Casey’s Racing Blog

I have just read an article on The Bloodhorse.com about the death of Wanderin Boy yesterday after the Cigar Mile (GII) at Aqueduct and it has made me have some questions about the industry.

Wanderin Boy was a very fragile horse, and the article tells of his recurrent leg injuries. As a month old foal, Wanderin Boy fractured his sesamoid for the first time. As a two-year-old, he fractured his cannon bone and required screws. He then bucked his shins as a three-year-old and had to have them pin-fired. Wanderin Boy actually got a chance to race for the first time on recovery, only to fracture his other cannon bone, have screws put in again, race again, and develop an abscess in his hoof which had to grow out. Later in his career, he developed a severe stomach ulcer that required a stay at the New Bolton Center. In the midst of all these injuries, he won nine of twenty-four races over the course of five years. Which brings us to his sesamoid fracture yesterday and his euthanasia soon after the finish of the race.

Rather than see him happily leave racing before he really got started as a young horse, when the trainers first saw problems arising, they trained a weak-legged horse and asked him to compete with horses that did not have his particular physical handicaps. Never racing him would mean never winning a thing, and his owners needed results, I guess. And to me it seems like they wanted to make back any money they might have put into him. Due to his injuries as a foal, selling him was out of the picture, so what is an owner to do?

In my opinion, Wanderin Boy should never have been tried at the track after his first cannon bone fracture. When a horse is galloping at top speed, the slightest problems will work their way out pretty quickly. His owners knew that Wanderin Boy had problems from soon after birth! Maybe his pedigree, heart, and speed said yes, yes, yes to racing, but his conformation was clearly saying NO!