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I paraphrase the line from the 1992 USA Presidential Election Campaign when George Bush wrongly thought foreign policy, not the economy, was key to winning the Election.
Here in racing in 2023 I’d say there is another catastrophic misapprehension at work.
You can water all you like, but none of it matters when the commercial breeding industry is on a precocity/speed-obsessed inbreeding road to Hell.
Coroebus, Canute, San Antonio – all Flat horses on watered ground breaking down fatally.
Not because of the surface but because of the increasing fragility of the breed caused by inbreeding.
I don’t remember this happening so often on Firm ground back in the day.
It may be too late to reverse it as well because the answer is Firm ground horses with legs like iron going to stud to breed.
Are there even any left?
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Agree ID. These issues of inbreeding, artificially altered ground and the weakening of the breed are the most important issues facing racing. Far more so than the whip. But no one in racing seems to care. Jim Bolger even appears to boast about how closely some of his horses are inbred.
It is a certainty that the animal rights crowd will be putting San Antonio’s injury all over social media.
Totally agree with all that Ian. Poor San Antonio, and yet another sickening incident on the Flat.
I think the obsession with speed and precocity in racing is reflective of wider societal change where everything must be instant. Speed is clearly valued far more highly in racing than stamina or durability nowadays. Too many people are willing to take the risks of inbreeding due to the high rewards that can be achieved when it’s got away with.
I don’t know what the answer to all this is, but it will require some wise intervention from the leadership of the sport as market forces will continue to make things worse. And this is a global problem which complicates matters further.
It is very hard to get the images of San Antonio today out of my mind. I don’t like being pessimistic, but feel quite gloomy about the future direction of racing with welfare concerns rising while the breed becomes ever more fragile.
This is only going to get worse and I was only talking about Bolger – as excellently alluded to by CAS – to a friend a few minutes ago.
And there is no way the breeding industry is going to self regulate because what’s needed will mean a loss of revenue in the short term.
And what is needed?
Sadly, something that won’t happen, namely the outlawing of registering any racehorse to race that is inbred closer than, say, the fourth remove.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“And what is needed?
Sadly, something that won’t happen, namely the outlawing of registering any racehorse to race that is inbred closer than, say, the fourth remove.”
Potentially also- capping the number of mares each stallion can cover each year.
Barring horses who retire as unsound 2 year olds from standing as stallions would also be an obvious first step.
Inbreeding is clearly the major factor but training methods may also be significant. Coolmore is a huge operation and no surprise that they lose a lot of horses. The ratio of high profile horses lost in top races seems excessive though. Not so many lost in training (until they are being prepared for big races abroad). State of the art facilities doubtless produce horses ready to run to their full potential but probably don’t build bone or soft tissue in the same way as traditional methods.
I don’t know how bad things have to get before there is proper research and action. This is what threatens racing, not whip use.
According to Trainer magazine:
It wasn’t just the backing of Galileo that marked Bolger’s outside-the-box thinking. See Mac Swiney’s pedigree for evidence of a lateral approach – the first Group 1 winner inbred to Galileo, in this instance, 2×3. It just isn’t the done thing but that wouldn’t ever put the man off.
Last year he sold a Teofilo filly at Goffs who was 2×2 to Galileo and 3×3 to Danehill. To the non-pedigree gurus, that means Galileo is both her paternal and maternal grandsire, while both her grand dams by Danehill. It isn’t that the rule book wasn’t read, it’s just that the bits that didn’t add up to him have been ignored. And the results keep coming.
2×2 GALILEO is so harmful to the breed.
Several universities have carried out a peer-reviewer study into inbreeding.
The study also identified a single genetic marker, near a gene known in other species to be associated with bone development and repair, which has a significantly negative effect on racing. One per cent of the horses analysed were ‘double copy’ for the marker and, critically, one in three of that cohort of homozygous horses were unraced.
I don’t know much about (in-)breeding and Dubawi’s progeny. But he was an Irish 2,000 Guineas and a Prix Jacques le Marois winner when beating a 7f horse in the latter. His 8 length 3rd in the Derby shouldn’t make him a stallion of 12f prospects.
By the way, his highest rated horse was Ghaiyyath who ran his best races at 10f, with the exception of his win at Baden-Baden on very soft ground.This is where we are with humans.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sperm-bank-donor-dad-banned-b2329387.html
“It is very hard to get the images of San Antonio today out of my mind”
Just watch the race replay on RTV. It’s like it never happened.
Looking at poor San Antonio’s pedigree today reminds me of some material that I read some while back now in relation to US TB breeding. Eventually I remembered the name of the poor unfortunate horse who suffered a similar high profile catastrophic accident – Eight Belles … The basic message of what I was reading was Do Not have three lines of Raise a Native, typically via Mr Prospector, running on the top and bottom of the pedigree. It’s a recipe for fragility. The recent trend to using Dubawi with Galileo mares, and his sons, fuelled by ‘nick’ statistics (another topic, but … ) will often result in offspring that are bred on exactly this pattern. That’s because, aside from Galileo’s pedigree, so many of those mares actually carry another line of Mr Prospector on the dam’s side.
That Galileo was an influence for soundness as well as middle distance excellence was seen as a positive (still is given the prevalence of his prodigy in NH ranks). Long term maybe would have been better that the issue was brought to the fore earlier.
Even moderately close inbreeding is rare in Germany – they have a system, established in the 1990’s, whereby to be an ‘approved’ stallion and to qualify for the stock receiving generous premiums, the stallion must have reached a certain level of performance and undergone physical examination and be deemed ‘correct’.
Unfashionably(sadly so)but predictably,the racing arena is top heavy with old fashioned, slow maturing middle distance horses. A system born too late.
“Just watch the race replay on RTV. It’s like it never happened.”
Gladiateur, apologies as I’m not sure if you are making a joke or if there is an underlying point to your comment! Do you think they should keep the images of the stricken horse in the race replay?
It’s a tricky one as I think anyone who follows racing needs to be aware of the harsh realities of racing injuries, but it is of course a terrible thing to see. Removing the footage will of course do nothing to stop it being in plentiful supply on social media.
Speaking from ignorance as I didn’t see RTV and don’t know what Gladiateur is referring to.
Nobody wants to see footage of fatal injuries replayed on mainstream racing media (though as Marlingford rightfully says, it will be readily available elsewhere). Nobody wants fatalities to be ignored either. Guessing RTV didn’t bother mentioning what was a very obvious fatal injury during a classic race, even though everyone (even Ryan Moore) referenced it as affecting the race.
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