Wow, the losers in this article sound like they love horses. *note sarcasm* I’m tempted to send a head or two around? Who does he think he is. He is like they don’t realize how well we care for our horses and then he threatens to shoot them all….moron! The THIRD jumper to die?

That being said, a general injury to the leg occasionally can be set for a while depending on the severity. It also unfortunately depends on what the owner can do. Just look at Barbaro vrs. another typical injury. Very few owners would have done that but because Barbaro could make a lot of money as a stud after winning the Derby, he was attempted to be helped up until he really couldn’t do it anymore. Some horses with minor breaks can live but not be ridden again.

some broken legs can be fixed. but a lot depends on the horse it’s self. we bred a colt that fell while training on the flat. it was mended and he has continued to race.
the vet involved said if it had not have been for his temperament he would have advised against attempting.
very bad breaks will not mend. alot shatter to bits.

The big difference between a horse that has a broken leg and most other animals, is that horse can no lay down for a great period of time since its weight can crush is internal organs…

Most owners can no afford to hang their horse in a sling for months and allow the leg to heal…

Also, most horses that have a broken leg are no longer sound or comfortable after the break…

Its much simiplar to put them down.

Broken legs can be repaired. It’s not repairing the bone that’s the problem. It’s keeping the horse off the broken limb and the limb immobilized to facilitate the healing process without the horse deloping lamanitis or other issue in the other three legs. The cost of the surgery and equipment needed for the recovery is why most people who do not have several hundred thousand dollars rolling around in the bank opt to have the horse put down.

from what others say here, its not “technology” but nature thats fighting recovery

I my self don’t think this is right. But they say that they can’t race again but why can’t someone have the horse for personal use. I think that its a matter of money Baby and Time if you have the money and the time why not! That’s sad to me. Your right no they don’t shoot athletes they fix them at all costs

well for one thing…founder and acute laminitis are what often strike horses who HAVE HAD surgury.
that is how they meet their final demise and it is after spenfding thousands of dollars and days of pain.
secondly, lets say the horse “recovers” fully, most people do not want to ride a hrose with only 3 good legs. would you be willing to pay for such a horses upkeep for the rest of its life?
just some food for thought…
ps. i have taken several horses with chips and slap fractures.
the one i currently have had multiple chips removed from his knee last year. i will keep him forever…but i am sure he will have serious arthritic problems as he ages.
the surgury and recovery were tremendously expensive and time consuming. i am lucky that his racing owner paid for his surgury and 3 months recovery before i took him. he was blessed with a good trainer and wonderful owners.

It takes months and months for a leg to heal.
There is no ‘miracle grow’ that makes a bone heal any faster. To heal it must be properly rested, and horses often just can’t cope with the ammount of box rest being kept completely stock still to fix a broken leg.
Those who do some how manage to endure months of box rest then often get so razzed up when they’re finally given time to be in the field that they injure themselves all over again.

Horses are just too heavy for a quick healing process or a process that involves some movement, because so much weight is distributed onto each leg.

Personally, I think it’s cruel to let a horse suffer because some one is selfish enough not to know when too much is too much - it’s not fair on the horse.

it’s possible, but 9 times out of 10 the animal will be in long term pain, or crippled for life.

that’s after 9-10 months, at least, of box rest.

a humn athlete knows to stay rested, you can’t explain that to a horse, so the only way to stop a horse completely destryoying the leg is to keep it confined while it’s healing.

this then leads to severe mental issues. horses are not ment to be confined for long periods, they are herd animals, and they are nomadic, they need to be out and with company.

and box rest is very traumatic for both the horse and the owner, and even if they recover physically, alot of horses never get over it mentally.

in general it’s unfair to the horse to actually keep it alive after a bad break.

and after a break a horse will never race again. never jump, probably never be ridden, or indeed be sound or pain free. so it’d be an insurance write off.

there are stories off course, and they are usually hailed as miricles, of horses who do go back into full work after a bad leg injury. but in all my years working in dressage and jumping and racing, i have never seen it. i’ve only ever even heard of it happening once.

so while it’s easy to see this in a perfect world senario, and the horse must always come first.

in the end, for most owners, if comes down to a swift and painless death, or a year or more of excrutiating pain and then a lifetime of pain, then any owner who cares about thier horse is going to choose to have it destroyed.

that said, its never an easy choice

I didn’t read the article but with a human you can lay down, sit in a chair or whatever to get the pressure of the broken leg, this doesn’t cost you money. With a horse the amount of effort it would take to keep the pressure off the leg and the horses wiliness to live would be more difficult. There are times when putting the horse down is more humane. You can make a crutch for a horse, pain wise it would be more difficult to manage.
I had a TB put down yesterday, we tried everything humanly possible to save her, i put up the money to do whatever we could for her…The pain was heartbreaking and i had to make the unselfish choice…she will be missed but she no longer suffers this im grateful for.

The problem is not that the bones won’t knit and heal the problem with fixing a broken leg is with the OTHER legs. A horse is simply not designed to stand on three legs while the other one heals. Laminitis is a real danger and can be even more painful for the horse than the original injury. There is also the stress of being stalled and unable to move. A horse is designed to move around all day, when made to stand in one place the blood flow to the limbs isn’t always adequate which is where Laminitis comes in. This is just one of the reasons horses don’t do well with broken legs.

The man in the article is an asshat who calls himself a trainer. He threatens to shoot his own horses if they ban jump racing because his horses could never be trained for anything else and he can’t afford to feed them for their lives. How long do you think he is going to feed those horses when they are no longer winning or able to jump? If he is such a good trainer then why can’t his horses be trained to be manageable and calm? Why wouldn’t his horses be suitable for a second carreer? Like i said he’s an asshat.
The same story with more info in australian paper:

My mare broke her leg 2 years ago, yes it was alot of hard work and months of box rest with no walking about,loads of visits from my vet who was fantastic,but to cut a long story short she is now fully recovered and doing everything we did before, jumping and dressage.It cost alot of money but my insurance company paid up and I still have my girl. I would also add that it might depend on how bad the break is but we were lucky, and she is the same horse she always was

The best way to approach this problem is not to try to heal horses once they are hurt- it’s TO PREVENT THEM from GETTING HURT in the first place, by not doing stupid, dangerous things like asking them to race and do hard work before their bones are mature enough or strong enough to take the stress of such work. THAT’S the REAL CAUSE of these senseless tragedies we keep seeing on the world’s tracks. These animals are BABIES, and are MUCH TOO YOUNG to be doing what we demand of them, plain and simple. I can’t make it any more clear than that. These animals’ bones and joints simply aren’t able to take the stress of hard work and training, and there are a number of factors which go into this. One of the most obvious is genetics and poor breeding. The Thoroughbred racehorse today is one of the most overbred and inbred animals in existence, and the problem is getting WORSE, not BETTER, with time. It’s no secret in the breeding industry that there are certain families and lines within the breed which are NOTORIOUS for producing horses which have only a limited number of races in them before they break down and die, and these horses should never be bred- but because of the economic pressures on breeders and owners, they are anyway. Big Brown, last year’s Derby and Preakness winner, came from one of those families- he’s a descendent of Native Dancer, and so is Curlin. Eight Belles was also heavily inbred, so much so, in fact, that one of the experts who testified in front of the US Congress at a hearing on racing safety referred to the filly as a “genetic DISASTER waiting to happen”. I’ve never heard that particular phrase used to describe a racehorse before, but it’s amazingly accurate.

Over and inbreeding doesn’t come without side effects, and one of the biggest is that it weakens the animals and makes them more likely to get hurt or die. One can only spin the genetic wheel in the same direction just so many times without dire consequences, and I think we are only just STARTING to see the effects of DECADES of poor decisions in the breeding shed. People are breeding for speed and to make a quick buck as fast as possible- not for stamina or long term health in their horses, and unfortunately, this shows. Horses are becoming more and more delicate and fragile, and are breaking down at younger and younger ages. I’ve seen some articles in different publications about this problem- and there have been some experts who have said that the gene pool has actually SHRUNK in size, compared to what it was only 50 years ago. The types of injuries these horses are suffering are also becoming more and more catastrophic. The reason we can’t save most of the horses which get hurt has more to do with logistics and money than anything else- it is simply not possible to keep a horse with a broken limb off that limb long enough to allow the injury to heal, without the risk of the horse developing serious health problems. Horses evolved as grazing animals and wanderers on the steppes of Asia- they were never intended to live in stalls or do any of the things we demand of them. When a horse got hurt in the wild, it usually was a death sentence, because horses depend on speed to get themselves out of danger and away from predators. People have exploited this for their own gain, but by doing so, have assumed a moral obligation to treat the horses they own and breed humanely, and not subject the animals to needless suffering. Most horses can’t take the kind of confinement required for even a simple fracture to heal- they get sick from it, their digestive systems shut down, or they develop conditions like laminitis, which is what killed Barbaro. Fracture treatments and surgery are also extremely expensive- and a lot of the time, people simply can’t afford all the costs involved.

With this said, I will also say that not all injuries are life threatening. Sometimes, horses can in fact be saved, when the fracture is a mild one. Desert Party, who ran in the Kentucky Derby this year, is an example of this. He will have surgery next week to repair a bone chip in his ankle- apparently, he suffered the injury during the Derby- and will most likely come back to racing in the fall or next spring, as a 4 year old. I Want Revenge, who was scratched from the Derby, has suffered a tear of one of the ligaments in his ankle, and he will be out for a while too- but assuming the leg heals, he should be able to race again at some point. Lastly, I want to point out that there is an enormous amount of research being done to try to find ways to prevent injuries and to heal horses. One of the mixed blessings which came out of Barbaro’s death was that public awareness of the disease he died from, laminitis, has never been higher- and MILLIONS of dollars have been raised for research into better treatments, and hopefully, a cure. This is research which will benefit ALL horses, from ALL walks of life, not just racehorses. Laminitis is a disease which cripples and kills upwards of a half million horses a year, just in the USA alone. Finding a cure will not be easy, but the benefits will be enormous. If racetracks would help fund research into treatments of diseases like this, it would be great. There is also work under way to find better surfaces for horses to race on, although the jury is still out on the question of whether or not synthetic surfaces like Polytrack actually help prevent injuries. It’s known that Polytrack has some drawbacks to it- it is very unforgiving if it gets frozen, for example, and it costs a lot to install and maintain.

One of the main problems facing veterinarians when they try to fix a (badly) broken bone in a horse is that there simply isn’t anything strong enough to hold the bone together. The horse’s weight will break the screws and plates holding the bone together. No advances will come from the human medicine side, because they don’t encounter this problem.