http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/more/01/29/barbaro.ap/index.html?cnn=yes
“This horse was a hero” ?
Oh, well, that’s a shame. I was hoping he’d heal up and at least go to stud or something. At least he’s not in pain anymore.
Laminitis is really painful for horses. Poor Barbaro. What a shame.
Rest in Paste-glue?
Oh, too bad…I was just listening to a story about him on NPR this morning, and they seemed so hopeful despite all the setbacks…talking about what a surprisingly good patient he was. I just hope they weren’t trying to collect…ummmm…the substance that would earn them lots of money from him…while he was recuperating.
Wouldn’t do any good to collect semen before euthanizing him. Thoroughbreds have to be registered with the Jockey Club to race, and the Jockey Club requires live cover. Horses sired by artificial insemination can’t be registered. Therefore no get of Barbaro via AI could race, therefore no megabuck stud fees, therefore no incentive to collect any. If AI were permissible they’d already have gotten lots and frozen it for future use.
Well, there is one way his semen could be used, in order to breed sport horses – eventers or field hunters or show hunters – but there isn’t nearly the same kind of money in that.
Why aren’t AI horses allowed to race?
Ouch, poor horse. I just heard on Keith Olbermann.
Really? I don’t know anything about horses. But it surprises me that racing-horse spooge would be used to breed horses meant to be doing nasty stuff to their feet and ankles, like jumping and running over fields and through woods. I would have thought that the super-delicate feet would be saved just for racing horses.
Barbaro (and other Thoroughbreds) don’t necessarily have super-delicate feet. What happened to Barbaro in the Preakness was more of a freak accident – one bad step, at such tremendous acceleration, inflicting more force than any equine bone was made to bear. Any horse – Quarter Horse, Haflinger, Morgan, Shetland, Clydesdale, whatever – is at extreme risk of laminitis during recovery from a broken leg. It’s in fact why most equines who break a leg are put down right away: The odds of recovery are so slim, no matter how intensive the care – as witness Barbaro.
Thoroughbreds can in fact be quite tough. There are a lot of them competing in eventing or being used as hunters and jumpers, precisely because they’re fast and game and tremendous athletes and have that competitive spirit. Usually they’re racetrack retirees, since racing is what most TBs are bred for, but not always. My own TB gelding was bred specifically to be a sport horse and was never even considered for race training, although his ancestors include some stellar racehorses. Before I got him he’d evented, done jumper classes, and had a long, sound career as a field hunter. For me he’s done low-level dressage and trail riding. His breeders look at disposition, long-term soundness, and overall athleticism in the horses they use in their program, rather than speed alone.
So why not use sires like Barbaro for breeding sport horses? For one, if he’d lived his stud fee would have been in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, way more than would make sense to invest in getting a mere riding horse who could never pay back its stud fee in competition.
Why not use frozen semen postmortem? For one, as I mentioned before, any get could not be registered, meaning their get in turn couldn’t be registered, which substantially reduces their value as breeding animals since, no matter how blueblood their actual breeding, they’d be classified as grade horses – mongrels of the equine world. Another consideration, and what I daresay squelched any thought of attempting to collect semen, is that Barbaro would have had to mount what’s called a phantom mare for his semen to be collected, and he wasn’t physically able to.
It’s pretty sad that such accidents are still life ending for horses.
Color me confused, I thought it was Barbaro that was the gelding, so I couldn’t figure out the discussion about him going out to stud. Thanks to google, I am less ignorant. It was Funny Cide that was the gelding.
FTR, the amazing prices charged for prime stud fees really makes people want to be certain what they are getting, live cover is a way to do that. It also effectively limits the ability of the male to produce offspring. If invitro was allowed, they could saturate the market with their sperm. So also think of it as an investment protection plan that is worth the risk of potential injury during a live cover.
I worked at an arabian horse farm and they did sperm collection. It was a pretty dangerous day when you have a horse worth $1 mil dancing around trying to get his rocks off, and arabs are no where NEAR as high strung as thoroughbreds. I’ve also seen a thoroughbred bite the finger off someone trying to separate him from attacking another male horse (a shetland pony) in a wonderful bit of Darwinism in action, the person that lost her finger is the one who thought it would be cool to put the two of them together to “see what happened.” It didn’t take her out of the gene pool, but it cost her the finger you put your wedding ring on.
We’ve already had three threads merged into one about Barbaro. This thread would be perhaps the textbook example of beating a dead horse.
I was in a Radio Shack when it happened, and when they announced it on TV (seven of them, lined up for sale) everybody went “Awwwww!”
I’m a little late in seeing this thread. I’ve combined the other three into one giant (sorta) thread. I won’t merge this one, but I will close it and send you all packing to the Cafe Society thread.