European Trainer - Winter 2008 - Issue 24

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Trainer - ISSUE 24

European

ISSUE 24 £5.95

www.trainermagazine.com

THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE FOR THE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE THOROUGHBRED

Italian Racing in Crisis What’s gone wrong?

National Hunt Racing

Can injuries be reduced?

Amanda Perrett

Following in her father’s footsteps

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Introduction Giles Anderson

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Y PURE chance, our main trainer interviews in this issue have focused on two young and talented trainers who can both look back on 2008 and ask the question, “What might have been?”

Coombelands Racing Stable was put on the map many moons ago as a major training centre by Amanda Perrett’s father Guy Harwood. It was one of the first stables to use many of the facilities and methods that we now take for granted but as time has moved on, Coombelands is still responsible for producing winners. On the face of it, it would be fair to say that 2008 hasn’t been an extraordinary year for Amanda Perrett, but dig a little deeper and you’ll see that it was Amanda Perrett who was responsible for the early training of the 2008 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint and Gr 1 Just A Game winner, Ventura. That’s on top of the 2008 Chester Cup winner Bulwark.

Adrian Maguire was one of the leading National Hunt jockeys for ten years from the early 1990’s but was forced to retire from the saddle after a fall which broke his neck. He soon turned his attention to training horses from his base in Lombardstown in County Cork. His first horses were point-to-pointers and one of the first horses he trained was the subsequent 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Denman.

You could say that both trainers were lucky to grow into their roles learning from visionaries. Adrian Maguire sums it up perfectly. As he says, he was lucky enough to ride for the likes of David Nicholson, Toby Balding and Michael Hourigan and he would have to have been asleep not to learn anything from being around them!

It’s a fact of life that in any sport injuries can and do occur. In National Hunt racing many efforts have been made over the years to lower the potential for injury by modifying obstacles and courses but at the same time not trying to “dumb down” the racing. Some believe it’s the horse that has changed, that the makeup of the traditional staying chaser is somewhat different today than it was say thirty years ago. In this issue of the magazine James Tate takes a look at some of the findings of a survey which examines the causes of injury in National Hunt racing. The results must be looked at seriously as I’m sure that they will help define the development of the great sport in years to come.

In this issue, we also take a look at how we should be using heart rate monitors in conjunction with lactate tests, how to manage picky eaters as well as dealing with stress in the thoroughbred.

Wherever your racing takes you this winter, good luck!

Enjoy the magazine.

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Chairman’s message

CRIQUETTE HEAD At the beginning of my tenure as President of the ETF, I outlined several objectives and one of these was to work towards the harmonisation of rules concerning racing equipment

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HILE the concrete progress that has been made is limited, it must be recognised that such change takes time to realise and it is pleasing to see that plenty of people have the willpower to work towards our aim.

It is also satisfying to note that the IFHA demonstrated during their October conference their implication in the quest for a universal world rulebook for racing equipment, race regulations such as interference and whip use, and medication. Even if the battle is long, I am sure that one day we will achieve our goal.

We can all be proud of the success of the European horses at the

Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita in October. For the first time this year the event took place without steroids and I believe that this helped the Europeans to compete on an equal footing and gave us a major advantage compared to previous years.

Being a fervent opponent of medication, I thoroughly approve of the American’s fight against drugs in racing and the work of Breeders’ Cup vice-president Pam Blatz-Murff to lead the way on this issue. Eliminating medication is a positive step for everyone in racing and above all for the horses themselves.

The ETF board consisting of me, vice-presidents Max Hennau and Maria Lamm, and treasurer Jim Kavanagh met in Deauville during the

weekend of France’s Gala des Courses in August. The meeting, during which we discussed interior ETF issues, was most interesting and constructive for the future and for the preparation for our AGM. The AGM of the ETF will take place in Germany on 13th December and one of the important topics covered will be that of new member countries. There is a number of developing racing countries in Europe which are keen to join us and I believe that we should try to unite as many nations as possible within our organisation.

Of course it will be necessary to consider which countries are ready to join us, but it should be a priority to increase our numbers. The bigger we are, the more powerful we are.

“Being a fervent opponent of medication, I thoroughly approve of the American’s fight against drugs in racing and the work of Breeders’ Cup vice-president Pam Blatz-Murff to lead the way on this issue” 02 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 24

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CONTENTS ISSUE 24

10 12 20 26

TRM trainer of the quarter

François Cottin – by Katherine Ford

Amanda Perrett – In Profile

By Sean Magee

National Hunt Injuries

By James Tate BVMS MRCV

Adrian Maguire – ‘hands-on’ trainer

By Lissa Oliver

32

Italian Racing in Crisis – what’s gone wrong?

By Niki Sweetnam

38

Heart Monitors and Lactate Analysis

By James Tate BVMS MRCVS

44

Amino Acid Supplements

48

The Challenge of Transport

54 58

12 26

By Dr Catherine Dunnett

By Des Leadon MA, MVB, MSc, FRCVS, DipECEIM

Picky Eaters

By Dr Catherine Dunnett

32

Stress and the Thoroughbred

By Dr Mark Kennedy

64 65

Product Focus Stakes Schedules

68

Frances Karon’s Comment

Forthcoming stakes races from Europe and around the world

Trainer Magazine is published by Anderso n & Co. This magazine is distributed for free to all ETF members. Editorial views expressed are not necessarily those of the ETF. Additional copies can be purchased for £5.95 (ex P+P). No part of this publication may be reproduced in any format without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Printed in the European Union For all editorial and advertising enquiries please contact Anderson & Co Tel: +44 (0)1380 816777 Fax: +44 (0)1380 816778 email: info@trainermagazine.com www.trainermagazine.com

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Issue 24

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CONTRIBUTORS European

ISSUE 24 £5.95

www.trainermagazine.com

THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE FOR THE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE THOROUGHBRED

Italian Racing in Crisis What’s gone wrong?

National Hunt Racing Can injuries be reduced?

Amanda Perrett Following in her father’s footsteps

Publisher & Editorial Director Giles Anderson Sub Editors Frances Karon, Sophie Hull Design/Production Neil Randon Website Gary Pinkett Advertising Sales Giles Anderson Executive Assistant Penny Farrow Circulation Pippa Anderson Photo Credits

Horsephotos; RacingFotos; Fiona Boyd; James Tate & Roderio De Souza - Mark Johnston Racing Ltd; Lissa Oliver; Stefano Grasso; Hugh Routledge; Mark Cranham; Neil Randon; Kit Houghton; Rob Clark; Philippe Dyga; Trevor Jones; Joe Geiser; Shutterstock

Cover Photograph Hugh Routledge

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Frances J. Karon, is a native of Puerto Rico and graduate of Maine’s Colby College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English.

She operates Rough Shod LLC based in Lexington, Kentucky and specializes in sales, pedigree research and mating recommendations. Among the Pattern horses whose breedings she has suggested is Breeders’ Cup winner Cajun Beat. Frances has also pinhooked foals to yearlings with some success.

James Tate BVMS MRCVS qualified as a veterinary surgeon from Glasgow University and his career started with mixed practice in Cumbria. He is from a family steeped in horseracing. His father, Tom Tate, is a dual purpose trainer, his father-in-law, Len Lungo, is a National Hunt trainer, and his Uncle, the legendary Michael Dickinson, has just retired from the training ranks. James is cur rently the resident senior vet for leading flat trainer Mark Johnston, a position which he has held since the star t of 2006.

Dr Catherine Dunnett BSc, PhD, R.Nutr. is an independent nutritionist registered with the British Nutrition Society. She has a background in equine research, in the field of nutrition and exercise physiology, with many years spent at The Animal Health Trust in Newmarket.

Prior to setting up her own consultancy business, she worked in the equine feed industr y on product development and technical marketing.

Katherine Ford was brought up in a hunting and point-to-pointing environment on a farm in North Yorkshire. Following a year working in a racing yard in Middleham, she studied Modern Languages at Sheffield University, with a semester studying French in Pau. After University, Katherine completed the BHB Graduate Programme in 2000, and in 2001 star ted work for the International Racing Bureau’s Paris office. Three years later she moved to Equidia, France’s horseracing television channel, for which she has had the opportunity to travel to some of the world’s major racetracks, including those of Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan, several Breeders’ Cups, Cheltenham and Pardubice. Katherine currently works part-time for Equidia and as a freelance jour nalist and translator.

Des Leadon MA, MVB, MSc, FRCVS, DipECEIM, is Head of Clinical Pathology at the Irish Equine Centre, where he has been based since 1984. He has worked in equine practice in Ireland, England, Australia and Spain and has been involved in equine clinical research for over 30 years, since graduating from Trinity College Dublin. He owns and breeds thoroughbred racehorses with his par tner from their stud farm in Co. Kildare. Des is also a notoriously unsuccessful amateur jockey.

Sean Magee writes regular features for the Racing Post and is the author of several books on racing, including Lester’s Derbys with Lester Piggott, Arkle: The life and legacy of “Himself ”, and the official history of Ascot racecourse.

Lissa Oliver lives in Co Kildare, Ireland and is a regular contributor to The Irish Field and the Australian magazine, Racetrack.

Lissa is also the author of several collections of short stories and two novels.

Niki Sweetnam completed an MA Hons degree at Edinburgh University and successfully qualified as a BHSAI before working for British dual purpose stud Scarvagh House, looking after European and South American markets with Irish Thoroughbred Marketing and then moving to France to work for the Aga Khan Studs. Now based in Italy , motherhood and the demands of keeping the Luciani family breeding operation r unning smoothly have put an end to her globetrotting days.

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EUROPEAN TRAINERS’ FEDERATION

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AIMS and OBJECTIVES of the ETF: a) To represent the interests of all member trainers’ associations in 3Europe. b) To liaise with political and administrative bodies on behalf of European trainers. c) To exchange information between members for the benefit of European trainers. d) To provide a network of contacts to assist each member to develop its policy and services to member trainers.

ETF REPRESENTATIVES Chairmanship:

Criquette Head-Maarek - President Association des Entraineurs de Galop 18 bis Avenue du Général Leclerc 60501 Chantilly FRANCE Tel: + 33 (0)3 44 57 25 39 Fax: + 33(0)3 44 57 58 85 Email: entraineurs.de.galop@wanadoo.fr

Vice Chairmanship:

Max Hennau FEDERATION BELGE DES ENTRAINEURS Rue des Carrieres 35 5032 - Les Isnes BELGIUM Tel: Fax: +32 (0)81 56 68 46 Email: max.hennau@mobistarmail.be

GERMANY

Vice Chairmanship:

Maria Lamm – Chairwoman Swedish Trainers Association North Dåntorp, 136 50 Haninge Sweden Tel: +46 (0)8500 20938 Fax: +46 (0)8500 25250 Mobile: +46 (0)70 7560 769

ITALY

Erika Mäder – Chairwoman Jentgesallee 19 47799 Krefeld Tel: +49 (0)2151 594911 Fax: +49 (0)2151 590542 Mobile: +49 (0)173 8952675 Email: trainer-und-jockeys@netcologne.de

Valfredo Valiani Renzetti Viale delle Cascine 153 - 56122 Pisa, ITALY Tel: +39(0)50 53 24 34 Fax: +39(0)50 52 66 51 Mobil: +39(0)34 88 29 39 43 Email: v.valiani1@virgilio.it

GREECE

UNITED KINGDOM

President – Christos Theodorakis GREEK TRAINERS' ASSOCIATION Edos Ippodromou Markopoulou Markopoulou, Attikis 19 003 Contact: Aggeliki Amitsis epdigreece@hotmail.com Mobile: +30 6955 491997 Fax: +30 22990 81332

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Rupert Arnold NATIONAL TRAINERS’ FEDERATION 9 High Street - Lambourn - Hungerford Berkshire RG17 8XN Tel: +44 (0)1488 71719 Fax: +44 (0)1488 73005

Treasureship:

Jim Kavanagh IRISH RACEHORSE TRAINERS ASSOCIATION Curragh House-Dublin Road Kildare-Co.Kildare IRELAND Tel: +353 (0) 45 522981 Fax: + 353 (0) 45 522982

NORWAY

Sven-Erik Lilja – Chairman Eventyrveien 8, 1482 Nittedal Norway Tel: +47 (0) 67 07 14 12 Mobile: +47 (0) 91 12 88 96 Email: svelilja@nokab.no

SWEDEN

Mrs Jacqueline Henriksson – Chairwoman Swedish Trainers Association South Notarp 3228 S-243 92 Hoor Tel: +46 (0)413 55 00 65 Fax: +46 (0)413 55 04 95 Mobile: +46 (0)70 731 26 39 Email: jacqueline.henriksson@home.se

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François Cottin with Mitchelo and jockey JP McKeown after winning the Prix de France at Auteuil

The TRM Trainer of the quarter award has been won by François Cottin. François and his team will receive a TRM product pallet worth in excess of €2000. The pallet will consist of TRM tack bags and saddle pads as well as a large selection of the world famous TRM product range. As well as the TRM pallet they will receive a bottle of fine Irish whiskey.

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TRM trainer of the quarter By Katherine Ford

FRANÇOIS COTTIN

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Y WIFE will be pleased !”

This is typical François Cottin, taking a step back, thinking of others, definitely never one to get too big for his boots. With more than €4 million in winnings and a €600,000 advantage over Guillaume Macaire, the Chantilly handler is almost certain to be champion French jumps trainer this year.

“My wife asked me at the beginning of the season to try for the championship, so I’ve been making an effort!” he reflects with a smile. The sense of understatement, and his fighting spirit, could have been picked up in England where Cottin, born and bred in racing, went to school from the age of ten.

After spells in America and Italy, François set sail for Ireland where he put the final touches to his racing education during four and a half years with Arthur Moore. It was here while working for Moore that François Cottin, also breeder of Hors la Loi III (Supreme Novices Hurdle 1999 and Champion Hurdle 2002) first took out a trainers’ permit in 2002, before establishing himself as a public trainer a year later.

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He was successful with Kamillo and Jeu de Brook, both owned by Jean-Paul Sénéchal, who has always been the first to support the son of Rémi, a well-known French trainer and breeder himself. Trainer Robert Collet gave a helping hand for the young handler’s return to France, but on April 2, 2004, Kamillo provided a first runner and first winner for Cottin back on home soil.

Sénéchal was associated with another milestone when Louping d’Ainay lifted the Prix du Président de la République in 2005.

In 2006 the black and orange colours were victorious again in this French equivalent of the Grand National with Jeu de Brook and consecration was just around the corner in May that year when Sénéchal’s Princesse d’Anjou became the first five-year-old mare to win the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris since 1931. Only 34 years old, Cottin seemed invincible. The following year was less flamboyant, although he finished the season in fifth place in the trainers’ table thanks to new stable star, Oculi.

Winner of the Prix Congress three-yearold champion chase in 2007, Oculi belongs to another astute owner in Jacques Détré. A

friend of master trainer Guillaume Macaire, Jacques Détré quickly spotted the talent of his Chantilly counterpart and enjoys the competition between his two handlers. Oculi picked up two Grade 1 events in 2008, the Prix Ferdinand Dufaure in May and the Prix Maurice Gillois during the International Jumping Weekend at Auteuil. This was the sweetest of Cottin’s quartet of successes during this important rendez-vous as it enabled Oculi to complete the rare hat-trick of championship steeplechases for his generation.

In addition to the weekend’s three other wins – in the prestigious Prix de France amateurs’ contest and both divisions of Sunday’s Listed hurdle – Cottin pulled off another exploit in the Prix la Haye Jousselin.

Places can be just as rewarding as victories and in the Gr 1 steeplechase Cottin’s charges Musica Bella, Louping d’Ainay and Royal Palois filled the second, third and fourth spots, and this without sidelined champion Princesse d’Anjou. The weekend’s events mean that François is a deserving winner of the Trainer of the Quarter, even if his wife didn’t request it! I

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Guy Harwood and daughter Amanda outside the family home, with Bella the black labrador

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AMANDA PERRETT

Following in her father’s footsteps Guy Harwood trained Dancing Brave, one of the all-time great racehorses.

Ten years after the horse’s dramatic Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe victory Harwood handed over the reins of his Coombelands Stables to the eldest of his three daughters. What Amanda Perrett inherited in 1996 was not just a prestigious operation; it was one of the most innovative and best-equipped training establishments that Europe had ever seen.

By Sean Magee

D

ANCING Brave’s narrow defeat in the 1986 Derby did more than bruise that great horse’s reputation and set riders in the stand barracking jockey Greville Starkey for cutting things too fine when just failing to catch Shahrastani.

It also brought sixteen-year-old Amanda Harwood, daughter of Dancing Brave’s trainer, a detention.

“On Derby Day I was at school sitting an O-level,” she remembers, “and as soon as the exam was over I rushed into the common room to watch the race. There was another exam going on in the next room, and my yelling at the TV caused such a distraction that I was given a detention.

They didn’t understand at all.”

Ten years later in 1996 that schoolgirl – by then Amanda Perrett, as she had married

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PROFILE

Amanda Perret (blue and yellow colours) on Vagador in the 1990 Champion Hurdle

Blacksmiths at work using the forge at Coombelands

former jump jockey Mark Perrett in 1995 – took over her father’s training licence, and the racing world understood the message well enough: it would be business as usual at Coombelands, the state-of-the-art operation which Guy Harwood had built in West Sussex.

By then Coombelands was one of the most famous training yards in Europe, having sent out a stream of stars. There was 1981 Two Thousand Guineas winner To-Agori-Mou; 1982 Eclipse and King George winner Kalaglow; Young Generation; Allez Milord; Cacoethes; Recitation; Lear Fan; Rousillon; dual Ascot Gold Cup winner Sadeem; and the brilliant miler Warning.

But most famous of all was Dancing Brave, who despite that Derby defeat proved himself one of the all-time greats in 1986 by winning the Two Thousand Guineas, Eclipse and King George before producing an astonishing turn of foot to whoosh past as high-class a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe field as Longchamp has ever seen.

That sensational climax to Dancing Brave’s career came twenty years after

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A horse being exercised in the indoor pool at Coombelands

Harwood had first taken out a licence as a public trainer.

While not from a racing background – his father Wally had founded the family garage and engineering business in 1931 – young Guy had a deeply ingrained love of horses and racing, and at the age of fourteen started riding out for the legendary Captain Ryan Price.

“He was a wonderful character, a man with a heart of gold and a great master of his craft,” he recollects, “and in so many ways he was my mentor and my inspiration. He would never ask anyone to do something that he wouldn’t do himself, which is a lesson I always tried to apply when I was training.”

This was in the mid-1950s, when Price’s Findon stable housed top horses like Champion Hurdle winner Clair Soleil, but it was a humbler incumbent whom Harwood remembers with particular fondness: “Marly Knowe was a horse I rode regularly. He was unplaced only three times in 22 starts on the Flat, and he became hugely popular at Alexandra Park, where he won time after time.”

Harwood notched up 40 point-to-point winners and 14 under Rules before joining former top jump jockey Bryan Marshall as pupil assistant, then in 1965 took out a permit to train from Coombelands, the onetime dairy and arable farm he had bought at Pulborough, a few hundred yards from where the family business was based. His first full licence was granted the following year.

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F THERE was no strong racing gene in Guy Harwood’s blood, nor was there any unquestioning adherence to traditional methods. “I always wanted to train,” he says, “and I got my ideas from all over. For instance, we had the first all-weather gallop in Britain, and I got that idea from Vincent O’Brien. As our operation developed – first a few jumpers, then horses for the Flat, then bringing in yearlings, and so on – the facilities evolved.”

So effectively was the entrepreneurial gene deployed in Harwood’s venture that the Coombelands which Amanda Perrett inherited in 1996 was not just a prestigious

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AMANDA PERRETT

“I rode Dancing Brave on the gallops a couple of times. He was a very laid-back horse at home – in a sense the ultimate professional racehorse, as he saved all his best for the track” operation; it was one of the most innovative and best-equipped training establishments that Europe had ever seen.

Brough Scott – who rode winners for the fledgling trainer in the days before he became a leading scribe – has written how, back then, “people had hardly heard of artificial gallops. Guy had a whole series of them with white rails everywhere, a computerised office system, labour-saving American barns, a private laboratory, a hands-on vet, and above all else a business mentality.

“That was used as a term of disparagement by his rivals, but the key to his success was that he set out to build up a training operation which would make sense in the way a business should. He would take the final decision but he would bring in experts, and their combined skills would make up an unbeatable management team.

No one, before or since, has ever done it like Guy.” The experts whom Harwood gradually imported to Coombelands included James Delahooke, masterly judge of young

bloodstock; Brian Eagles as stable vet; Tommy Townsend as head lad; and Guy’s brother-in-law Geoff Lawson, a former jump jockey, to oversee riding matters.

And from 1979 there was further future talent to be spotted on the Coombelands gallops, in the diminutive form of the oldest of the trainer’s three daughters.

“I was nine years old when I started riding out on the racehorses,” remembers Amanda Perrett, “though my sisters and I had had ponies from much earlier. We went through the whole Pony Club thing, and I competed in three-day events, but what I really wanted was to ride in races.”

Before long that wish was granted. At the age of fifteen she won the Newmarket Town Plate – the annual 4½ -mile race for amateur jockeys which to this day includes in its prize a generous helping of Newmarket sausages – and at sixteen started competing in the point-to-point field, from where she graduated to riding as an amateur under Rules. In all she rode 54 winners between the flags and 40 under Rules, “mostly very safe conveyances, and I was very lucky as they were all beautifully trained and prepared.”

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PROFILE

No horse she rode competitively, however, was remotely in the same league as the stable star: “I rode Dancing Brave on the gallops a couple of times. He was a very laidback horse at home – in a sense the ultimate professional racehorse, as he saved all his best for the track.”

She won the prestigious ladies’ race on King George day at Ascot on Joligeneration in 1988 – “And I’d have won it again in 1994 if I hadn’t let Maxine Cowdrey up the rail!”

– and in 1990 became the first lady jockey to ride in the Champion Hurdle, on her own horse Vagador. Mark Perrett was due to ride but caught pneumonia, leaving his future wife to step into the breach to ride the gelding into eighth place behind Kribensis – “the ride of a lifetime.”

Through the early 1990s Amanda was continuing to gain training experience by looking after the stable’s jumpers with Mark, who had been with Guy Harwood since the age of sixteen. After being apprenticed to Harwood he had developed into one of the leading jump jockeys of his generation, with over 900 winners to his name, on the Flat as well as over jumps. He won the Welsh National in 1992 and Scottish National in 1993 on Run For Free, and has the unusual distinction of having ridden the same horse to victory at both Royal Ascot and the Cheltenham Festival: Balasani in the Ascot Stakes in 1993 and Stayers’ Hurdle in 1994.

It had long been understood that Amanda would take over the licence when her father retired, but the change came sooner than she had expected.

“The garage business was not going well and I knew that I needed to go back and take control,” says Guy. “At the same time, the recession of the early 1990s had played havoc with the training operation and I needed to earn money.

“It was simply a case of needs must. I knew that Amanda was ready to take over, so I had no doubt that it was the right time to make the switch.”

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HE 26-year-old newcomer to the ranks of licensed trainers had little time to be daunted by the challenge. “Although I’d known it was coming,” she says, “it was still quite a shock when Dad announced that he planned to stop training. But it was a great opportunity for Mark and me, and I knew that I was having a tremendous head start. I had the best tutor in the world in Dad, and straight away was working with some of the best staff, best jockeys and best facilities imaginable. Many of the staff who were with Dad when he stopped training are still with us, and that feeling of continuity is very important.”

Those facilities cover 150 acres and

“It was simply a case of needs must. I knew that Amanda was ready to take over, so I had no doubt that it was the right time to make the switch”

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include four all-weather gallops and five turf gallops, one of which features the cambered American bend. “I had that constructed following our early experience in the Breeders’ Cup,” explains Guy Harwood: “In the USA milers need to accelerate into the first bend and hit it running, which European-trained horses are simply not used to.” In addition to the grass gallops there are several winter canters, an indoor canterway and outdoor school, a swimming pool and a solarium.

But the finest facilities are of little use without the horses to match, and a major factor in achieving a successful takeover was the loyalty of Guy’s owners – notably Prince Khalid Abdullah, owner of so many of the famous Harwood horses including both Dancing Brave and Warning. “Prince Khalid has remained a very great supporter,” says Amanda Perrett, “and he really got me going.”

Most prominent among the horses who have carried the Abdullah colours for the new regime is Tillerman, the wonderfully imposing mahogany-coated hero who won over £350,000 in prize money and whose seven victories included the Group 2 Celebration Mile at Goodwood in 2002.

Understandably, he enjoys a lofty place in his trainer’s affections: “Tillerman was very much my favourite of all time. He got better as he got older, and he put us on the map.

“He absolutely loved Ascot, where he ran twelve times and won two races – the Tote International Handicap in 2000 and the Group 3 Silver Trophy in 2003 – and with better luck would have won many more. He met all sorts of trouble in the 2001 Cork and Orrery, and could have won the Queen Anne Stakes three years running: he was touched off by a short head in 2002, disqualified after finishing second in 2003, and close-up fifth in 2004 after suffering all sorts of interference.”

A more recent Perrett-trained winner for Khalid Abdullah is Ventura, who won three times for Coombelands as a three-year-old in 2007 before being moved to be trained in the USA by Bobby Frankel, for whom she won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Santa Anita in October of 2008.

Tillerman did not manage to win a Group 1 race, but Indian Lodge landed two for the stable: the Prix du Moulin and Prix de la Foret in 2000. “He was wonderfully tough and versatile, but at home was always very laid back. If all horses were like him and saved their energy for the racecourse, it would make trainers’ lives a good deal easier.

He’ll always be special to me, as he gave me my first Listed win, my first Group win and my first Group 1, but most of his success was down to Mark, who rode him every day.”

Other familiar Perrett-trained names include Bangalore, who won the Chester Cup (2000) and Northumberland Plate

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PROFILE

(2002); Give The Slip (Ebor Handicap in 2002); Carnival Dancer (La Coupe and Prix Gontaut-Brion in 2003); and Solo Mio (Sagaro Stakes and Henry II Stakes in 2001), while the current stable star is another top-notch stayer.

“Dear Tungsten Strike has been a great flagbearer for us”, she says, and no wonder: his eight wins include the Henry II Stakes, Sagaro Stakes and Goodwood’s March Stakes twice. The Melbourne Cup proved a journey too far in 2007, but the gelding retains all his old enthusiasm and will be back waving the Coombelands flag as an eight-year-old in 2009.

Tungsten Strike was bought as a yearling at Tattersalls by James Delahooke, but Amanda Perrett admits that she has a particular fondness for home-breds: “I love training for owner-breeders, following up the families. It’s a special pleasure to train the dam and then the progeny, and getting to know the foibles of each family, going to the studs and seeing the youngsters, is always exciting.”

And home-bred or sale-bought, it is highly advantageous for her to be able to ride the horses regularly and get to know them: “Mark rides our horses out all the time, and I ride them as much as I can through the winter months. You can study a horse 365 days a year, but you’ll learn more about it from riding it once.”

Having started with some thirty horses, she saw the Coombelands complement rise to over 100 before scaling back: “Although we have room for 120 horses in our five American barns, my optimum is about eighty. At that level I can give each horse individual attention every day.”

Amanda Jill Perrett is the name on the licence, but training the horses is very much a partnership between her and Mark, closely supported by head lad Dean Angell. And her parents remain key members of the Coombelands set-up. “My mother is from a farming family, and although she didn’t ride competitively she has a wonderful eye for a horse, which is invaluable when she comes to the sales with me.

“Dad is very active with the garage business, but he retains a great interest in the stables. He often comes and watches work, and he’s constantly offering me advice and a kick up the backside.”

Harwood adds: “I have shares in four of the two-year-olds in the yard, and it’s wonderful to be getting more involved again. I have to admit that when I first stopped training, after 28 years at it, I felt exhausted, and for the first few years out of the game did not feel I wanted to be involved. But gradually my interest came back, and now I’m loving it again.”

That Coombelands is very much a family affair is underlined by the presence of the equestrian centre run by Amanda’s sister

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‘I knew that I was having a tremendous head start. I had the best tutor in the world in Dad, and straight away was working with some of the best staff, best jockeys and best facilities imaginable”

On the early morning gallops alongside husband Mark

Gaye (who herself had ridden on the Flat), featuring a cross-country schooling course, with over sixty obstacles configured to a range of riding levels, as well as show jumping and dressage facilities.

And Amanda’s other sister Lucinda, also a former amateur rider, is married to stable jockey Jim Crowley, whose skills are being increasingly appreciated (“Strong and tactically sound,” wrote Alastair Down recently in the Racing Post, “but above all he is riding with the most priceless asset any jockey can have – confidence”), and whose contribution is

central to the stable’s success.

Perhaps two generations is too few to be properly called a dynasty, but there is a strong sense of dynastic continuity around Coombelands, and the next generation is in place in the shape of the Perretts’ son Ryan – born in 2006 and already taking the eye in the saddle on his pony Thomas – and Emma, born in 2007.

One word of advice to the youngsters: If in a few years’ time you’re watching in the school common room when Mum and Dad’s horse comes to win the Derby, try not to shout too loud. I

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NATIONAL HUNT INJURIES National Hunt racing at its best is an awesome spectacle as shown by the audience for the 2008 Grand National, which was viewed by over 650 million worldwide. However, the undesirable side-effect of this courageous sport is the injuries associated with it.

Many large, reliable studies have been undertaken over the last two decades, all of which show consistently higher rates of injury in horses racing over jumps in the UK compared with those racing on the flat. This is something that has led to the near extinction of jump racing in some parts of the world, for example, Scandinavia. This article will examine and analyse jump racing injuries and question whether there are any ways by which they can be reduced in order to ensure the future of this magnificent sport. By James Tate BVMS MRCVS

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Back Among Friends recovered from this fall and raced again the following month

CCASIONALLY, a horse may suffer ‘sudden death’ on the racecourse.

Ardent National Hunt (NH) followers will forever have Best Mate’s tragic last outing at Exeter on 1st November 2005 etched in their memory. Most of these sudden deaths are thought to be caused by sudden massive internal bleeding, often either from the aorta (the main artery in the body that takes blood away from the heart) or from a large artery supplying the lungs. The racing public commonly refer to such deaths as ‘heart attacks’, the nearest human equivalent. These sudden deaths do seem to be relatively humane and make up only a small percentage of fatalities in NH racing in the UK. Their cause is not fully understood and hence they cannot be prevented.

This article will now concentrate on the main cause of mortality and enforced retirement in NH racing – musculoskeletal injury. Serious musculoskeletal injury is divided into two areas – soft tissue injuries such as tendon or ligament injuries and bone fractures with the pelvis and cannon bone being the most commonly damaged areas. A ground-breaking study carried out

by Ely, Avella, Price, Smith, Wood and Verheyen is entering the equine veterinary press at the time of writing this article, which examines fracture, tendon and suspensory ligament injuries in NH racehorses in more detail than ever before.

Previous studies have concentrated on statistics from the racecourse alone; however, this paper examines the injury rates from training level and is therefore by

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definition more accurate and more useful.

Data for the study was gathered from over one thousand horses spread over eight English counties during two NH seasons.

On average, if a trainer had one hundred horses in training during one month they should expect approximately one significant fracture and two serious tendon or ligament injuries. Injury rates did not vary according to gender or background but both fracture and tendon/ligament injuries varied by trainer and tendon/ligament injury rates were significantly lower in younger horses.

The most common serious NH soft tissue injuries are digital flexor tendon and suspensory ligament injuries. The 2008 study detailed above found that 89% of serious soft tissue injuries involved the superficial digital flexor tendon and 11% involved the suspensory ligament.

The all too familiar ‘bowed’ tendon or superficial digital flexor tendon injury is usually caused by excessive strain. Although they can be produced by a single overload or trauma, they are much more commonly fatigue-related. As a result, they are usually seen in horses running over longer distances, for example, a mile and a half and upwards flat races, or any NH race where landing over the obstacles also increases the strain on the tendon. It is the centre of the tendon that is usually affected hence the expression ‘core lesion’, which refers to a portion of torn tendon fibres in the centre of the tendon.

In severe, acute tendon injuries there is bleeding into the tendon from the ruptured fibres, which in turn causes separation of the remaining tendon fibres, hence the urgency to reduce any swelling and bleeding in a recently injured tendon by rest and antiinflammatory therapy. As the tendon heals, the remaining blood clot or haematoma turns into granulation tissue, which later turns into fibrous tissue that will never be as good as the tendon fibres originally ruptured. Tendon injuries are not good news no matter how small a lesion is actually diagnosed. There are no shortcuts in the treatment and horses are rarely able to return to racing in much under a year.

There have been numerous studies into tendon injuries, all of which differ wildly in opinion. Depending on which study you read, 20% to 80% return to racing and one large study found that 80% re-injure at some point in their lives. However, the severity of the injury does have a large impact on the prognosis.

The second most commonly injured soft tissue structure in the horse is the suspensory ligament. This is a complex structure that originates at the back of the upper cannon before splitting into two branches, which travel either side of the fetlock before combining with the extensor tendons at the front of the pastern. It can be

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damaged at any point but injuries are broadly categorised into suspensory body injuries, which occur between the upper and mid-cannon regions and suspensory branch injuries, which occur after the suspensory ligament has split into two, just above the fetlock joint on either side of the leg. Due to the poor blood supply and therefore poor healing, any suspensory ligament injury is career-threatening although the younger the horse, the better its chance of recovery.

The 2008 study produced by Ely et al. has to be considered as ground-breaking because it has finally given us an idea as to how many tendon or ligament injuries actually occur at the racecourse. Previous studies suggested the rate of such injuries was a mere seven for every thousand starts, but this study found that 68% of horses that suffered serious tendon and ligament injuries finished the race and many were not actually found until the horse had returned from the races. Therefore, Ely et al.’s figure

of sixteen such injuries per thousand starts is likely to be much more realistic. However, there is a case for arguing that nearly all tendon/ligament injuries are caused in a race and the problem simply does not show itself until work is increased a few days or weeks later, or even after a summer break at grass. Unsurprisingly, injury rates were found to be significantly increased with age.

Horses between the age of two and five were at a significantly reduced risk of tendon/ligament injury and horses between the age of twelve and fourteen were at the highest risk of such injury. Also significant was that higher rates of racecourse tendon and ligament injuries were found in ex-store horses than ex-flat horses. Much work has been carried out that strongly suggests that the earlier horses are conditioned to training and racing, the stronger their bones, tendons and ligaments become. In fact, there is currently research being done to examine whether training foals might also

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The Grand National is one of the world’s great sporting spectacles but it is also synonymous with horse injuries

“The most common serious NH soft tissue injuries are digital flexor tendon and suspensory ligament injuries” increase their future soundness!

The most common fractures of the NH racehorse are that of the cannon bone and pelvis. The cannon bone is a commonly fractured bone of both Flat and NH racehorses and there are several different types of fracture, but the most frequent are ‘condylar’ fractures. These are fractures that run from the lower third of the cannon bone into the fetlock joint and they can be located in the inside or outside condyle of the lower cannon. These can be found as small ‘stress’ fractures or as dangerously displaced fractures. As most cannon bone

fractures probably start out as silent ‘stress’ fractures caused by repetitive strain, it is not surprising that they are found equally commonly during training and racing but are not particularly associated with a fall.

The pelvis is quite a complex structure that is comprised of several bones – the ilium, ischium, pubis and acetabulum. It is a hugely important skeletal structure connecting the horse’s spine at the sacrum, forming the sacroiliac ‘joint’, and joining the hind limb at the femur, forming the hip joint. As a result, pelvic fractures vary hugely depending on the location of the

fracture and hence their significance varies accordingly from being a relatively minor frustrating setback to a catastrophic fatal injury. It is not unreasonable to think that the pelvis is the type of structure that is likely to be injured during a race or fall, but statistics lead us to believe otherwise. Ely et al. (2008) reported nineteen pelvic fractures of which fourteen happened in training and of the five that did occur on the racetrack, only one was associated with a fall. The majority of the pelvic fractures were stress fractures and only four horses did not return to training. Whilst these statistics might surprise some, it does correlate with the high number of pelvic fractures seen in Flat racehorses, most of which also occur during training. In addition to this, there was also some interesting research done by Haussler and Stover in 1998, which showed that 28% of 36 thoroughbred racehorses that died or were euthanased for other reasons at ISSUE 24 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 23

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California racetracks had evidence of pelvic ‘stress’ fractures at post-mortem examination. This suggests that many of the pelvic fractures that do occur at the racecourse may actually have been stress fractures before the horse ran.

Another commonly fractured bone in NH racehorses is the tibia, which is the large bone in the horse’s hind leg between the hock and the stifle and it is the equivalent of the human shinbone. Tibial fractures are interesting because of their near-equal spread between the training ground and the racecourse and the vastly differing severities of injuries seen. Most training tibial injuries are simply micro-fractures relating to remodelling taking place in the bone in response to an increase in work. However, tibial fractures occurring at the racecourse can be catastrophic fatal injuries often not relating to a fall. Unfortunately, surgery to repair a displaced tibial fracture is nearimpossible due to the overlying soft tissues, vital nerves and blood vessels.

The delicate thoroughbred is capable of breaking virtually any bone in its precariously designed anatomy from the small sesamoid, carpal or splint bones to the much larger radius, tibia or femur. However, the 2008 study does point out a few more interesting and important statistics. The study found that only 41% of all NH fractures on the racecourse were directly associated with a fall over a jump and that only 53% of these fall-related fractures were fatal. The most likely bones to be fractured in a fall are a vertebra followed by the humerus or scapula (the bones that make up the shoulder). Fractures of these bones are unlikely to happen during training and are most likely to happen with the impact of a fall. Hence, unfortunately, there is little that can be done about such injuries, which to some extent must be considered as part and parcel of jump racing. Racecourses try hard to ensure that fence design is as good as possible and any courses or fences that have statistically high injury rates do come under particularly close scrutiny.

The overall fracture rate of NH horses found in the 2008 study is very similar to that found in Flat horses in another study done by Verheyen and Wood in 2004.

However, one main difference is that 41% of the NH racecourse fractures that were not associated with a fall were fatal compared

An ultrasound scan revealing a core lesion in the centre of the superficial digital flexor tendon. Ultrasound has been widely used for diagnosis of such injuries for many years; however, interestingly Ely et al. also took the time to ultrasound a population of over 250 random horses during the study period. After over 800 ultrasound examinations the conclusion was drawn that ultrasound was not a useful tool for predicting tendon injury. It is still possible that there are micro-changes within a tendon before a core lesion occurs, but what this study showed was that ultrasound is useless at predicting that a ‘bowed’ tendon is just around the corner.

On the left is a diagram of the suspensory ligament. On the right is an ultrasound scan revealing a core lesion in the inside (medial) suspensory branch.

with just 18% of Flat racecourse fractures.

There are several possible reasons for this but the two most likely are that some of the NH fractures are actually related to jumping a previous obstacle or that the longer distances of NH races increases the chance of a serious fracture. On the other hand, the fracture rate during NH training appears to be significantly lower than in Flat racehorses.

Whilst some consider that this is the result

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of differing training regimes, I personally believe that it is related to the skeletal maturity of the animal as Flat racehorses are generally much younger and therefore more likely to suffer ‘minor’ stress fractures during training. However, these ‘minor’ stress fractures seem to cause no long-term harm and in fact, training young flat horses seems to strengthen and condition their bones. As a result, it is not surprising that Ely et al. found among NH racehorses that the exstore horses tended to have higher rates of training fracture compared to the ex-flat horses whose bones have been conditioned for racing from a younger age.

It would be interesting now to compare these statistics to other countries such as France, where horses start jump racing at a very young age, or Germany, where the conformation and soundness of the breed is considered by some to be superior.

Unfortunately, there has been no such comparable research carried out. However, there was research performed into racing in Australia. Boden et al. studied flat and jump racing in Victoria between 1989 and 2004.

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The photograph and ultrasound scan show a horse with a severe pelvic fracture of the left ilial shaft

‘Stress’ condylar fractures can be treated with box rest. However, displaced condylar fractures should be repaired using screws.

“The delicate thoroughbred is capable of breaking virtually any bone in its precariously designed anatomy from the small sesamoid, carpal or splint bones to the much larger radius, tibia or femur” The number of fatalities per thousand flat starts was a mere 0.44, but there was a huge 8.3 fatalities per thousand jump starts. The actual injuries of these jumps fatalities were much the same as those in the UK – catastrophic limb fracture, cranial or vertebral injury and sudden death.

However, researchers were at a loss as to how to explain the high number of fatalities compared to other countries such as the UK

and North America. Australian jump racing is currently under pressure to reduce its disproportionately high number of fatalities in order to maintain its existence.

In summary, tendon/ligament injuries could be reduced by avoiding fatigue, and bone fractures could be reduced by avoiding speed. Unfortunately, if it is hard to train a NH racehorse without subjecting it to speed or distance, then it is impossible to race one

under such conditions. The 2008 study by Ely et al. does show a difference in fracture and tendon/ligament injury rates between trainers, but to some extent each training regime has its most likely injury. Altering training slightly may reduce one type of injury but it is just as likely to simultaneously increase the rate of another.

For example, increasing the length of the horse’s daily work and reducing its speed is likely to reduce the number of training fractures but may actually increase the number of tendon/ligament injuries.

Regrettably, injuries are an unavoidable part of NH racing. The long term survival of jump racing depends on the continuation of the current trend of a reduction in racecourse fatalities. Sudden deaths are poorly understood and cannot be prevented. Vertebra and upper limb fractures are also an inextricable side-effect of racing over jumps. However, other bone fractures and tendon/ligament injuries could be reduced significantly by the conditioning of these NH racehorses when they are youngsters. The bones and tendons of horses under two years of age have not yet reached full maturity and hence it is the training that these horses receive before this age that could really make a difference to their future soundness.

What Ely et al.’s study of NH racehorses seems to show is that ex-store horses suffer more injuries than ex-flat horses, which commence training at an earlier age. This view is supported by a long line of research projects carried out by the likes of Wayne McIlwraith and Roger Smith, which encourage the training of racehorses early in life. In summary, National Hunt injuries are not avoidable but they might be reduced by strengthening horses’ bones, tendons and ligaments by appropriate training before the age of two. I ISSUE 24 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 25

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Adrian Maguire: the ‘hands-on’ horseman

Adrian Maguire and jockey Mikey O'Connor

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A brilliant and brave jockey, who had his fair share of misfortune with injuries – a broken neck forced him to retire from race riding – Adrian Maguire is now forging a successful career as a trainer and while laid back in personality, he has plenty to say about the state of racing in his home country.

By Lissa Oliver

I

T SAYS much for Adrian Maguire Racing that it has taken me nearly two months to pin the great man himself down for an interview. It isn’t that he’s difficult or unwilling, quite the contrary as he finally welcomes me into his yard, but the Irish weather has conspired with the almost chaotic Irish racing calendar to create additional hardships all trainers could do without.

Under the circumstances, having arrived on a rare day with no scheduled runners, I expected to meet with a man in a hurry to get things done and full of complaints at the current flawed system here in Ireland. I was, of course, wrong.

Like all great trainers, Adrian Maguire is quiet, relaxed, laid back. Nothing seems to fluster him. Perhaps it’s the soothing

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“I was very fortunate to ride for some very good trainers, including David Nicholson, Toby Balding and Michael Hourigan. You’d have to be totally asleep not to learn anything from being around them! presence of horses that takes the strain of what should be a stressful job out of the trainer. Or, as is more likely, the mark of a truly great trainer that he is able to switch off totally and imbue his yard with peace and calm. Amid all the bustle of a working morning the yard is quiet, the horses are quiet, even the scenic mountains that rise up on all sides of the yard shield it from

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weather that is anything but quiet beyond, in the outside world. The horses don’t know there is anything stressful about training.

They are relaxed and content and clearly thriving.

Adrian is a horseman. One of the best jockeys to ever ride under National Hunt Rules, he has now taken his natural gift and channelled it into training. And what he

Maguire is a hands-on trainer and makes a point of getting involved in all aspects of the job, including washing down his horses after work

learned in the saddle applies equally well now that he is out of it. It’s all about educating young horses, nurturing their talent and encouraging them to shine.

“I will never forget what John Mulhern asked me, when I rode a horse of his running for the first time,” Adrian says. “Do you remember your first day at school? And did anyone slap you? He’s only learning, look after him and don’t be hard on him.”

That analogy has stuck with Adrian through life and the patience and skill for which he was so renowned as a jockey is now paying dividends for him as a trainer. “So many people fail to see the bigger picture,” he says, “they think of today’s race as the end result, not the next race or the next season.”

As a National Hunt trainer, Adrian’s biggest problem should be keeping these older horses fit and enthusiastic for season after

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season, but his philosophy already shows that, for him, it’s no problem at all. In that respect he learned from the best.

“I was very fortunate throughout my career to ride for some very good trainers, including David Nicholson, Toby Balding and Michael Hourigan. You’d have to be totally asleep not to learn anything from being around them! We’d have long discussions about what best suits a horse, how they’d like it to be ridden. And you’ve only to look at their records to see how long the good horses lasted with them.”

I wondered if there was any added pressure on Adrian when he retired from such a successful riding career to take up training. Were expectations all the higher?

“Not really,” he reveals. “In many ways it made it slightly easier for me, as I already had the contacts and knew so many good people.” It might have made the transition to training easier for him, but does his past make him a difficult man to ride for? “I think I’m good. I can take any beating on the chin!” he laughs, and then gives it some thought. “I understand the problems. If I made a mistake when I was riding then I’d be the first to admit it. But it doesn’t hurt to point out something about a race that may help the horse next time, to be constructive.

The importance of a stable jockey shouldn’t be underestimated. I try to use the same four or five jockeys whenever possible, because they know the horses and they know how I’d like them to be ridden. It’s important to look after a horse in a race, not to give it a hard time if it clearly isn’t going to win. It only takes it longer to recover and harder for me to get it right for the next race. It isn’t only down to physical fitness.

They need to be kept right mentally.”

Maguire enjoyed an early major success as a jock ey on Sibton Abbey in the 1992 Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbur y

O

UT IN the yard there’s not a head case in sight. It isn’t only down to the secluded surroundings and round gallop that encircles an old Irish ring fort. Adrian built the yard and gallops from scratch, giving careful thought to planning and layout.

“We’d looked at a great many other yards and it was easier to build our own than try to work around an existing one,” he explains. “If you ride out into the mountains around us you could be gone for four hours and never meet another soul. It’s lovely for the horses to relax and gives them some interest. We also like to bring them out for fun rides and to let them watch a pack of hounds. They need to be kept interested mentally.” Freddy the Shetland and Grover and his other canine buddies also help to provide in-yard entertainment!

If the horses are perfectly happy and content, what of their trainer? Surely the stress-free ethos can’t extend to the time spent pouring over the Racing Calendar and

Maguire with Freddy the Shetland pony

trying to make entries! A race at Fairyhouse, for example, has attracted 125 entries, with a limit of 20 runners. “The balloting and the problems this year with weather do make things difficult,” Adrian admits, “but basically the biggest problem in Irish racing is overproduction. I can’t understand how it was ever allowed to get this far out of hand.

Who’s to blame?” It’s a rhetorical question.

Clearly, everyone within the industry who has allowed the situation to reach this point must take some responsibility. But how to resolve it? “We need to get right to the root of the problem – the breeders,” Adrian says emphatically. “I have people ringing me up on a regular basis – regularly,” he stresses,

“asking me if I have a well bred mare for sale on the cheap, something with a bit of a leg or not good enough to race, but a nice pedigree. And why do they want her? To bring her home and put her in foal!” It sounds beyond comprehension, but racing and breeding is an industry and stallion masters remain happy to accept any mare for their fee.

While many sit back, shake their heads and wait for the problem to resolve itself on its own in the sales ring, as they hope, Adrian has a common sense solution.

“Instead of raising the weights in races, why not look at the handicap rating of a mare before she visits a stallion?” he suggests.

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“There should be a way of restricting the bad racemares, based on their racing performances, from visiting stallions.” As to restricting the races that horses still in training can enter, Adrian is fairly philosophical about it. “It’s not ideal, but we manage. The main problem is that it forces you to run a horse in a race that may not suit. By the time it gets a turn, the course might not be ideal, the ground conditions might not suit, the distance might not be the optimum. But if you don’t give it a go you’re back at the bottom of the barrel again. It’s a vicious circle.”

Maguire with wife Sabrina

W

HILE the more obvious irritations to Irish trainers don’t upset Adrian too much, what does annoy him is the lack of attention to the foundations of racing.

“Irish racing is going through a purple patch at the moment. Our horses are among the best in the world and our prize money is high. We can offer €10,000 to a maiden hurdle winner, but everyone is too busy sitting back congratulating themselves, while the day-to-day things are being taken for granted and overlooked.” He would like to see the money ploughed back in equally well behind the scenes, too. “Irish racing presents a rosy front, but behind the scenes things can be shabby,” he points out. “Some racecourse stables leave a lot to be desired. I know trainers who would rather stable a horse in a yard nearby than use the racecourse stables.

The canteens for the stable staff are often very poor. A lot of courses are working hard to improve this and have already done so, but there are still a great many lagging behind.”

It’s not a problem restricted to behind the scenes facilities, either. “Many racecourses employ the finest vets in the country, but no matter how good they are, a great many of them are getting on in years and are simply not physically able to cope with an injured or distressed racehorse,” he insists. “With every respect to the vets on course, despite their knowledge, their ability to handle a horse is a worry to me. As a trainer, it’s important to me to see that my horse gets the best care and treatment possible and I don’t always think it’s adequately provided.

It’s a problem that needs to be said and needs to be addressed.”

Similarly, Adrian is concerned that despite calls for their presence paramedics are still not provided at Irish racecourses. “I have every respect for the voluntary groups, the St John’s Ambulance and the Order of Malta. But we are talking about the health and livelihoods of professional jockeys.

They surely deserve enough respect and support from the racecourses to provide paramedics.” He recognises similar problems at point-to-points where he feels

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“We can offer €10,000 to a maiden hurdle winner, but everyone is too busy sitting back congratulating themselves, while the day-to-day things are being taken for granted and overlooked”

health and safety issues are often ignored.

“Let’s not forget that many a future champion has come up through the ranks of point-to-points, both horses and jockeys.

They should be regulated just as strongly,” he warns. “We’re taking a lot of things in racing for granted and forgetting some simple, basic issues.”

It seems typical, in the short time I have spent with Adrian, that his biggest concern is not one of ballots and cancellations at all, but of standards and welfare for horses, staff and jockeys. Rather than simply complain, he is full of energy and constructive ideas as to how these issues could be resolved. But one particular issue still frustrates him and leaves him lost for an answer.

Having questioned him all morning, I now allow him to pose one of his own.

“Who is responsible for returning the colours bag?!” he asks. “Does anyone actually know?” We run through the possibilities: the valets, the chap at the door who takes receipt of the bags in the first place? “Tight security rules mean we have to hand them in to the man at the door, rather than be allowed in to mix with the jockeys,” Adrian explains, “but afterwards we have to wander straight in among the jockeys to collect them up! It’s a contradiction in security! Exactly whose job is it to return the colours?!” Answers on a postcard please! I

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BUSINESS

Italian racing goes on strike and A brings Rome to a standstill

By Niki Sweetnam

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LITALIA lives to fly another day thanks to a combination of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s business acumen, unshakable confidence, negotiation skills tuned finer than the engine of a Boeing 747, and utter persistence in the face of strong opposition from syndicate representatives well beyond the eleventh hour.

On 10th October, not far from the Circus Massimus, the famous site where ancient Romans organised chariot races, the angry passengers disembarked. Over 2000 members of the racing community gathered - their protest in Rome’s Piazza della Repubblica a final attempt to get the gravity of what has happened to Italian racing noticed and acted upon. Meanwhile inside Ministerial buildings on the same street and also just one block away on Via XX Settembre, members of the recently formed Crisis Committee met government ministers and their deputies to explain exactly what was happening to the industry and the importance of taking immediate action. Since this date there has been no racing. Neither harness racing nor thoroughbred racing. The daily racing paper is only four pages long, the TV in the stud office, permanently on the UNIRE racing channel, is on standby.

The livelihood of some 50,000 families

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directly involved in the industry is now at risk; there is no estimate available for those indirectly involved such as feed merchants, pharmaceutical suppliers and specialist clothing manufacturers. Why? Betting. TV rights. Attendance figures. Prize money.

Fuel. Sound familiar?

Let’s turn the clock back to January 1999.

Roberto Borroni, then Deputy Minister for Agriculture, outlined to parliament the unrest in racing circles that has led to the protests of recent weeks. He emphasised the need to restructure UNIRE [Unione Nazionale Incremento Razze Equine – Italian Jockey Club] to streamline its management and reduce its bureaucracy. He recalled the decree passed in April 1998 to reorganise all forms of betting relative to horseracing in such a way that UNIRE could benefit from the subsequent increases in revenue from this, its principle source of income. Under this April ’98 decree the management of the Tote passed into the hands of the Ministry for Finance, there was to be a public tender for betting licences, new betting concessionaries and outlets, and a new decree drawn up for the management of TV rights. He also outlined the minor changes made to taxation on the betting system made law in December 1998. At this point Stefano Losurdo (politician belonging to the National Alliance party, later elected to the Senate of the Republic) responded. His hope

was that “l’ippica italiana” would not be viewed by the government as a group of rich gentlemen with precious little to do all day.

Rather that the racing industry would be viewed as just that, an industry that forms an important part of the Italian economy and provides jobs for countless Italians. Indeed he even suggested that the government renounce their portion of the “take” on betting income from racing in light of the emergence of so many new forms of gambling that are pulling punters away from racing and thus depriving it of vital funds.

Losurdo continued that in his opinion the government had ignored this sector and turned a blind eye to its problems. Instead, it had promoted the so-called “high-risk” forms of gambling and favoured them in their legislation reforms, to the detriment of traditional betting (A quick look at gambling websites shows just how much gambling legislation has been liberalised in the last two decades here). Losurdo stated that these newer “high-risk” gambles did not necessarily require any subject knowledge or judgement call, neither did they have entire families employed behind the scenes, nor did they allow multiple winners on any given gamble.

A small number of winners collects a large sum of money with little or no skill being involved. The reader can draw his or her own comparisons with a dual forecast on a 17runner card during the Cheltenham Festival.

Now let’s turn the clock forward to autumn 2008. In ten years, none of these problems has been resolved satisfactorily; instead, all have come to a head again at a time when the global economy is in total turmoil, banks are being bailed out, investors’ lack of confidence has left the stock market showing more red than black, the property market is in decline, high street retailers are announcing profit slumps; in short, the word “recession” seems to be no longer a headline to grab attention, but a reality.

Following the 1998 crisis, that led to strikes and protests similar to those taking place right now, UNIRE had been “reformed” to turn it into a self sufficient government body with at least €400 million in its annual budget in order to enable it to, and I summarise from the original decree written into Italian law, organise, Minister of Agriculture Luca Zaia (left) and Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti meet protesters

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“Over 2000 members of the racing community gathered – their protest in Rome’s Piazza della Repubblica a final attempt to get the gravity of what has happened to Italian racing noticed and acted upon” administer, govern, control, promote, develop and improve all spheres of equine activity with specific emphasis on the English thoroughbred and the Italian trotter, in full collaboration with other national and international bodies. In addition it was to guarantee the transmission of Italian racing across a national TV network. A very far-reaching remit. Unfortunately UNIRE’s history since then has been anything but stable. There have been constant changes in the upper echelons of its management; generally speaking these are “political” appointments which change as governments come in and out. Continual changes of policy and decision making by management invested with power and authority by nature of their political status but who lack a technical knowledge of the racing industry have proved detrimental to the sport. This factor also translates into a difficulty in understanding the needs and thus coordinating the efforts of the various representative associations of breeders,

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trainers, owners, drivers and jockeys to work towards common goals. At no stage does there ever seem to have been a business plan laid out determining budgets, resources, targets, areas for development that someone new could walk in, pick up, and know roughly in what direction to start shooting and with what ammunition.

B

Y THE end of 2001, UNIRE had a deficit of nearly 700 billion lira according to a recent report. Today, there are several different figures being quoted, there doesn’t seem to be consensus on the exact size of its deficit. UNIRE is funded 87% by income from gambling, 10% by the state, and 3% from TV rights and other miscellaneous sources. Apparently the monies due for TV rights have never been paid into UNIRE by the agencies in question and amount to millions. We have known for more than a decade that too many Italians are choosing to gamble on something other than horse

racing, with legislation such as the Bersani Decree outlined below only hindering matters. Since satellite TV started beaming mainstream European sports into Italian homes in 2003 and broadband internet reached all the main urban centres, there are quite simply easier and more lucrative options. Obviously the fewer people bet into a pool, the smaller it gets, the harder it becomes to make a large bet as putting a sizeable wager on a horse will drive his price down to the point where it’s not worth placing the bet, and thus the pool decreases again. Slot machines are allowed in oncourse betting shops but none of their profits go back into racing. Had one picked up any Italian daily the Monday after Arc weekend one would have been hard pushed to find a mention of Zarkava, let alone a picture. Racing attendances have been decimated in the last decade, and on-course bets have dropped significantly, despite the fact that the number of days racing and the number of races per year has increased. Too many races drawing not enough crowds and generating little on-course betting income screams quantity not quality.

The Bersani Decree of 2006 had as its objective an increase in the income from sporting bets. Its outcome was the exact opposite. Article 38 saw a newly compacted network of 17,000 betting outlets (reduced from 24,000) of which 3,000 were to be exclusively for racing. Furthermore the Bersani Decree did away with the roles of MIPAF [Ministro delle Politiche Agricole e Forestali – Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry] and UNIRE on the Government’s Gaming Committee, meaning that new kinds of bet were introduced without technical consultation, which did not appeal

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STRUCTURE OF ITALIAN BETTING

€1 bet on national Tote

Win – 29 cents Dual f/cast – 33 cents Trifecta – 40 cents Quarté or Quinté – 43 cents

Levy

Punter

Point of sale 8 cents

Win – 71 cents Dual f/cast 66 cents Trifecta – 60 cents Quarté or Quinté – 57 cents

State 6 cents

Point of sale 12.2 cents

AAMS

Win – 14 cents Dual f/cast – 14 cents Trifecta – 20 cents Quarté or Quinté – 23 cents

€1 normal bet

Punter 71.4 cents

UNIRE

Concessionary

Win – 0 All other 2 cents

Win – 1 cent All other 3 ½ cents

Levy 28.6 cents

State 4.5 cents

to race goers. The direct result was the closure of around 10,000 small family-run betting shops, and a vastly reduced income from betting turnover for UNIRE. In its first semester, the Decree reduced racing’s revenue by €68 million and UNIRE’s by €11 million.

As a result UNIRE has had to make cuts across the board in the last two years, the most devastating of which has been prize money and premiums, down 16.5%. Whilst the prize money for Listed and Group races remains favourable in comparison with other European countries as Italy fights to keep the Group 1 status of its Derby, lower down the scale the picture is not so rosy.

Anybody want to become an owner? The sales results from Milan answered that question. Median down 40%, aggregate down 45%, average down 30%. This year for the first time ever, foreign buyers accounted for over 25% of the SGA’s [Società Gestione Aste – main Italian sales company] aggregate, and the three largest Italian investors pared back considerably on

UNIRE 11.9 cents

their purchases.

Perhaps Senator Riccardo Villari’s letter to both the Minister for Agriculture Luca Zaia and the Minister for Finance Giulio Tremonti reprinted in the racing press recently sums up the dire situation. The letter asks serious questions about the apparent signing off of the UNIRE balance sheet that lead to the prize money cuts of 16.5% in two years seemingly without consultation, why other forms of gambling, not necessarily linked to any sport at all, have been so heavily supported and promoted by the government, why of the actual 2008 AAMS [Azienda Autonoma Monopoli di Stato – State Monopoly] turnover nothing has been destined for the racing sector despite the fact that racing continues to generate revenue for AAMS without ever receiving anything in return.

Ultimately the buck stops with the two aforementioned Ministers who must provide answers as to how UNIRE has been run.

As it stands, from a bet of €1 UNIRE gets just under 12 cents return to the state’s 4.5

cents. The betting outlet gets the remaining 12.2 cents that make up the 28.6 cent take.

From a bet on the Tote UNIRE gets between 14 cents from a “win” bet to 23 cents for a “quarté” or “quinté” while the state takes six cents. In all a “win” bet on the Tote is levied to the tune of 29 cents leaving a possible 72 cents in the punter’s hand, this levy being divided between the betting point, the state, UNIRE, and AAMS, whereas on a “quarté” or “quinté” the levy rises to 43 cents, giving the punter just 57 cents in his hand.

I

N THE decade since the last crisis, if one thing has really put Italy on the international stage it has been the breeders’ incentives programme which up until now has run over three-year cycles allowing breeders to plan their matings with confidence on a medium term basis. Contributions for buying qualified (read black type winning/ producing) mares abroad and financial assistance with up to 50% of the nomination fee of approved stallions have allowed breeders to produce world class champions such as Rakti, Falbrav, Electrocutionist, and to both buy and sell the top priced mares and foals at the breeding stock sales in England and Ireland. Italian breeders have invested heavily in this period, but do not now look set to see positive returns on their

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ITALIAN RACING 20-YEAR COMPARISON No. of days racing per year No. of races per year No. of spectators No. of starters declared Prize money (€) On-course bets

1986 575 4,284 1,139,347 30,648 75,538,769 83,936,690

2006 822 5,855 115,148 48,631 244,900,000 54,441,523

SGA SALES RESULTS (€) A sale which has seen steady growth in aggregate from just over €3 million in 2002 to €7.5 million in 2006.

2008 2007

Offered Sold %Sold Aggregate Average Median 240 168 70 3,791,500 23,404 13,000 302 211 69 7,159,000 33,929 22,000

Source Trotto & Turf 10/10/08

investments. Not only has the release of the 2008 funding, on the back of which they had already booked millions of euros worth of nominations for their black type mares and had them shipped abroad for covering, been touch and go until, like Alitalia, the eleventh hour, but the programme is almost certainly going to be axed in 2009. In 2005, the last year for which a complete set of data is available, 778 qualified Italian-based mares were covered, 520 of them abroad. The total value of the stud fees for the stallions to which these qualified mares were booked was €12 million, to which UNIRE contributed €4.5 million. More than half went to Ireland for a total of €7.77 million worth of covering fees. On average over the 5 year period from 2000 to 2005 42% of all Italian-based mares were covered abroad.

Several large breeders and many more smaller breeders have already brought their stock back to Italy on a permanent basis, and many more are likely to follow suit. Should the breeders’ incentives programme be axed, the negative repercussions of this move will be felt throughout European stallion stations and boarding farms.

The Comitato di Crisi (Crisis Committee), a group composed of the leaders of all the various racing associations for jockeys, owners, drivers, trainers, breeders and supporters, has come together to present a united front. This one voice, representing all the interest groups of “l’ippica italiana”, is the voice on which racing is hinged in these days of tension.

The Comitato will need more than

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Berlusconi’s business acumen, unshakable confidence, fine tuned negotiation skills, and utter persistence if they are to agree to a solution with government that will halt racing’s downward spiral and instead of plugging the gaping holes with short term measures, provide a long term plan to stabilise the industry. The Comitato is being diplomatically co-ordinated by the Honourable Mario Masini, President of the Thoroughbred Owners’ Association.

I

N A series of emergency meetings, the Comitato has laid out its priorities for the future of racing.

Stabilising UNIRE is its first priority; viz. how much is left in the budget for 2008, how can money best be distributed without further prize money cuts, what other resources does UNIRE have to call upon? The Minister of Finance’s urgent intervention was requested but time is running out as we are nearly at year end.

Second priority: increase betting turnover. Again the government’s intervention would be required, and quickly, to increase the number of outlets where one can bet on racing in the immediate future, and then to increase the amount of money from betting that goes back into racing. Curiously, while UNIRE is expected to fund itself from the profits from managing betting it is actually by law not allowed directly to organise and manage racing-related gambling (this is done by AAMS) so how can it possibly be in control

of its own purse? The Comitato proposes that AAMS give UNIRE more say in the management of how betting on racing is run, and above all that AAMS take responsibility for guaranteeing UNIRE a basic annual income sufficient to cover its institutional costs and a further percentage of takings on money gambled in betting shops, racing corners or racecourses, including from slot machines, even if it has not been gambled on racing. Such monies would then be used to bring prize money levels up to a competitive level. It also proposes that the introduction of virtual racing be stopped in its tracks as it poses a further threat to racing.

Another action that could increase betting turnover would be on-course betting, that is, that if the companies that manage Italy’s racecourses put aside a percentage of the takings generated from non-racing related bets, including slot machine takings, this would also be put into prize money.

The companies which manage the racecourses should be managed properly as profit-making businesses with responsibilities to their “shareholders”.

Thirdly the Comitato proposes a remodelling of UNIRE itself. The dream is as it was a decade ago, a more streamlined operation, run by people who know about racing and promoting the racing product. It also suggests that an independent antidoping commission be set up as currently this is controlled by UNIRE and the process is not transparent.

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Members of the Comitato di Crisi

“Palazzo Chigi, Sala Verde, 3rd Floor, 4.30pm, 16th October. The heavyweights met. No concrete answers from the government. A further meeting on 21st October. Still nothing tangible, and thus the strike action continues and will intensify” Fourthly, the committee has asked that the Italian government formally recognise the business of breeding and training horses as an agricultural activity and treat it as such fiscally, and when considering development programmes. It is only a matter of months since the government introduced VAT of 20% on the sale of horses, thus Mr. Average Owner going to the sales with €24,000 in his pocket to buy a yearling could actually only

bid up to €20,000, knowing that the rest was going to be VAT, sales commission apart.

Likewise there should be a set of rules in place that regulate the health and wellbeing of the horse as an agricultural animal.

Finally, it has recommended that there should be a Technical Board within UNIRE composed of representatives from harness racing, thoroughbred racing, competition horses and racecourses to oversee the

planning and scheduling of all racing and competition calendars, and breeders programmes.

Having made the needs of racing crystal clear, and the requests for help even clearer, the Comitato then held a follow-up meeting on 16th October and agreed that until this date the industry would remain on strike.

Palazzo Chigi, Sala Verde, 3rd Floor, 4.30pm, 16th October. The heavyweights met. No concrete answers from the government. A further meeting on 21st October. Still nothing tangible, and thus the strike action continues and will intensify.

The only concrete action promised to date by the Minister for Agriculture is a thorough overhaul of UNIRE’s accounting and management practises since 2004 by a management consultancy firm, leading to the development of a new business plan in conjunction with the Minister for Finance.

Total cost €60 000, time frame 6 months.

Actions, however, speak louder than words, and if the laws regarding how racing is governed and funded were to be completely revised now, re-written, then put into effect on 1st January 2009, and properly policed by this government that would be, well, wonderful, for want of a better word. If attention to detail to the point of obsession that has hitherto been lacking filtered down from the very highest ranks of the industry and became part of the culture of how “l’ippica italiana” conducted its business, that precision would help “l’ippica italiana” to help itself enormously.

An approximation of international safety standards in the airline industry is not the same as meeting international safety standards. In the former case, the plane is not granted permission to take off. In the latter case it is. And in the case of Italian racing, if the plane is not brought back into the hangar, dismantled piece by piece, and rebuilt from scratch by skilled mechanics, then regularly maintained once back in service, it has little hope of pulling back out onto the runway, and being able to operate a busy flight schedule at full capacity. I

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TRAINING

HEART MONITORS AND LACTIC ACID ANALYSIS

By James Tate BVMS MRCVS

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HEART MONITORS AND LACTATE ANALYSIS

The 2008 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Denman recently developed a heart problem called atrial fibrillation that is often linked to the oversize of a particular heart chamber (the atrium).

Is the heart of this great champion pushing itself so far to the limit that it is struggling to cope?

E

QUINE exercise physiology has been subject to major scientific advances over the last three decades. The advent of highspeed treadmills created the opportunity to use more advanced recording techniques and the knowledge obtained from this, combined with that from human athletes, leaves us in a much more informed position as to what exactly goes on inside the racehorse at exercise. With the introduction of new technology such as horse-walkers and allweather gallops, training methods have become more advanced than they were 30 years ago. Nevertheless, this article will question whether trainers should be taking a more scientific approach and using tools such as heart monitors and lactic acid analysis to aid in the daily training of the racehorse.

The racing fraternity consider great horses to have great hearts. However, there seems to be a lack of conviction behind this view as hardly anyone this side of the Atlantic scans the hearts of young-stock and only a few monitor cardiac function. The average 500kg racehorse has nearly 50 litres of blood, which the heart pumps throughout the body. The main function of this cardiovascular system is to release carbon dioxide and pick up oxygen in the lungs and spread it throughout the body where it can be released and used. The heart is the centre of this system with its right side pumping blood with low oxygen from the body to the lungs and the left side pumping highly oxygenated blood from the lungs to the body. It stands to reason that a great racehorse needs a good-sized, efficient heart and it should be easy to monitor how much training is stressing the heart, and therefore the horse, by simply recording the heart rate

– yet this is rarely done.

The equine heart is a large structure of approximately the same size as a football, which beats quite slowly at rest but which is capable of increasing its resting heart rate by as much as six to ten times when at peak exercise. The horse is the only mammal capable of such an increase (a human is doing well to achieve an increase of three fold) and this perhaps explains why it is such a talented athlete. The heart is situated in the horse’s chest just behind the elbow, almost completely surrounded by the lungs and only a small part of the heart is left uncovered, which is called the cardiac notch.

This is the area where the heart makes contact with the left chest wall and so it is the best place to listen to it and to perform cardiac ultrasound. Ultrasound of the heart (echocardiography) enables veterinary surgeons to visualise what is going on in this most central organ. There are several veterinary surgeons, particularly in the United States, who believe that the best racehorses have the most efficient hearts and travel from sale to sale examining yearlings using ultrasound to advise potential purchasers of the ‘best’ hearts on offer.

Unfortunately, as anyone who has followed their advice will know, having a heart that looks great on ultrasound examination does not seem to guarantee that the racehorse in question is a champion. The reader can come to their own conclusions as to why, but surely having the ‘best’ heart is only one part in the selection of a future champion.

Veterinary surgeons routinely listen to horses’ hearts in an attempt to detect abnormalities such as murmurs. However, should trainers be routinely monitoring heart rate in response to exercise? Not only might they find abnormalities like the atrial

fibrillation seen in Denman, but much more commonly and more importantly, they might get an idea as to whether they have just asked a particular horse to do a little more than they had intended and so could alter its training regime appropriately.

There are a small number of heart monitors available on the market but nearly all trainers make the decision that it is a piece of information that they can do without.

M

EASURING a horse’s heart rate is straightforward. Simply attach the heart-belt to the horse, turn on the transmitter and monitor the horse’s heart rate on a watch whilst it exercises. The obvious benefit of such a system is that heart rate reflects cardiac output and hence we learn how hard the horse is working. On a daily basis, we watch horses blowing after exercise, we ask the riders how fit they think they are and we weigh the horses. Measuring and recording heart rates in response to exercise could surely provide another useful tool in the training of the racehorse. A horse’s heart rate increases in response to external stress as well as exercise, which can lead to misleading results. For example, a horse may return a higher heart rate during a particular piece of work than truly reflects its fitness if it ‘shied’ at something. The knack is not only learning to read the difference between a false heart rate but understanding the all important recovery rate. In addition, many horsemen could point out with some justification that measuring equine heart rates during a piece of work would only serve to distract their attention from making more important observations – something they have trained

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TRAINING

“The racing fraternity consider great horses to have great hearts.

However, hardly anyone this side of the Atlantic scans the hearts of young-stock and only a few monitor cardiac function”

Photographs showing the gross appearance of the equine heart and its position in the chest, just behind the elbow, from where it can be easily monitored

themselves to do by watching horses all of their lives. Used on a day to day basis, the heart rate monitor can also be an effective tool in the assessment of the overall condition of the horse, as an above normal heart rate when training starts and slower than normal recovery rate are often the first indications of an underlying problem.

A heart monitor With every stride that the racehorse takes,

many muscles are contracting and relaxing.

Everyone knows that the horse requires energy in order to do this, but what will be considered now is how exactly the energy in the muscle fuels a muscle contraction and the relevance of this to daily training regimes. There are three main muscle types in the horse’s body – skeletal muscle, which is attached to bones; smooth muscle, which is found covering internal organs such as intestines; and cardiac muscle, which is

GLYCOGEN (stored in muscles)

GLUCOSE Glycolysis PYRUVIC ACID

ENERGY Krebs Cycle

Oxygen NAD+ and LACTIC ACID

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Acetyl CoA

Oxygen

found in the heart. Cardiac muscle never tires until death, smooth muscle is also extremely fatigue-resistant, but skeletal muscle is regularly pushed so far that it all but gives up, especially during a race. There are two main types of skeletal muscle fibre.

Slow-twitch fibres are bright red in colour, use oxygen in their aerobic energy production and fatigue only slowly when the fuel runs out. Fast-twitch fibres are pale and use much less oxygen than the slowtwitch fibres and fatigue quickly as a result when they become bathed in a solution of the acidic by-products of their anaerobic energy production.

Muscles store energy in the form of carbohydrates within a compound called glycogen. This energy storage compound can nearly instantaneously be turned into glucose, which in turn can rapidly produce energy for the muscle by a process known as glycolysis. This sounds straightforward, but the problem comes with what to do with the product of glycolysis – pyruvic acid. There are two main possible fates for pyruvic acid.

Firstly, if there is sufficient oxygen present then it will be converted to a compound called acetyl CoA, which will then be oxidised through the Krebs cycle to produce energy. However, if the energy demand exceeds the available oxygen supply, pyruvic acid will be converted into two compounds.

One of these, NAD+, will aid continued anaerobic glycolysis but the other is the not

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TRAINING

You only need a drop of blood and the easiest way is a simple draw from the jugular vein

A lactate level of 1.9 which was the result of the first phase of the field test

“A study was recently conducted in Japan that suggests that lactic analysis can be used easily for the monitoring of the exercise of racehorses” so useful, well-discussed ‘by-product’, lactic acid.

Lactic acid is not a compound that is only produced when a horse is pushed too far.

Any horse has a number of very fast-twitch skeletal muscle fibres, which whenever they are called upon for an effort, produce a certain amount of lactic acid. As a result, there is a ‘normal’ resting blood level of lactic acid found in every racehorse.

However, during strenuous exercise the body struggles to deal with the amount of lactic acid being produced and so a build-up occurs due to the lack of oxygen available.

When the horse ceases the strenuous exercise, it stops producing more lactic acid and the lactic acid already in the blood is picked up by the liver, which uses the available oxygen to convert it back into pyruvic acid that can now be used for energy via the Krebs cycle.

Following long duration, low intensity activity, such as a slow three mile canter, muscle fatigue is theoretically only brought about by the depletion of energy – i.e. a lack of glycogen. However, following short duration, high intensity activity, for example, a three furlong gallop, muscle fatigue is caused by increased acidity in the muscle due to lactic acid production. As lactic acid is transported away in the blood, this produces an opportunity to measure blood levels of lactic acid immediately after exercise and

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before it is converted back into pyruvic acid, therefore giving us a window to view what is happening in the skeletal muscles of our equine athletes and to inform us of when we are pushing them out of their comfort zone.

Lactate Analysis Lactic acid is measured in the blood as ‘lactate’. Lactate monitoring has been carried out in human athletes for some time by the likes of Juerg Feldmann, who successfully uses a device called the Lactate Pro Analyzer®, which measures blood lactate level by means of a simple needle prick.

Feldmann has coached several successful athletes including Olympic runners, cyclists and skiers. However, there is no good scientific reason why lactate analysis must be restricted to human athletes and proponents such as US Standardbred trainer Joe Geiser are attempting to encourage its use in the equine world. Lactate measurement in horses has been carried out successfully and a study was recently conducted in Japan that suggests that lactic analysis can be used easily for the monitoring of the exercise of racehorses. Trainers could use such a tool after a piece of work to measure exactly how hard a particular horse has been pushed.

Conclusion Racehorse training has advanced considerably from the days of exercising

A heart monitor is essential in determining a Lactate Balance point – one of the resulting benefits of the test

horses around grass fields and relying on the horseman’s eye to know when the horse was ready to go to the races. Automatic horsewalkers and all-weather gallops have revolutionised the way in which we train horses; computerised work records and weighing machines have changed how we deem them to have reached full fitness; and routine blood sampling, endoscopy and ‘maintenance’ injections claim to ensure that they compete at the maximal level of performance.

Training methods will not stand still, they never have and they never will – the only question is what will turn out to be the next major advance. In order for the equine athlete to perform at its best, its cardiovascular and musculoskeletal system must be trained to perfection. This is something that varies depending on the race at which the horse is being targeted. Five furlong sprinters must be bulging with finelytuned fast-twitch skeletal muscle fibres, whereas three mile chasers must be packed full of efficient slow-twitch fibres with both animals possessing cardiovascular systems trained to keep them running from the start to the finish. Monitoring heart rates and lactic acid levels are theoretically very useful tools with which to ensure that that the racehorse arrives at the start in peak condition. Perhaps we should take them more seriously. I

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NUTRITION

Amino Acid Supplements

By Dr Catherine Dunnett

THE BACKGROUND Horses in training are traditionally fed a diet that is high in protein, but it is the amino acid content of the protein-rich ingredients that is the important component, as horses have a requirement for amino acids and not intact protein per se. Amino acids are the basic unit or building blocks for protein that is needed for the growth and repair of all tissues in the body, from skeletal muscle to hoof horn. Amino acids are also needed for the synthesis of enzymes, some hormones and neurotransmitters that are involved in numerous metabolic pathways essential to effective exercise performance. The source of protein in the diet is as important as the quantity, because the constituent amino acids will vary from source to source. Some protein sources are also more beneficial than others because not only are they more easily digested, but they may have a more appropriate balance of amino acids relative to a horse’s requirements. Horses can only utilise amino acids when the parent protein is digested in the small intestine, not the hindgut, and so high digestibility in the former location is important. For example, the protein contained in cereals such as oats, which remain the mainstay of most racing diets, is digested easily in the small intestine, compared with the protein content of forage from hay or haylage. Feeding small meals on a little and often basis will promote good protein digestion. Large meals, however, can increase the speed of throughput through the upper region of the digestive tract and so reduce the opportunity for protein to be digested here.

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Are amino acids essential?

As far as the amino acids themselves are concerned there are basically two groups or families. Non-essential amino acids such as alanine and glutamine can be synthesised by the horse from other constituent amino acids and are therefore generally not required in the diet, although as we will see later there are certain circumstances where supplementation of non-essential amino acids such as glutamine could be beneficial to horses in training, or those recuperating from injury or disease. Essential amino acids as the name suggests refers to those that cannot be made in the body and thus must be provided in sufficient amounts in the diet. Whilst we do not know enough about the amino acid requirements of horses in training, as for other horses lysine and threonine are believed to be the two amino acids which are limited in the diet and certainly the former if not the latter would be routinely added to racing feeds by manufacturers. Whilst there is no data in horses, in man, histidine and arginine are regarded as conditionally essential during times of rapid cell division associated with growth, or recovery from injury or disease.

The majority of the amino acids found within the racing diet would be supplied by normal ingredients in coarse mixes, cubes or straights accompanied by forage. There is also, however, an established practice of providing amino acids above and beyond the basic diet through top dressed supplements. This trend has probably been transferred from practices in human

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Some studies suggest that Tryptophan can attenuate excitable behaviour

athletics and other sports where amino acidrich drinks and powdered supplements are often used.

Why use amino acid supplements?

Human athletes incorporate protein and amino acid supplements into their diet for a variety of reasons including to increase muscle mass, to reduce muscle damage during exercise, to reduce the incidence of exercise related anaemia and to promote glycogen resynthesis when taken with readily available carbohydrate post-exercise.

Whilst the general consensus appears to be that protein supplementation per se is perhaps not warranted, supplementing with amino acids either individually or in combination may have ergogenic effects that go beyond the role of total protein within the diet. Amino acids that have been discussed in this respect in human sports nutrition include tryptophan, branch chain amino acids (leucine, isoleucine, valine), glutamine, aspartate, arginine, tyrosine and taurine. Overall there is very little evidence for the beneficial effect of most of these amino acids in horses although some, like glutamine for example, have been looked at, so again we are left to draw inadequate conclusions from work that has been carried out in other species.

Potentially beneficial amino acids to look out for Glutamine Glutamine is a non-essential amino acid and is also one of the most abundant amino acids in the tissues of the body. Glutamine plays a major role in supporting immunity, as it provides an important energy source for cells of the gastro-intestinal tract and the immune system, such as lymphocytes and macrophages. Glutamine is also required for the synthesis of glutathione, which is an important antioxidant throughout the body but particularly within muscles and the lungs. Glutamine has also been suggested to promote muscle glycogen synthesis and muscle strength. Glutamine supplementation in horses has recently attracted some attention, as it is believed that a reduced supply of glutamine to the immune system, such as may occur during overtraining, could compromise future immune response. In humans, when plasma glutamine concentration is reduced this can be associated with a reduced immune response in terms of the proliferation of lymphocytes. It has also been suggested in human athletes that reduced availability of glutamine can contribute to an increased incidence of viral infections, although results in this area are equivocal.

Essential amino acids

Non-essential amino acids

Valine Leucine Isoleucine Lysine Methionine Threonine Phenylalanine Tryptophan Histidine

Tyrosine Glycine Alanine Cysteine Serine Aspartamine Asparagine Glutamate Glutamine Arginine Proline

Viral challenge in horses is associated with a major depletion in plasma glutamine concentration (>30%), but glutamine status can be restored through supplementation with either L-glutamine or ingredients such as hydrolysed wheat gluten, which are a naturally rich source of natural glutamine.

In humans, therapeutic benefits from glutamine supplementation have been reported in situations of stress, e.g. from athletic activity, or clinical disease. A similar effect would clearly benefit horses in intense and sustained training, or those under clinical stress due to infection, however as yet the true effectiveness of dietary glutamine supplementation in horses in training has not been fully evaluated.

Branched chain amino acids The so-called branch chain amino acids (BCAA) refer collectively to leucine, isoleucine, and valine. These have been researched extensively in human athletes for their hypothesised beneficial effects on exercise performance in terms of delaying the onset or perception of fatigue – otherwise known as central fatigue – improving concentration, and reducing protein and muscle breakdown during intense exercise. The rationale for their effect on central fatigue is that they help maintain a high ratio of BCAA/tryptophan in the circulation. Tryptophan is a precursor for serotonin which depresses the central nervous system and contributes to the perception of fatigue. Exercise normally increases the exposure of the brain to increased levels of serotonin through an increase in the free tryptophan concentration in the blood. The role of branch chain amino acids is to compete with tryptophan for movement across the blood brain barrier hence reducing the exposure of the brain to serotonin, thus delaying fatigue. Results in human studies have been mixed and many of the trials have investigated endurance rather than short term high intensity exercise. In the horse, endurance exercise studies have confirmed a decrease in the BCAA/Tryptophan ratio.

Of the two BCAA supplementation studies

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carried out in Standardbred trotters undergoing high intensity exercise, neither reported any significant benefit of the addition of BCAA to the diet. However, as one of the main effects of BCAA is reputed to be delaying central fatigue, one has to question the use of standardised exercise tests to fully evaluate the potential benefit of BCAA. Tryptophan Tryptophan is an aromatic amino acid and as we have already discussed is the precursor for the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin metabolism is complex, but it is believed to play a role in sedation and suppression of aggression, fear and stress. Tryptophan is a commonly found ingredient in calming supplements for horses. Whilst there is research to support the effect of tryptophan supplementation in reducing aggression and fearfulness in a variety of species, the effect on hyperexcitability, which is more characteristic of badly behaved horses, is less clear. A recent review on the use of tryptophan in horses highlighted studies

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Spirulina, a blue-green algae has a ver y high amino acid content

which suggest that at a low dose tryptophan can actually attenuate excitable behaviour but may have a detrimental effect on endurance performance with a higher daily intake. The authors in this review suggest that work should be carried out promptly in horses to establish the true effect of tryptophan on behaviour given its continued use in calming supplements.

Sources of amino acids There are a variety of forms in which amino acids are offered for horses within supplements currently. Ingredients such as soya bean meal, whey protein and milk derivatives are commonplace. Others such as spirulina or ingredients derived from blood fractions are less common. The position of any blood-based products with respect to the feeding stuffs legislation is questionable in this post-BSE era. Milk pellets on the other hand have been a traditionally used ingredient for many years

and are a popular and effective method for improving condition in horses. Soya bean meal, whilst having a good profile of amino acids, is found commonly within racing feeds and so the benefit of further addition may not be significant. Whey protein is isolated from liquid whey, which is a derivative of the cheese-making process or casein manufacture. Whey protein or hydrolysed whey protein, where the material has been pre-digested to improve its availability, are very popular with human athletes in both the competitive and leisure sectors. The work on whey protein in man suggests consumption following exercise results in an increase in muscle protein synthesis, which potentially could aid muscle recovery. To date, however, there is no published research on the use of whey for performance horses. Sprirulina is an interesting ingredient that has recently emerged in the equine arena. This bluegreen algae that has been consumed by the Mexican, African and Asian population for thousands of years is considered to be a complete or superior protein due to its very high amino acid content (62%). It also contains other beneficial nutrients such as antioxidants, vitamins and trace minerals.

Spirulina is reputed to enhance immunity, promote the formation and development of red blood cells and protect against allergic reactions. However, despite the availability of spirulina-based products for horses, its potential benefit has not been investigated scientifically. An exercise related study in athletes suggests an improvement in exercise performance in terms of time to fatigue and a beneficial effect on ameliorating muscle damage.

In summary, the popularity of amino acid supplements in human athletics has not significantly transferred to the equine market as judged by the volume of products available. In addition, whilst there are some interesting individual amino acids and some novel ingredients that show potential in horses, the scant research available does not dictate them to be an essential supplement for the horse in training. I

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S

HORT-DISTANCE transport of racehorses is, as every trainer knows, almost always of very little consequence. The only significant exception are the “bad travellers” that may or may not respond to repeated exposure to transport and a patient approach. Longer distance transport presents a much greater challenge and months of work and planning can be undone in the course of a few hours.

There is much focus on the duration of the journey. However this often fails to take door-to-door time and allowances for delay into consideration. In fact, there is a personal maxim – “the only certainty in transport,...is delay.” Scientific evidence shows very clearly that measurable journey effects can be detected after eight hours of transport. These effects include weight loss and changes in the cells and biochemical components of circulating blood. The longer the journey, the greater the challenge.

Some of the adverse effects of transport can be related to the “head-held-high” position that horses have to adopt, when they are confined in road vehicles and in jet stables for air transport. Horses are, as every trainer knows, by nature free-ranging pasture grazers. Roaming and constant eating is a pre-requisite for normal clearance of the respiratory system of the horse.

Interference with this clearance system, by holding the head high for protracted periods, allows the micro-organisms that normally inhabit the throat to spread downwards into the deep respiratory system, resulting eventually in pleurisy and pneumonia. Transport-associated pleurisy and pneumonia is known colloquially as “Shipping Fever” and has been documented in veterinary literature since the time of Horace Hayes’s descriptions of sea transport of military horses to the Crimea and Boer Wars. Those journeys took many days. Similar journeys now take hours. The important timelines in journeys occur at about 8-12 hours, 24 hours and at 36 hours and beyond. The Japan Racing Authority commissioned studies on the high incidence of “Shipping Fever” that occurred when they transported their horses over a distance of 1,708 kilometres. The incidence of “Shipping Fever” commenced at about eight hours in a small minority of the horses, increased to just under 10% by 24 hours and rose to almost 50% of horses by 40 hours.

Horses in training in the UK and Ireland are seldom exposed to road journeys of this duration, which explains why “Shipping Fever” is not a primary concern for racing trainers in these islands. The condition is well known in other sectors of the horse industry and also in Continental Europe. It becomes a consideration for our trainers,

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when planning long distance road journeys to Italy and similar distant destinations. It is not possible to predict which horses will succumb to “Shipping Fever” and which will not. However, one of life’s few certainties is encapsulated in another maxim: “sick horse onto a lorry – very sick horse off”. This is

particularly true of pre-existing respiratory disease. There is great value in ensuring that everything possible is done to prevent horses with respiratory disease (or a predisposition to it) being subjected to long journeys. It could be argued, for example, that long distance transport of horses with a

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The challenge of transport The after-effects of travel on racehorses has vexed trainers for decades. Des Leadon of the Irish Equine Centre in Ireland looks at the practical considerations for horse transport

known history of “bleeding” is contra-indicated. Viral respiratory disease, that well known “thief in the night” that so damages the viability of training establishments, is a very potent predisposing factor in the development of “Shipping Fever”.

This disease has a particular relevance to colts and entire horses. Episodes of fever in entire males are associated with subsequent reduction in sperm cell production. Extreme fever for protracted periods can permanently impair male fertility. This is the reason why Veterinary Surgeons accompany

the shuttle stallions to Australia. Prompt detection of “Shipping Fever” at altitude has saved many an important stud career.

Respiratory disease is always the primary focus of veterinary attention in relation to horse transport, but confinement in either a road vehicle or an aircraft does not convey

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any immunity from all of the myriad other problems that are inherent in horsekeeping. The data shows that colic also occurs during journeys and that stressinduced diarrhoeas including Salmonellosis are also transport associated.

The intuitive anxiety of lay people and of the horse industry is of trauma. Frenzy does occur in the course of transport. There are many documented instances of very high profile horses killing themselves. Although road-side unloading is an option in land transport, this is unavailable while at sea on Roll-On/Roll Off ferries and in aircraft.

Sedatives and tranquilisers are very potent medicines and access to them and their use is controlled by law. Insurers reserve the right to refuse claims which are based on the administration of medicines by unlicensed personnel. The use of medicines to try to control frenzy is always a difficult judgement call. These drugs are not as effective or are ineffective when given to an already frightened horse. The need to race “medication-free” is another issue that has to be taken into consideration, when selecting the drug of choice for any given instance.

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The Hong Kong Jockey Club commissioned a study by the Irish Equine Centre into the effects of journeys for horses travelling in their international races.

These studies showed that most horses, i.e healthy horses, needed a five-to-seven day recovery period to return to their pre-flight status after air journeys to Hong Kong from Europe, the USA or Australasia.

Only a very small minority of horses recovered more quickly than this. The recommendation that horses should be transported to Hong Kong some 10 days or so prior to racing was based on the need for post-arrival treatment for journey effects to be eliminated prior to racing. Forward planning and preparation, with an allowance for delays and for the elimination of appropriate medication, should be part of any trainer’s

Some of the adverse effects of transpor t can be related to the “head-held-high” position that horses have to adopt, when confined in road vehicles and in jet stables for air transport

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management of their transport programme.

Trainers are often frustrated by the seemingly endless bureaucracy that accompanies international racing. However, very important diseases are readily spread by transport. Exotic disease can result in the complete “shut-down” of any racing stable and of the entire industry. The 2007 outbreak of Equine Influenza brought about the total cessation of racing and breeding in New South Wales and Queensland, cost millions upon millions of dollars and resulted in the loss of many jobs within the industry. Quarantine and isolation regulations are designed to protect us all from this sort of catastrophe. These regulations and their enforcement are often imperfect, but they are all that we have, and we all share a common responsibility to the industry as a whole. They must be approached with respect, tolerance and consideration.

International travel regulations are a reminder that our very best protection is in

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“Forward planning and preparation should be part of any trainer’s management of their transport programme” our own hands. The gate of the racing establishment must be regarded as a personal frontier. The health status of the horses and the “Biosecurity” of the training stable must always be a priority. Every yard

Above left: Most horses need a five-to seven day recovery period to return to their pre-flight status after long-haul air journeys Above: Ventilation is an important consideration when transporting horses

must have stables that can be used as an effective quarantine and isolation facility.

New arrivals must be screened for infectious diseases and kept isolated until they have been cleared. Visitors, especially those who have been to other stables in the course of their work, should be regarded as a potential high risk. Hand washing, disinfection and protective clothing are everyday measures which are themselves essential and carry the added benefit of heightened awareness.

Ours is an industry that needs “heroes” if it is to survive and prosper. The 2008 Breeders’ Cup provided them. Transport was as essential for that festival of racing as it is for any other. Transport associated risks need to be recognised, but they can be managed and should never be a deterrent. I

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Poor appetite in horses in training is not uncommon, whether this is a transient problem following racing, or, more regularly, during training in particular horses. In some situations, ‘failure to clean up’ may simply be explained by horses being offered more feed than they require and so they are being over fed, whilst in other instances, where it is accompanied with poor condition, the causes may be more complicated.

Certainly, physiological mechanisms exist in horses to match energy and nutrient intake to daily requirements and these systems form the basis for self regulation of feed intake in horses in the wild or at grass.

By Dr Catherine Dunnett

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What drives appetite?

The mechanisms involved in controlling feed intake and appetite are very complex, but have been studied extensively in humans and other species. Similar work in this area in horses is limited but progressing. The hypothalamus appears to be the critical area of the brain that is involved in the regulation of food intake, and it represents the body’s thermostat, helping to regulate body temperature. This area of the brain produces a number of protein-like chemicals (peptides) that help to control feed intake, through either stimulatory or suppressive effects on appetite. The hypothalamus also responds to a number of chemicals, hormones and nutrients circulating in the blood, and some of which have previously been investigated in horses. Leptin produced by adipose tissue, insulin produced by the pancreas, ghrelin and obestatin produced in the gut and triiodothyronine (a thyroid hormone) produced by the thyroid gland are all involved in regulation of feed intake and appetite (Dhillo 2007). In addition, the products of carbohydrate, fat and protein digestion are also known to be involved in the regulation of appetite.

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Some early work that was carried out by Ralston and co-workers in the 70s and 80s explored the effects that blood glucose and insulin have on feeding behavior in horses.

Perhaps not surprisingly, they reported that the elevation in glucose and insulin concentrations in blood, which are seen following consumption of a cereal based concentrate feed, appear to delay further feeding (Ralston 1986).

Some research has also been carried out on the role of leptin, which is a hormone produced by the adipose tissue, in horses.

The function of leptin is to suppress appetite, and circulating levels of leptin are increased with increasing body fat content.

Therefore, one would expect that in fit lean racehorses, circulating leptin concentration would be reduced, in order to drive appetite and achieve feed intake sufficient to meet the increasing energy demands of training.

This certainly appears to be the case, with the circulating level of leptin being lower in young fit Standardbred racehorses compared to mature unfit Standardbred horses (Gordon et al. 2007). In this same study, these authors also reported that ghrelin and obestatin, which are both reported to stimulate appetite, were also significantly greater in the fit versus the unfit

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racehorses. Hence there appears to be a logical mechanism for ensuring that feed intake is maintained in horses in hard work.

However, the variation in the level of these appetite-stimulating or -suppressing factors has been shown to be quite variable between horses, even when body condition score is similar (Cartmill et al. 2003). This may help to explain the differences in feeding behavior and appetite within a group of racehorses in training.

Despite this complex system for matching feed intake to energy requirement, there is no doubt that in some individuals the drive to feed is overridden by other external factors. In some cases, suppression of appetite may be contributed to by pain, for example from poor dentition. In this situation, the physical act of feeding may be painful, due to the presence of sharp enamel points on the cheek teeth. Pain due to acute or ongoing injury may also influence appetite, and research in geriatric human patients suggests that there is a relationship between pain intensity and perceived appetite suppression (Bosley et al. 2004).

Horses that are worriers or a bit ‘stressy’ can also seem to suffer from poor appetite and again research in humans shows that both depression and stress can adversely effect appetite but can sometimes be ameliorated through the use of drugs to reduce anxiety or to treat depression.

Where stress is an issue in particular horses, steps need to be taken to try and alleviate it by close inspection of the horse’s environment. If there is practical opportunity for a period out at grass, or at least a period being hand grazed, this can be beneficial, as will managed opportunity for social contact with other horses.

Poor appetite and characteristic picky eating is also a widely reported clinical sign of underlying gastric ulcers, the incidence of which is high in horses in training. Whilst veterinary medication such as omeprazole is evidently effective in treating acute gastric ulcers, their reoccurrence in susceptible horses is also well documented following cessation of treatment. It is therefore

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“Poor appetite and characteristic picky eating is also a widely reported clinical sign of underlying gastric ulcers, the incidence of which is high in horses in training” important that some thought is given to the underlying feeding and management factors that contribute to the development of ulcers, with appropriate changes being made. In some instances, antacids or other antiulcerogenic feed supplements, where efficacy is supported through scientific trials, can be a useful adjunct to veterinary therapy.

Chronic intake of mycotoxins, which are substances produced by mold species

contaminating feed, have also been shown to depress appetite in horses. Feed intake was significantly decreased in athletic horses fed concentrate feed that had been experimentally contaminated with a cocktail of mycotoxins, fed for 21 days (Raymond et al. 2005). Mycotoxins can be found in both forage and grains and their presence is affected by factors such as harvesting and storage conditions.

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Strategies to improve appetite

Essentially any health issues that are likely to impact on appetite, e.g. poor dentition or gastric ulcers, should be addressed. The focus can then shift to the feed and management of horses in training in an attempt to support appetite.

Forage Good quality and palatable forage, which is free from any significant molds and mycotoxins, is essential. Ideally, batches of hay should be tested for these common contaminants before purchase and the cost can be minimal when larger batch sizes of forage are bought.

An adequate quantity of forage should also be fed (a minimum of 1% of the horse’s bodyweight, e.g. 5 kg for a 500 kg horse). This will help ensure that the hindgut environment remains hospitable to a good balance of microflora, even when a high starch diet is fed. This should additionally help ensure that the horse’s natural supply of B vitamins is good in order to support a healthy appetite.

prevent its absorption, limiting any adverse effects on health. More feed and supplement manufacturers appear to be including a mycotoxin binder in their formulations for this purpose.

Herbs such as parsley, garlic, ginger and peppermint, etc., whilst they have a historic association with improvements in appetite, have little scientific evidence for their positive effect in horses. B-vitamins are also used extensively, either directly into the feed or through intravenous or intramuscular administration in horses in an attempt to improve appetite. Whilst there is no work in horses to support this practice, loss of appetite has been associated with B12

Concentrate feeds

Keeping meal size small but frequent will also help maintain appetite with horses less likely to be over faced with feed. Whilst manual feeding is still the norm, there are now a number of automatic feeders in existence for horses that allow very small quantities of feed to be presented on a little and often basis. Such equipment can be programmed according to the individual horse and trainer’s requirements and may certainly be advantageous for individuals with consistently poor appetites.

Ensuring that energy density of feed remains high is also essential, where appetite is poor. Top dressing feeds with vegetable oil, or high oil ingredients such as rice bran or micronized linseed can help to increase the ‘energy or ‘calorie’ content of feeds without large associated increases in the volume of feed fed.

Feed additives and supplements

Ingredients called mycotoxin binders that are derived from either charcoal, yeast, or montmorillonite clays can also be used in the feed to bind any ingested mycotoxin and

deficiency in humans and early studies in children supplemented with B vitamins suggest improvements in appetite. B vitamin status may also be improved as discussed earlier through greater provision

of forage and also the daily use of a probiotic product such as a live yeast.

Medication Drugs that are used to treat particular conditions such as gastric ulcers, where appetite may have been adversely affected, will usually improve feed intake. Other drugs such as corticosteroids, benzodiazepines, and cyproheptadine have also been shown to improve appetite in other species. Anabolic steroids such as stanozolol or nandrolone have also in the past been used by trainers in the US for building muscle mass and for ‘rejuvenating’ horses coming back into work following a layoff. One of the additional effects of such steroids is to improve appetite, which is cited by some trainers as the main reason for their use. However, concerns by the racing authorities on the ethics of their use in terms of retaining a level playing field and their potential long term effects on health and fertility has led to a recent change in rules regarding the use of steroids. This effectively prevents horses that have been recently treated with steroids from legally racing in a number of states including Kentucky and California.

Appetite is therefore a complex subject physiologically, but there are many practical steps that can be taken to maintain feed intake either through a change to the feed itself, or a change in feeding management or environment. For the best effect, a holistic approach is worthwhile with careful consideration and investigation of the potential cause of consistently poor or loss of appetite in horses in training. I

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bosley, B. N., Weiner, D. K., E., T. and Granieri, R. E. (2004). Is Chronic Nonmalignant Pain Associated with Decreased Appetite in Older Adults? Preliminary Evidence. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 52(2): 247-251.

Cartmill, J. A., Thompson Jr, D. L., Storer, W. A., Gentry, L. R. and Huff, N. K. (2003).

Endocrine responses in mares and geldings with high body condition scores grouped by high vs. low resting leptin concentrations. Journal of Animal Science 81(9): 2311-2321.

Dhillo, W. S. (2007). Appetite regulation: An overview. Thyroid 17(5): 433-445.

Gordon, M. E., McKeever, K. H., Betros, C. L.

and Manso Filho, H. C. (2007). Plasma leptin, ghrelin and adiponectin concentrations in young fit racehorses versus mature unfit standardbreds. Veterinary Journal 173(1): 93-102.

Ralston, S. L. (1986). Feeding behavior. The Veterinary clinics of North America. Equine practice 2(3): 609-621.

Raymond, S. L., Smith, T. K. and Swamy, H. V. L. N. (2005). Effects of feeding a blend of grains naturally contaminated with Fusarium mycotoxins on feed intake, metabolism, and indices of athletic performance of exercised horses. Journal of Animal Science 83(6): 1267-1273.

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Stress and the Thoroughbred

By Dr Mark Kennedy of the Equine Reproductive Behaviour Consultancy, Department of Life Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University

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HERE can be few terms used as loosely by both practical horse people and animal scientists as the term ‘stress’.

It can be used to mean the physical force an object is subjected to, for example the stress applied to the pasterns of a thoroughbred on the gallops. It can be used to mean the feeling we experience waiting at the winning post for our horse to romp home. The damp coat and nervous demeanour of a bad traveller unloaded from the lorry is sometimes said to indicate it has ‘wound itself up’ and ‘become stressed-out’ on the journey. The most useful definition, and that to be used in this

article, is that stress is ‘an environmental effect on an animal which overtaxes its control systems and reduces its fitness or appears likely to do so’ (Broom and Johnson, 1993). The crucial point here is that stress is a factor external to the animal, but within its environment, which challenges its ability to cope with it. If the challenge exceeds the animal’s ability to cope with it (it is overtaxing), the animal’s fitness will be reduced. Here fitness is not just physical strength, but the ability to survive and function properly. This definition makes it clear that stress is a negative entity. Some authors, such as Seyle (1976), have attempted to subdivide stress Behavioural responses to stress include agression which is often directed at the source of the stress

into damaging ‘distress’ and potentially positive ‘eustress’. Suggesting that some stress may be beneficial permits scope for confusion. The outcome of the experience of stress may be positive; e.g. responding to the stress of pursuing predators by flight results in survival, and the stress of fighting between stallions results in mating opportunities for the victor, but the stress itself is not positive. The notion that stress itself can be beneficial and the extent to which it is sought out for its own sake by non-human animals is open to debate.

Having defined stress as a ‘bad thing’, our next task should be to identify means by which it can be detected when it impinges upon our horses. Remember, it is an environmental effect acting upon our horses, not their response to something. Yet it is by the horse’s response to stress that we identify its presence. Physiological responses animals use in attempting to cope with stress include elevated heart rate and increased activity of the adrenal glands, resulting in elevation of circulating levels of the hormone cortisol (Fraser and Broom, 1990). ‘Sweating up’ is another physiological sign of stress, particularly easy to observe in horses.

Longer duration (‘chronic’) stress can result in clearly negative consequences we can observe in horses, such as immunosuppression resulting in increased susceptibility to disease, growth checks in youngsters, and poor reproductive performance in breeding stock (Fraser and Broom, 1990). Gastric ulceration and lesions may also be an indication of stress, as Murray and Eichorn (1996) report that after seven days of confinement to stalls with ad libitum hay, six of seven horses developed gastric ulceration, the remaining individual developing a gastric lesion of a different type. Behavioural responses to stress include attempted avoidance of the source of the stress, aggression directed either at the source of the stress (human or equine) or at some third party, stereotypies such as crib-biting, weaving or box-walking, or a general withdrawal from stimuli, sometimes referred to as ‘depression’ (Fraser and Broom, 1990). Extreme and chronic stress can result in an extreme response such as self-mutilation.

T

HE relationship between stress and aggression has received investigation in a number of species. Increased aggression as a result of thwarting of motivation to feed has been reported in hens (Duncan and Wood-Gush, 1971) and in pigs (Bure, 1991). Space restriction increases aggression in cattle and pigs (Houpt, 1998). Houpt and Keiper (1982) report much more aggression

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in domestic ponies kept in groups in relatively confined conditions (large stalls/corrals) than in groups of free-ranging feral ponies (47 aggressive acts per hour versus 1.3 aggressive acts per hour respectively).

This was probably due to the fact that the domestic ponies had to compete for limited resources such as food and water, unlike the grazing, free-ranging feral ponies. Stress arising from competition for limited resources and space may therefore elevate aggression in horses. Anyone who has spent time amongst thoroughbreds will know that individuals aggressive towards humans as well as towards other horses are not uncommon.

We should ask ourselves if this is due to general stress arising from our management.

Certainly, Goodwin (1999) states that we get a distorted view of the importance and frequency of aggression in equine society because of the effects of resource restriction.

Horses are not, by nature, aggressive animals. It is our management that results in the exaggerated aggression we see in many individuals.

A change in routine is commonly said to result in horses showing signs of exposure to stress. For this reason, it is often said that horses are ‘creatures of habit’ that ‘thrive on routine’. This notion is debatable. Horses do indeed appear to react badly when established routine is changed, for reasons I shall discuss shortly. However, it is important to note that horses are not inherently predisposed to a life organised around routine. Let us consider the horse in its natural environment, that for which it evolved. The horse’s time budget, the amount of time allocated to different activities, varies with features of the environment it finds itself in, the time of year, and age and gender of the individual (Boyd and Keiper, 2005).

As an example of the flexibility of the division of the horse’s time, we find considerable variation in the proportion of the time budget spent grazing, primarily related to the availability of forage. Horses living in areas with sparse vegetation such as deserts or alpine forests spend about 18 hours per day grazing; those living in more lush areas such as marshes can spend as little as 13 hours per day grazing (Boyd and Keiper, 2005).

There is a certain degree of rhythm to the organisation of these activities; bouts of intense grazing alternate with resting, with particularly heavy grazing just after sunrise and around sunset. In the summer a major resting period coincides with the hottest part of the day, horses often moving to areas of minimum exposure to insect nuisance.

Another major resting period occurs between midnight and four in the morning (Boyd and Keiper, 2005). There is,

60 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 24

“Upset to routine is undeniably a common source of stress for horses. It is probable that the horse adapts to the routine we impose, learning the predictability of the domestic environment” however, no strict routine such as we find in the majority of stable yards. In reality, horses are not ‘creatures of habit’ by nature, but we impose a routine upon them for our convenience. It suits us to feed horses at set mealtimes, to exercise them at particular times of day, and if they are permitted turnout, to organise this at particular times. We are the creatures of habit, not the horses!

Y

ET upset to routine is undeniably a common source of stress for horses. It is probable that the horse adapts to the routine we impose, learning the predictability of the domestic environment.

He learns to anticipate feeding, grooming, being ridden out, and other significant events throughout the day. It is likely this occurs through a combination of associating events with actual times of day (e.g. morning feed occurs shortly after dawn) and associating events with other events which predict these (e.g. a stallion becoming excited on observing a horsebox being driven towards the unloading area for the covering shed).

These associations increase the predictability of the environment, helping the animal cope with it (Broom and Fraser, 2007). Once these associations have

become established, instances where events do not occur as predicted (departures from routine, such as a horse not being fed at the usual time, or not being ridden out while the rest of the string go out) result in the animal perceiving the environment as suddenly less predictable than anticipated.

Such unpredictability increases anxiety (Broom and Johnson, 1993) and represents a source of stress. In summary, horses are not creatures of habit by nature, but they can become so due to our management.

Thus if a routine is imposed, we must try to adhere to it, as departure from routine may result in stress.

A feature of equine social behaviour which may result in stress when it conflicts with our management is social facilitation of behaviour. The motivations of individual horses within a group are influenced by the behaviour of others. This results in most members of the group performing similar behaviours at the same time. It may be an important means by which the herd’s activity is organised in time (Mills and Nankervis, 1999).

Thus when a few horses start foraging, most are motivated to forage, when a few start dozing, most start to doze. The problem occurs when we want to do something different with an individual, such as withhold feed at feeding time, or not taking a horse out to exercise with his

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STRESS AND THE THOROUGHBRED

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WELFARE

Toys are a simple way of providing an outlet for aggression caused by stress

familiar group. This thwarting of social facilitation may represent a source of stress, and horses can exhibit significant signs of stress in such situations.

Another feature of equine social behaviour which may result in stress when in conflict with management is the phenomenon of pair-bonding. Within a group of horses, individuals will usually pair up with another to form a potentially longlasting pair bond. Pair-mates will tolerate closer proximity with each other than with other members of the herd (Fraser, 1992).

These individuals are preferred social companions, and often engage in mutual grooming. Separation of these individuals, for example for exercise purposes, may result in significant stress, demonstrated through agitation and repeated vocalisation by one or both parties.

To conclude, we have defined the concept of stress, identified signs of exposure to it, and examined some common causes of stress in the thoroughbred. The reader may now be inclined to ask how we deal with the problem of stress in thoroughbreds. As is usually the case with a complex problem, there is no quick and easy fix. There is no feed additive we can use that has been scientifically demonstrated to reduce the horse’s exposure to stress, no device we can buy, nor is there a universal training technique we can adopt which will overcome the problem.

The root cause is a fundamental tension between our management of the horse in the pursuit of our own goals, and the horse’s natural behavioural inclinations and psychological pre-dispositions. What we can do is be sympathetic to the horse’s nature, by understanding the causes and effects of stress, and by being prepared to change our management to reduce stress when we recognise signs of exposure to it. I

REFERENCES Boyd, L. and Keiper, R. (2005). Behavioural ecology of feral horses. Pages 55-82 in Mills, D.S. and McDonnell, S.M. (eds) The Domestic Horse: The evolution, development and management of its behaviour. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Broom, D.M. and Johnson, K.G. (1993) Stress and Animal Welfare. Chapman and Hall, London.

Broom, D.M. and Fraser, A.F. (2007) Domestic Animal Behaviour and Welfare (4th edition). CAB International, Wallingford.

Bure, R.G. (1991) ‘The influence on vulva biting of supplying additional roughage in an electronic sow feeder’. Proceedings of the 42nd annual meeting of the European Association for

62 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 24

Animal Production, Berlin.

Duncan, I.J.H and Wood-Gush, D.G.M. (1971) Frustration and aggression in the domestic fowl. Animal Behaviour 19: 500-504.

Fraser, A. F. (1992) The Behaviour of the Horse.

CAB International, Wallingford.

Fraser, A. F. and Broom, D. M. (1990) Farm Animal Behaviour and Welfare (3rd edition).

Bailliere Tindall, London.

Goodwin, D. (1999) The importance of ethology in understanding the behaviour of the horse.

Equine Veterinary Journal (Supplement) 28: 15-19.

Houpt, K.A. (1998) Domestic Animal Behaviour for Veterinarians and Animal Scientists (3rd edition). Iowa State Press, Iowa.

Houpt, K.A. and Keiper, R. (1982) The position of the stallion in the equine dominance hierar chy

of feral and domestic ponies. Journal of Animal Science 54 (5): 945-950.

Mills, D. and Nankervis, K. (1999) Equine Behaviour: Principles and Practice. Blackwell Science, Oxford.

Murray, M.J. and Eichorn, E.S. (1996) Effects of intermittent feed deprivation, intermittent feed deprivation with ranitidine administration, and stall confinement with ad libitum access to hay on gastric ulceration in horses. American Journal of Veterinary Research 57 (11): 1599-1603.

Seyle, H. (1976) The Stress of Life.

McGraw-Hill, New York.

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PRODUCT FOCUS

The Benefits of Biotal Biotal Equine Gold is the most versatile supplement for race horses as it helps in so many different ways. Firstly, it helps to maintain the hindgut environment by reducing acidity and controlling the oxygen levels, to ensure that ‘friendly bacteria’ (fibre digesters and lactic acid utilisers) can flourish. This helps horses in training to use their diet effectively and can protect against the negative effects of large high starch meals on the hindgut.

Other spin off benefits include better water re-absorption from the gut, helping to prevent dehydration which is a significant factor in poor performance, especially for horses racing abroad where heat and humidity is high. Dehydration is also a major issue following transport. A healthy hindgut also means a robust immune system, as

the gut represents the frontline for infection. Dehydration and infection, particularly related to the respiratory system, are common with travel by road or

air and dietary support with live yeast, such as Equine Gold which is now available as a powder or paste, is a smart move.

On the gastric ulcer front, Biotal have a new and innovative product that differs in its approach to other products. Biotal gastro GOLD™ is not just an antacid, but relies for its action on ‘nutracines’ generated during the specialist manufacturing process.

Research by veterinarians in Paris has yielded positive results.

Forty horses with clinical indicators of gastric ulceration, including loss of appetite, loss of condition or loose droppings, showed substantial improvements in clinical signs following 30 days of supplementation with gastro GOLD™.

For further information contact Biotal on (029) 2047 5550.

Boots that take leg therapy a step further The new Mounty Cool+Press® equine therapy boots are versatile, lightweight and easy to operate, offering a revolutionary solution to leg therapy for busy yards.

Clinical studies have shown that posttraumatic and post-operative cooling therapies can be highly beneficial, especially when the cooling is accompanied by compression treatment. It has proved to be particularly beneficial in the management of musculoskeletal strain, muscle pain and inflammation of tendons and joints, as well as recovery after strenuous exercise. The application of cold and intermittent compression – and in certain cases, the alternating application of cold and heat – is known to be the best way of treating swellings and pain.

The Mounty Cool+Press® Boot provides a horse-friendly means of delivering a combination of cold therapy and intermittent compression for up to 4 legs at the same time. The boots have twin air bags on both the lower part and the upper part of the boot. Using the intermittent setting, air

64 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 24

is firstly pumped into the lower pads and secondly into the upper pads helping to disperse upwards any excess fluid that has gathered in the leg. The constant setting can be used to provide support and compression while gel inserts provide warming or cooling action as required.

The Cool+Press® system is lightweight, self contained and operated from a small control box and battery fixed to the surcingle. This allows it to be used in the stable or when the horse is moving, either being grazed in hand or on the horse walker, and has the added advantage of freeing staff to get on with other work.

Mounty Cool+Press® boots are available in the UK from FMBs Therapy Systems, who also distribute the popular Activo-Med pulsed electromagnetic and massage systems, laser, TENS, Ultrasound, water treadmills and the new Equi-Shower.

For more details, call 01628 472440 or 07885 539312, email info@fmbs.co.uk or visit www.fmbs.co.uk.

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STAKES SCHEDULES

STAKES SCHEDULES

RACES Races are divided by distance and the relevant surface is indicated as follows: AWT - All Weather Track D - Dirt T - Turf European counties covered in this issue are: Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden and United Kingdom. The indexes also include Grade 1 races from North America as well major races from Australia and Japan.

CLOSING DATES Closing dates for all Irish races are set for international entry dates. For certain races, Irish trained horses, may be able to enter after the published dates. Please check dates with the relevant issue of The Racing Calendar.

All main French races have been given an eight day closing date with provincial races set to a ten day closing date. The Italian authority

(UNIRE) do not publish closing dates for Listed races but we have been advised to set each race closing date ten days in advance of the race.

COPYRIGHT Under Copyright law, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means. This includes but not limited to; photocopying for commercial redistribution and or facsimile recording without the prior permission of the copyright holder, application for which should be addressed to the publisher.

DISCLAIMER Whilst every effort has been made to publish correct information, the publishers will not be held liable for any omission, mistake or change to the races listed in all published indexes.

5f-6.8f (1000m-1360m) Country Track Code Name

Race Name & (Sponsor)

Class

Race Date

Value

Age

Surface

14/12/2008 22/01/2009

Distance Metres

Distance Furlongs

Closing Date

$726,000

3+

D

1200

6

28/10/2008

$200,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

D

1200

6

19/01/2009

T

1000

5

27/01/2009

4+

AWT

1200

6

16/02/2009

JPN

Nakayama

Capella Stakes

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Al Shindagha Sprint

Gr 3

AUS

Flemington

Coolmore Lightning Stakes

Gp 1

31/01/2009

AUS$502,500

GB

Lingfield Park

Cleves St

L

21/02/2009

£40,000

AUS

Caulfield

Blue Diamond Stakes

Gp 1

21/02/2009

AUS$1,000,000

2

T

1200

6

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Al Quoz Sprint

Gr 3

26/02/2009

$200,000

NH 3yo+ SH 3yo+

T

1200

6

23/02/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Mahab Al Shimaal

Gr 3

05/03/2009

$200,000

NH 3yo+ SH 3yo+

D

1200

6

02/03/2009

AUS

Caulfield

VRC Newmarket Hcp

Gp 1

07/03/2009

AUS$1,000,000

3+

T

1200

6

GB

Lingfield Park

Hever Sprint

L

21/03/2009

£40,000

4+

AWT

1000

5

16/03/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Dubai Golden Shaheen

Gr 1

28/03/2009

$2,000,000

NH 3yo+ SH 3yo+

D

1200

6

07/01/2009

SWE

Jagersro

Jagersro Sprint

L

19/05/2009

SEK 400,000

3+

D

1200

6

7f-7.5f (1400m-1500m) Country Track Code Name

Race Name & (Sponsor)

Class

Race Date

Value

Age

Surface

FR

Deauville

ITY

Pisa

GB

Kempton Park

Distance Metres

Distance Furlongs

Closing Date

Luthier

L

04/12/2008

€52,000

3+

AWT

1500

7.5

26/11/2008

Criterium di Pisa

L

14/12/2008

€61,600

2

T

1500

7.5

04/12/2008

Sunbury St

L

17/12/2008

£40,000

3+

AWT

1400

7

11/12/2008

ISSUE 24 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 65

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STAKES SCHEDULES

7f-7.5f (1400m-1500m) Country Track Code Name

Race Name & (Sponsor)

Class

Race Date

Value

Age

Surface

Distance Metres

Distance Furlongs

Closing Date

JPN

Hanshin

Hanshin Cup

21/12/2008

$1,305,000

3+

T

1400

7

11/11/2008

USA

Gulfstream Park

Forward Gal S

Gr 2

30/01/2009

$150,000

3F

D

1400

7

17/01/2009

USA

Gulfstream Park

Hutcheson Stakes

Gr 2

30/01/2009

$150,000

3

D

1400

7

17/01/2009

USA

Gulfstream Park

Richter Scale

Gr 2

14/02/2009

$150,000

4+

D

1400

7

31/01/2009

GB

Wolverhampton

Lady Wulfruna

USA

Gulfstream Park

Inside Information

GB

Lingfield Park

Spring Cup

USA

Gulfstream Park

Swale S

L

07/03/2009

£40,000

4+

AWT

1400

7

02/03/2009

Gr 2

15/03/2009

$150,000

4+ F&M

D

1400

7

28/02/2009

L

21/03/2009

£60,000

3

AWT

1400

7

16/03/2009

Gr 2

28/03/2009

$150,000

3

D

1400

7

14/03/2009

8f-8.9f (1600m-1799m) Country Code

Track Name

Race Name & (Sponsor)

Class

Race Date

ITY

Siracusa

Criterium Aretuseo

USA

Hollywood Park

Bayoka H

ITY

Siracusa

Criterium Mediterraneo (ex Ippodromi e Citta)

USA

Hollywood Park

Hollywood Starlet

Gr 1

USA

Hollywood Park

CashCall Futurity

Gr 1

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Al Maktoum Challenge Rd 1

Gr 3

15/01/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Al Rashidiya

Gr 3

29/01/2009

USA

Gulfstream Park

Donn H

Gr 1

31/01/2009

USA

Gulfstream Park

Gulfstream Park Turf H

Gr 1

01/02/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Cape Verdi

Gr 3

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

UAE 1000 Guineas

GB

Kempton Park

Ladybird St (digibet.com)

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

UAE UAE

Value

Age

Surface

Distance Metres

Distance Furlongs

Closing Date

L

07/12/2008

€61,600

2F

T

1600

8

Gr 2

07/12/2008

$150,000

3+ F&M

AWT

1700

8 1/16

27/11/2008 26/11/2008

L

08/12/2008

€61,600

2 C&G

T

1600

8

28/11/2008

13/12/2008

$250,000

2F

AWT

1700

8 1/16

20/12/2008

$750,000

2

AWT

1700

8 1/16

$200,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

D

1600

8

12/01/2009

$200,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

T

1777

8.9

26/01/2009

$500,000

4+

D

1700

8 1/16

17/01/2009

$250,000

4+

T

1700

8 1/16

17/01/2009

05/02/2009

$200,000 NH F&M 4yo+ SH F&M 3yo+ T

1600

8

02/02/2009

L

06/02/2009

$250,000

NH 3F SH 3F

D

1600

8

02/02/2009

L

08/02/2009

£40,000

4+

AWT

1600

8

02/02/2009

UAE 2000 Guineas

Gr 3

12/02/2009

$250,000

NH 3yo SH 3yo

D

1600

8

09/02/2009

Nad Al Sheba

Al Fahidi Fort

Gr 2

19/02/2009

$250,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

T

1600

8

16/02/2009

Nad Al Sheba

Balanchine Filly & Mare

Gr 3

20/02/2009

$200,000 NH F&M 4yo+ SH F&M 3yo+ T

1777

8.9

16/02/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Zabeel Mile

Gr 3

26/02/2009

$200,000

NH 3yo+ SH 3yo+

T

1600

8

23/02/2009

USA

Gulfstream Park

Fountain Of Youth Stakes

Gr 2

28/02/2009

$250,000

3

D

1600

8

14/02/2009

AUS

Caulfield

Futurity Stakes

Gp 1

28/02/2009

AUS$500,000

3+

T

1600

8

23/02/2009

USA

Gulfstream Park

Davona Dale Stakes

Gr 2

01/03/2009

$150,000

3F

D

1600

8

14/02/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Burj Nahaar

Gr 3

05/03/2009

$200,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

D

1600

8

02/03/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Jebel Hatta

Gr 2

05/03/2009

$250,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

T

1777

8.9

02/03/2009

USA

Gulfstream Park

Gulfstream Park H

Gr 2

14/03/2009

$300,000

4+

D

1600

8

28/02/2009

USA

Fair Grounds

Fair Grounds Oaks

Gr 2

14/03/2009

$400,000

3F

D

1700

8 1/16

28/02/2009

USA

Fair Grounds

Louisiana Derby

Gr 2

14/03/2009

$600,000

3

D

1700

8 1/16

29/11/2008

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Godolphin Mile

Gr 2

28/03/2009

$1,000,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

D

1600

8

07/01/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Dubai Duty Free

Gr 1

28/03/2009

$5,000,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

T

1777

8.9

07/01/2009

USA

Oaklawn Park

Apple Blossom H

Gr 1

04/04/2009

$500,000

4+ F&M

D

1700

8 1/16

21/03/2009

USA

Oaklawn Park

Fantasy S

Gr 2

05/04/2009

$250,000

3F

D

1700

8 1/16

21/03/2009

AUS

Randwick

Doncaster Hcp

Gp 1

11/04/2009

AUS$2,000,000

3+

T

1600

8

HK

Sha Tin

Champions Mile

Gp 1

26/04/2009

HK$12,000,000

3+

T

1600

8

GB

Newbury

Lockinge St (Juddmonte)

Gp 1

16/05/2009

£200,000

4+

T

1600

8

26/03/2009

SWE

Jagersro

Pramms Memorial

L

19/05/2009

SEK 1,000,000

4+

D

1730

8.6

30/03/2009

IRE

Curragh

Irish 2000 Guineas (Boylespor ts)

Gp 1

23/05/2009

€400,000

3 CF

T

1600

8

03/09/2008

IRE

Curragh

Irish 1000 Guineas (Boylespor ts)

Gp 1

24/05/2009

€400,000

3F

T

1600

8

03/09/2008

JPN

Tokyo

Yasuda Kinen

Gr 1

07/06/2009

$2,018,000

3+

T

1600

8

28/04/2009

06/03/2009

9f-10.75f (1800m-2150m) Country Track Code Name

Race Name & (Sponsor)

JPN

Hanshin

Naruo Kinen

Gr 3

06/12/2008

$754,000

3+

T

1800

9

28/10/2008

JPN

Hanshin

Japan Cup Dirt

Gr 1

07/12/2008

$2,416,000

3+

D

1800

9

14/10/2008

FR

Deauville

Petite Etoile

L

10/12/2008

€55,000

3F

AWT

1900

9.5

02/12/2008

FR

Deauville

Lyphard

L

11/12/2008

€52,000

3+

AWT

1900

9.5

03/12/2008

JPN

Chukyo

Aichi Hai

Gr 3

20/12/2008

$726,000

3+ FM

T

2000

10

11/11/2008

GB

Lingfield Park

Quebec St

L

20/12/2008

£40,000

3+

AWT

2000

10

15/12/2008

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Al Maktoum Challenge Rd 2

Gr 3

05/02/2009

$200,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

D

1800

9

02/02/2009

GB

Great Leighs

Sibelius Stakes

L

05/02/2009

£40,000

4+

AWT

2000

10

30/01/2009

FR

Cagnes-Sur-Mer

Grand Prix de la Riviera Côte d’Azur

L

08/02/2009

€30,000

4+

D

2000

10

30/01/2009

66 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 24

Class

Race Date

Value

Age

Surface

Distance Metres

Distance Furlongs

Closing Date

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STAKES SCHEDULES

9f-10.75f (1800m-2150m) Country Track Code Name

Race Name & (Sponsor)

Class

Race Date

Value

Age

Surface

Distance Metres

Distance Furlongs

Closing Date

GB

Lingfield Park

Winter Derby Trial

L

21/02/2009

£40,000

4+

AWT

2000

10

16/02/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

UAE Oaks

L

26/02/2009

$250,000

NH 3F SH 3F

D

1800

9

23/02/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Al Bastakiya

L

05/03/2009

$250,000

NH 3yo SH 3yo

D

1800

9

02/03/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Al Maktoum Challenge Rd 3

Gr 2

05/03/2009

$300,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

D

2000

10

02/03/2009

AUS

Caulfield

Australian Cup

Gp 1

07/03/2009

AUS$1,000,000

3+

T

2000

10

USA

Fair Grounds

New Orleans H

Gr 2

14/03/2009

$500,000

4+

D

1800

9

USA

Fair Grounds

Mervin H Muniz Jr Memorial

Gr 2

14/03/2009

$500,000

4+

T

1800

9

28/02/2009

USA

Turfway Park

Lane’s End S

Gr 2

21/03/2009

$500,000

3

AWT

1800

9

18/02/2009

GB

Lingfield Park

Winter Derby (lingfieldpark.co.uk)

Gp 3

21/03/2009

£100,000

4+

AWT

2000

10

17/02/2009

USA

Gulfstream Park

Bonnie Miss S

Gr 2

27/03/2009

$200,000

3F

D

1800

9

14/03/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

UAE Derby

Gr 2

28/03/2009

$2,000,000

NH 3 SH 3

D

1800

9

07/01/2009

USA

Gulfstream Park

Florida Derby

Gr 1

28/03/2009

$750,000

3

D

1800

9

14/03/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Dubai World Cup

Gr 1

28/03/2009

$6,000,000

NH 4yo+ SH 3yo+

D

2000

10

07/01/2009

GB

Kempton Park

Magnolia St (InterCasino.co.uk)

USA

Gulfstream Park

The Rampart H

USA

Oaklawn Park

Oaklawn H

Gr 2

USA

Oaklawn Park

Arkansas Derby

Gr 2

HK

Sha Tin

Audemars Piguet QE II Cup

Gp 1

26/04/2009

HK$14,000,000

USA

Churchill Downs

Kentucky Oaks

Gr 1

02/05/2009

$500,000

USA

Churchill Downs

Woodford Reserve Turf Classic

Gr 1

02/05/2009

$500,000

USA

Churchill Downs

Kentucky Derby

Gr 1

02/05/2009

$2,000,000

28/02/2009

L

28/03/2009

£40,000

4+

AWT

2000

10

23/03/2009

Gr 2

29/03/2009

$150,000

4+ F&M

D

1800

9

14/03/2009

04/04/2009

$500,000

4+

D

1800

9

21/03/2009

11/04/2009

$1,000,000

3

D

1800

9

21/03/2009

3+

T

2000

10

06/03/2009

3F

D

1800

9

14/02/2009

3+

T

1800

9

14/02/2009

3

D

2000

10

11f-12.5f (2200m-2500m) Country Track Code Name

Race Name & (Sponsor)

USA

Hollywood Park

Hollywood Turf Cup

FR

Toulouse

Max Sicard

Class

Race Date

Value

Age

Surface

Distance Metres

Distance Furlongs

Closing Date

Gr 1

06/12/2008

$250,000

3+

T

2400

12

26/11/2008

L

07/12/2008

€60,000

3+

T

2400

12

28/11/2008

ITY

Siracusa

Mediterraneo - Memorial Faraci

L

08/12/2008

€61,600

3+

T

2300

11.5

28/11/2008

USA

Calder

La Prevoyante Handicap

Gr 2

13/12/2008

$150,000

3+ FM

T

2400

12

29/11/2008

USA

Calder

WL McKnight Handicap

Gr 2

13/12/2008

$150,000

3+

T

2400

12

29/11/2008

ITY

Pisa

Andred (ex Regione Toscana)

L

14/12/2008

€61,600

3+ F&M

T

2200

11

04/12/2008

JPN

Nakayama

Arima Kinen

Gr 1

28/12/2008

$3,333,000

3+

T

2500

12.5

11/11/2008

ITY

Naples

Unire

L

30/12/2008

€61,600

3+

T

2250

11.25

20/12/2008

USA

Gulfstream Park

Mac Diarmida H

Gr 2

21/02/2009

$150,000

4+

T

2200

11

07/02/2009

FR

Cagnes-Sur-Mer

Grand Prix du Conseil General des Alpes-Maritimes

L

21/02/2009

€37,500

4+

T

2500

12.5

13/02/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

City of Gold

Gr 2

05/03/2009

$250,000

NH 4yo+ SH 4yo+

T

2400

12

02/03/2009

GB

Kempton Park

Dragonfly St (InterCasino.co.uk)

L

18/03/2009

£40,000

4+

AWT

2400

12

12/03/2009

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

Dubai Sheema Classic

Gr 1

28/03/2009

$5,000,000

NH 4yo+ SH 4yo+

T

2400

12

07/01/2009

AUS

Rosehill

HE Tancred S

Gp 1

04/04/2009

AUS$2,250,000

3+

T

2400

12

AUS

Randwick

AJC Australian Derby

Gp 1

11/04/2009

AUS$1,800,000

3

T

2400

12

IRE

Curragh

Irish Derby

Gp 1

28/06/2009

€1,500,000

3 CF

T

2400

12

03/09/2008

IRE

Curragh

Irish Oaks (Darley)

Gp 1

12/07/2009

€500,000

3F

T

2400

12

03/09/2008

16f-20f (3200m-4000m) Country Track Code Name

Race Name & (Sponsor)

JPN

Nakayama

Sports Nippon Sho Stayers Stakes

UAE

Nad Al Sheba

DRC Gold Cup

Class

L

Race Date

Value

Age

Surface

06/12/2008 26/02/2009

Distance Metres

Distance Furlongs

Closing Date

$1,188,000

3+

T

3600

18

28/10/2008

$175,000

4+

T

3200

16

23/02/2009

ISSUE 24 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com 67

FRANCES.qxd:Jerkins feature.qxd

T

27/11/08

HERE has been much said and written about the 2008 Breeders’ Cup World Championships at Santa Anita, which as we know, perhaps ad nauseam by now, was the first to be contested over a synthetic surface. After drawing a blank in the filly and mare races on Friday, 24th October, the Europeans had a banner day on Saturday as Muhannak, Donativum, Conduit, Goldikova and Raven’s Pass won five of the nine races.

But one could argue that the monumental triumph of the 2008 World Championships was not Raven’s Pass’s defeat of Curlin or Goldikova’s striking similarity to the mighty Miesque in the Mile. When the dust-free Pro-Ride footing had settled, this year’s edition of the Breeders’ Cup had industry insiders and fans alike talking, and regardless of what was being said – praise or damnation, and there was plenty of each – the global dialogue was open, and the commonality was that we were talking about synthetics.

For as long as equine transportation has facilitated the movement of horses on aeroplanes, Europeans have been investing in American-bred horses with what were deemed turf pedigrees. As a sales consignor in the U.S., I can vouch for the difficulty of marketing a yearling by supersire A.P. Indy, for example, to a buyer looking to race in Europe, and in most cases, they would be right. Remember Mineshaft? Originally

11:39

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FRANCES KARON’S COMMENT The track at this year ’s Breeders’ Cup helped to create a level playing field trained by John Gosden (who also trained Raven’s Pass and Donativum), the eventual U.S. Horse of the Year sired by A.P. Indy won a single race in seven starts over English and French grass, though he did earn black type when French stewards promoted him to third in a Group 3 at Maisons-Laffitte. It is equally impossible to sell a Sadler’s Wells yearling to a purchaser intending to race in the U.S., where turf opportunities for young horses are sparse.

In synthetics, we may have found a happy medium, the equation that will truly globalise our sport as we identify sires whose progeny succeed in both markets.

We have become accustomed to this great divide in racing, and not just in the healthy spirit of “them” versus “us”. When the playing field is not level, settling the debate of who is the best horse is almost an exercise in futility unless the animal overcoming the greatest obstacle wins. In the ensuing aftermath of the Classic, where turf horses Raven’s Pass and Henrythenavigator

“In synthetics, we may have found a happy medium, the equation that will truly globalise our sport” 68 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 24

delivered a one-two punch to dirt specialist Curlin, the Europeans exulted and many of the American public made excuses for their vanquished star’s discomfort over the foreign, synthetic footing, which was an ironic twist. In the old days – that would be 2007 and earlier – it was Europe’s leading fancies who had to make the sacrifice in the name of sportsmanship. It was a gamble of considerable proportions to run their best colts on the Classic dirt, and when it backfired, it never really answered the question properly. When Tiznow’s famously long nose outnipped Giant’s Causeway and Sakhee in the ghosts of Classics past, in 2000 and 2001, we were left to wonder: what if? Were Giant’s Causeway and Sakhee at a disadvantage over the dirt surface, as perhaps Tiznow would have been had the races been held on the turf? It’s probably no coincidence that in 24 previous runnings of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, only one winner (Arcangues at 100-1) was a European invader. To conclude that Tiznow was superior to Giant’s Causeway may have been a bit like comparing apples to oranges. As synthetics become more prevalent, perhaps the day when racing can be fairer across the board and when we can compare apples to apples is not far off in the future. I

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