Quote:
Originally Posted by chadk66
Have you ever galloped a horse on a sealed track?
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Have you ever used a max likelihood function to perform predictive modeling?
Seriously though, here's what I do know:
Jeremy Balan was The Blood-Horse reporter assigned to cover Santa Anita. He had a reputation for writing the truth. Within the past week he was forced to resign. (Read into that what you will.)
When reporters from the Associated Press began writing about the situation at Santa Anita, they wrote about microfractures.
APNews.com | By PAUL NEWBERRY | Friday March 8, 2019
Column: Horse racing needs to clean up its act _ or go away:
https://apnews.com/ecd8fa29fdfd4da68...ign=SocialFlow
Quote:
"These are orthopedic failures, not single-step failures. The horse didn’t step in a hole. The horse didn’t take a bad step," she said. "If you bend a paper clip back and forth 200 times, then put it back in shape so it looks brand new and hand to me, the next time I bend it, it might come apart in two pieces even though I insist I did not bend it hard. That’s how these fractures occur."
It starts with a microfracture. Then a small, partial fracture. Finally, in the heat of a big race or perhaps just a light training session, the bone shatters.
It seems sudden, a fluke.
Most likely, it’s not.
"This is really just the normal physiological consequence of an increasing workload," Lyons said. "Take a human runner. Most runners know that when they increase their distances and then say, ‘Boy, my shins were killing me last night after a run,’ that they need to back off for the next week. They need to let it heal. What they do with horses is give them anti-inflammatories without a diagnosis, then keep training and racing."
Lyons said new technology is being developed that would allow a CT scan to be performed in a matter of minutes on a horse’s front and rear legs, which could be a revolutionary step forward in equine medical care. But the industry must be willing to pay for the machines, which are expected to cost about $300,000 apiece. Also, there must be enforcement in place to ensure that when a potential problem is discovered, the horse is kept off the track until fully healed."
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To date, none of the so called racing journalists covering the situation at Santa Anita have even mentioned the word
microfracture.
If I am wrong about that: somebody please jump in and correct me.
I decided to do some digging on my own. I began by using Google to search for phrases like "microfracture" and "thoroughbred" (without the quotes) and went from there.
I discovered that a LOT of information exists on the topic.
The CHRB has been performing necropsies on horses suffering fatal breakdowns in California for years. Link to their 2014-2015 report here:
http://www.chrb.ca.gov/veterinary_re...ual_report.pdf
I also came across a subtopic that caught my eye - a class of drug called bisphosphonates.
Bisphosphonates are a drug class primarily used to promote increased bone density in human osteoporosis patients.
Bisphosphonates have also been used as a therapeutic for thoroughbreds.
It turns out that bisphosphonates have a side effect in thoroughbreds. In layman's terms, the new bone material that bisphosphonates promotes looks solid in x-rays and radiographs - but is actually much weaker than bone material that grows naturally if you simply give the horse time off to heal.
I was also able to determine that at least two vets had been using bisphosphonates on the Santa Anita backside.
In 2017, the CHRB's Medical Director, Dr. Rick Arthur, gave an alarming quote when interviewed in an article about bisphosphonates.
Daniel Ross | October 03, 2017 |
The bone disease treatment drugs that may be putting young horses at risk:
https://www.thoroughbredracing.com/a...g-horses-risk/
Quote:
This has the effect of making the diagnosis of brewing bone conditions hard to do with things like x-ray machines, for the dead bone material can give the impression of everything appearing okay, said Rick Arthur, California Horse Racing Board equine medical director.
“The concern is bisphosphonates make bone look good on radiographs,” he said. “When in fact, the bone is weakened.”
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In 2018, Dr. Larry Bramlage (Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital) gave the following quote when interviewed in an article about bisphosphonates.
by Natalie Voss | 03.01.2018 | 5:13pm
Bramlage: ‘Price To Pay’ For Bisphosphonate Use Is Delayed Healing:
https://www.paulickreport.com/horse-...layed-healing/
Quote:
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“I've spent 40 years looking at horses' bones trying to understand the process of damage and repair that we consistently deal with in the racehorse. In the last two years we've had horses' injuries that don't behave anything like they did in my first 40 years,” he said. “We can no longer depend on the repair process that we have come to expect as normal for the horse. Bisphosphonates also 'mute' the normal bone turnover we depend on in bone scans.”
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Last week, Pyschotic Parakeet posted a chart showing that 6 of the 22 horses suffering fatal breakdowns at Santa Anita had recently raced on a sealed track surface. Link here:
http://www.paceadvantage.com/forum/s...&postcount=164
Imo, that was enough (for me) to connect some dots.
Last week, I contacted the CHRB and gave them the above information. I also asked if they had looked at the vet bills of the 22 deceased horses to determine if any of the 22 had been treated with bisphosphonates.
My intent in contacting the CHRB comes from a place of wanting to see no stone unturned in discovering the actual cause behind the 22 recent fatal breakdowns.
I also apologized to the CHRB in advance if I was asking them to look at something they had already eliminated as a possible cause.
Look, even though my gut is telling me (based on years of predictive modeling work) that the dots I've connected so far
probably lead in the right direction --
At this point I don't really know.
I don't have access to the raw data the CHRB has been compiling on the 1000's of horse necropsies in California over the years. Nor do I have access to the vet bills of those horses.
In the end, that makes me just an armchair quarterback with a database.
Right now as I type this The L.A. County Sherrif's Office is conducting their own investigation.
They have a competent medical examiner who will undoubtedly look at the CHRB's fatal breakdown data.
Now you know what I know.
By the way:
Happy Saint Patrick's Day.
-jp
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