaged his near-fore fetlock. An over-reach is a timing problem between the movement of the hind limbs and the front limbs of a horse, where the hind feet strike the back of the front feet or legs. That wasn’t a soundness issue, it was an unfortunate accident. And if there was no indication that Pour Moi was unsound, why should we leap to the conclusion that Wings of Eagles was unsound? If a son of Galileo had suffered this injury, would this discussion be taking place?
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