Handicapping the Kentucky Derby - Hot Inside Tip From A Horseshoer

Save yur money folks, gambling is a losing business.
Buy yur kids extra ice cream when the truck comes by. Git some therapy for the ol lady. Pay someone thats good with Photoshop to make a 4 lber outta that 11 incher and enjoy yur newfound status as one helluva crappie guru.
Have a brew & watch it but don't waste yur scratch on it.

For those of you who read this late due to G/A meetings, watch the following.
It is tomorrows long-shot in its last race, 3/15,08, running 1/16 less than tomorrow. (Big Truck)


http://www.drf.com/replays/prepreplays.jsp?RACE=26

Now. Call yur bookie and after mortgaging yur hizzle, selling yur truck, and borrowing all granny will lend ya, go to Disneyland and have a blast.
Oh. The bookie? Tell him what a parasite he is and release a compressed air horn into the mouthpiece of the phone receiver.


Shoers pick? Bet the 9-20-6 trifecta.

Shoer,
We have a derby pot at the country store. My brother in law got Big Truck.
My wife, son and I got-Smooth Air-Anak Nakai-Tale of Ekati. I am going to call brother in law in a minute and tell him you said he had the winner!

Have a good weekend!
Ccrazy

I dont understand how the second place horse (I cant think of its Name) broke both of its ankles after the race was over!!

Eight Belles was the filly's name, they say it was a very unusual accident for both to break at the same time. Very tragic situation.

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Originally Posted by HarleyMan08

Eight Belles was the filly's name, they say it was a very unusual accident for both to break at the same time. Very tragic situation.

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That is horrible, seeing that they had to put that horse down:(

Yes it was, it just scared the Derby, Big Brown won & ran a great race, from near the back to the front by the end, but it's all marred by the death of Eight Belles. There's been alot about it on the news, PETA protesting, different things, personally, accidents happen, I wasn't there, so I can't say if the jockey did this or that, or the trainer failed to do this. One time out of 134 Derbys, that's a good ratio, who knows.....

Not here to create controversy about the pros & cons of horse racing, just shed some light and provide a cpl facts. Where I stand on racing has no impact on that. I do not know if this was a factor and am quite sure nobody can determine it with absolute certainty, but it is just a plain fact that these horses are run at too early an age. Their bones are immature still, joints are not closed in many cases, and the breeding itself has resulted in horses that have lighter, finer bone structure than TB horses already have, which is considerable. From a practical standpoint, the informed, intelligent horse owner would no sooner take a 2 or 3 yr old horse and demand the physical
stress out of it that racing does than take an infant child and bop it on the head before the skull grows closed and the "soft spot" is gone. I know, crude analogy, but very comparable.
As a farrier I work on many TBs that as a whole we refer to as "burnt-out track horses." They haven't made it in racing for whatever reason, and individuals buy them and quite often come away with a decent horse that will serve their purpose doing whatever. Many show signs of hard early use such as shin splints, laminitis, any number of leg/bone/hoof maladies, but are not critical enuf to stop them for being good pleasure horses, etc... Not only racing and TBs are victims of this. Eventing horses, and in particular jumping
causes its share of damage when done on young horses.
I am not a bleeding heart or a horse-hugger. I am not much of an activist or militant either so I dont rant or raise hell about it. However, I do feel that keeping the horses well-being in mind it is hard to be a big advocate of anything that is knowingly putting horses in general in jeopardy. That pretains to the rancher who breaks a 2 yr old and works it into the ground
chasing cattle or a 2 yr old draft horse used for feeding pulling a wagon with 2tons of hay or dragging logs. The same thing could be done when they are a cpl yrs older without causing harm to near as many. Remember, multiply by 3 to convert horse age to human age and you see that 6 & 9 yr old kids are running the Boston Marathon so to speak.

One other thing with TBs is a practice unique to the breed. Their registry as a breed is The Jockey Club in NY. Just like the American Quarter Horse Assn,
in Amarillo, TX or The Appaloosa Horse Club in Moscow, ID. It is there registry and rules & regs, standards of the breed, etc., are governed by them.
Anywhere else, yur horse turns a yr older on its birthday, just like us. Not in The Jockey Club. Any horse born during a calendar yr turns 1 yr old on Jan 1st of the following yr. A horse born on Dec 31st is a 1 yr old the following day. How old (young) can it be racing billed as a 2 yr old? As if it aint bad enuf if they were 2 honest or 3 honest calendar yrs old and being used that hard, see what I mean?
My.02, sorry so long.

Nice information horseshoer, Thanks for the input. Very controversial here in Kentucky right now, but I guess it needs to be. :D

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Originally Posted by HarleyMan08

Nice information horseshoer, Thanks for the input. Very controversial here in Kentucky right now, but I guess it needs to be. :D

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I agree very good info

I have also been hearing that they should have never ran a philly agianst colts. That she was a good horse but running agianst colts was putting to much strain on her.