Hemingway: Mangled horses, dead jockeys, dope, fixed races

Pulitzer winner Walt Bogdanich and co-authors were the most recent to write dramatically about “mangled horses,” drugs, breakdowns, and injured jockeys in America (New York Times), but before them Nobel winner Ernest Hemingway, a one-time journalist, did so as well, in France in 1922. Yes, apparently in France these things happen as well!

Ksar (photo courtesy Haras de Saint Pair)

As an American living in Europe at the time with a passionate interest in sports, Hemingway used the 1922 Prix du Président de la République at Saint-Cloud (now known as the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud) as a backdrop for his short story “My Old Man,” about a fictitious aging and out-of-shape American jock named Joe Butler in Europe. The story is told by a narrator who is Butler’s teenage son, and the portrayal of the race and horses is quite factual. It pitted the top-class French colt Ksar (or Kzar as Hemingway writes), the French Derby and Arc winner from the year before, versus Kircubbin, the Irish St Leger winner of 1921 who was on a win streak at the time.

Here’s Hemingway’s narrator on Kzar, with a reference to drugs, highlighted by me: This Kzar is a great big yellow horse that  looks like just nothing but run. I never saw such a horse. He was being led around the paddocks with his head down and when he went by me I felt all hollow inside he was so beautiful. There never was such a wonderful, lean, running built horse. And he went around the paddock putting his feet just so and quiet and careful and moving easy like he knew just what he had to do and not jerking and standing up on his legs and getting wild eyed like you see these selling platers with a shot of dope in them.

Joe Butler and his son are at the Prix du Président to wager on Kircubbin because Joe got a tip from Kzar’s jock (fictionalized here as “George Gardner”; the real jock in the race was Joe Childs ) that Kircubbin, at long odds, would win. Kzar’s fictionalized jock was obviously going to give Kzar too much to do to fix the race.

Here’s our narrator again on the fix:

The old man went over and sat down beside George Gardner that was getting into his pants and said, “What’s the dope, George?” just in an ordinary tone of voice ’cause there ain’t any use him feeling around because George either can tell him or he can’t tell him.

“He won’t win,” George says very low, lean­ing over and buttoning the bottoms of his pants.

“Who will?” my old man says, leaning over close so nobody can hear.

“Kircubbin,” George says, “and if he does, save me a couple of tickets.”

Again, Hemingway gave a factual account of the finish:

Finally they made the last turn and came into the straightaway with this Kircubbin horse way out in front. Everybody was looking funny and saying “Kzar” in sort of a sick way and them pounding nearer down the stretch, and then something came out of the pack right into my glasses like a horse-headed yellow streak and everybody began to yell “Kzar” as though they were crazy. Kzar came on faster than I’d ever seen anything in my life and pulled up on Kir­cubbin that was going fast as any black horse could go with the jock flogging hell out of him with the gad and they were right dead neck and neck for a second but Kzar seemed going about twice as fast with those great jumps and that head out–but it was while they were neck and neck that they passed the winning post and when the numbers went up in the slots the first one was 2 and that meant Kircubbin had won.

I felt all trembly and funny inside, and then we were all jammed in with the people going downstairs to stand in front of the board where they’d post what Kircubbin paid. Honest, watching the race I’d forgot how much my old man had bet on Kircubbin. I’d wanted Kzar to win so damned bad. But now it was all over it was swell to know we had the winner.

“Wasn’t it a swell race, Dad?” I said to him. He looked at me sort of funny with his derby on the back of his head. “George Gardner’s a swell jockey, all right,” he said. “It sure took a great jock to keep that Kzar horse from win­ning.”

Joe Butler, the narrator’s father, claims a horse named “Gilford” from the ill-gotten gains, and he gets in shape as he trains and rides him, too. It looks as if Butler is on his way to turning his life around until this fatal accident:

They took off over the big hedge of the water-jump in a pack and then there was a crash, and two horses pulled sideways out off it, and kept on going, and three others were piled up. I couldn’t see my old man any­where. One horse kneed himself up and the jock had hold of the bridle and mounted and went slamming on after the place money. The other horse was up and away by himself, jerking his head and galloping with the bridle rein hang­ing and the jock staggered over to one side of the track against the fence. Then Gilford rolled over to one side off my old man and got up and started to run on three legs with his off hoof dangling and there was my old man laying there on the grass flat out with his face up and blood all over the side of his head. I ran down the stand and bumped into a jam of people and got to the rail and a cop grabbed me and held me and two big stretcher-bearers were going out after my old man and around on the other side of the course I saw three horses, strung way out, coming out of the trees and taking the jump.

My old man was dead when they brought him in and while a doctor was listening to his heart with a thing plugged in his ears, I heard a shot up the track that meant they’d killed Gilford. I lay down beside my old man, when they car­ried the stretcher into the hospital room, and hung onto the stretcher and cried and cried, and he looked so white and gone and so awfully dead, and I couldn’t help feeling that if my old man was dead maybe they didn’t need to have shot Gilford. His hoof might have got well. I don’t know. I loved my old man so much.

Postscript:

Elizabeth Martiniak has an excellent and thorough piece on Ksar’s racing career, pedigree, and notable offspring at Thoroughbred Heritage. Click here to read it. The Haras de Saint Pair (then Saint Pair du Mont) website has an excellent history of Ksar’s breeder, Evremond de Saint Alary. Ksar was sold by de Saint Alary for a record 151,000 FF in 1919, as a yearling. Click here to read more.

Ms Martiniak’s exhaustive piece noted that Ksar, the leading sire of 1931 in France and the sire of the important Tourbillon for Marcel Boussac, was exported to the US late in life. She wrote: “In 1935, at the age of seventeen, Ksar was sold to Abram S. Hewitt, an American breeder and racing authority and exported to stand stud at Hewitt’s Montana Hall Stud near Millwood, Virginia. The old stallion had a rough ocean crossing, falling critically ill on the journey. In Virginia, he sired just two crops, but got nothing of the class he got in France. Ksar, did, though, exert an influence in jumping pedigrees, and several international show jumpers carried his blood in their veins.”

Hewitt had seen Ksar in person at Chantilly on June 12, 1921, at the French Derby as a guest of Harvard classmate Charles (Chis) Colt. The latter had been in France for school vacation visiting his father, horseman and railman James Wood Colt.

I met Charles Colt in the early ’80s at his Cambridge, Massachusetts, home, and he was intrigued by my interests in racing. Something close to the following conversation took place:

“So, you’re a follower of the Turf? Have you heard of Ksar?”

“The French horse? Yes. The sire of Tourbillon.”

“Exactly.” He was surprised. “Well, Sid, you do know your horses. Can I give you a piece of advice?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Stay away from the Turf. It’s alluring and exciting, and there’s nothing like watching a horse race, but it will bankrupt you, young man. You will leave the game broke. It’s what happened to my own father, JW Colt.”

I smiled but held my ground.

“This game has seduced you, I suppose. Well then, I suppose, we have some stories to tell…”

And from there he told me of watching the French Derby with Hewitt, and how Hewitt—who would go on to become one of the greatest turf writers of this country—never forgot the impression Ksar had made on him at Chantilly and had jumped at the chance to import the aging stallion later on.

“I was at Montana Hall the day Ksar arrived,” he said. “Abe and I were having a drink on the patio, and this wagon pulls up, and out comes the most pathetic looking animal you’ve ever seen. He looked nothing like we’d remembered him. Abe’s heart sank when he saw the great Ksar. The horse had had an awful Atlantic crossing.”

Years later, I told Daily Racing Form‘s eminent bloodstock writer Leon Rasmussen, whom I’d been corresponding with since I was 16, this story. He loved it. He’d been a longtime friend and admirer of Hewitt’s work and frequently referred to Hewitt in his Form pieces as the “doyen of American turf writers.”

Later, I did some bloodstock writing at the Form, too, much to Leon’s enjoyment.

Oh, and I married Chis Colt’s granddaughter, too.

Union Rags again: Unlucky or does he have curse of Gorytus?

What’s a Gorytus?

A Gorytus is a case for holding arrows.

Who’s Gorytus?

He was a gorgeous physical specimen by Nijinsky out of Glad Rags, trained by Dick Hern for Alice duPont Mills in England. Gorytus won his first two starts at 2 in a manner that made grown men wax poetic, but he lost his third and final start of the year in a shocker. At 3, he ran fifth in the Guineas, and he never won another race again. He raced twice at 4 in Florida, was second in a stakes, and then was sent to stud at Coolmore with a record of two wins from eight starts. Later he was sold off to Japan.  Read this article for the Gorytus story, but if you don’t have the time, I have extracted a quote from Tony Morris that explains that Gorytus the horse had none of the arrows in his quiver it was assumed he’d had:

He raced on in America at four where, now trained by Woody Stephens, his irresolute ways caught the eye of the Racing Post‘s Tony Morris. ‘I went racing at Hialeah, and who should turn up there but Gorytus,’ Morris recalls. ‘I remember the race vividly. Gorytus came to win, then gave it away to an inferior challenger, Out Of Hock. I quizzed his trainer about this cowardly display, and he said “Nope, didn’t look very genuine, did he?” ‘

How is Gorytus related to Union Rags?

Read this, Page 4.

What did Gorytus look like?

See here.

Does Union Rags have the curse of Gorytus?

We’ll find out in the Belmont Stakes.

Clarifying some terms, such as ‘bleeder’; and Drape quote

There’s so much confusion about exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH) in articles, blogs, and SM today that I want to clarify some issues as they have appeared in recent posts in this space. For one, whenever possible I’ve defined a “bleeder” as a horse exhibiting epistaxis (bleeding through nostrils) when referring to studies quoted here from Hong Kong, Australia, and South Africa, because that is how they are defined in these regions as opposed to here in the US where a horse does not need to visibly bleed from the nostrils to be classified as a bleeder.

That said, EIPH from endoscopic examinations is graded in these countries (and in recent scientific papers quoted here) on a scale from “Grade 0″ to “Grade 4″ with epistaxis effectively being a de facto “Grade 5.”  Therefore, in this country a “bleeder” is defined as any horse between “Grade 0″—no bleeding evident—to “Grade 4″; a horse anywhere is obviously a bleeder if it exhibits epistaxis. Preakness winner Summer Squall was a notable example of such a horse here.

Now, some have questioned whether use of Lasix (furosemide)—legal in the US but not elsewhere— is effective at treating EIPH, as some posts here have suggested based on expert opinions. That is, obviously, the debate raging everywhere today, most recently with the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission. The Jockey Club has taken the position that it isn’t, and supporters of advocates of the anti-Lasix debate include high-profile journalists as Joe Drape of the New York Times.

But even Joe has covered some studies that seem to indicate that Lasix is effective at treating EIPH. In a June 2009 Times piece titled “Lasix Reduces Bleeding in Horses’ Lungs, Study Says,” Joe wrote, “The debate about whether thoroughbreds should be treated with a diuretic on the day of a race became thornier Monday when researchers released a study showing that furosemide, known as Lasix, significantly reduces bleeding in horses’ lungs.” Click here to read the entire article.

Speaking of Joe, I quoted one of his tweets in a post below (click here to read the post) that said this:

“Not complex: In Hong Kong, over past 5 years, only 8 deaths among 45,000, 1 per 5,692 starters vs. 2.14 per 1,000 here. Why? No drugs..”

Joe’s a fine reporter and a good guy as far as I can tell—I appreciated his email to me after the death of my son last year—but his tweet above is erroneous and misleading. I mentioned this in the comments to the post and will say it again here so that those figures aren’t quoted as fact by others, but they are only specific to “sudden death,” as opposed to catastrophic breakdowns from musculoskeletal causes. These deaths were highlighted by the Hong Kong Jockey Club as being caused from EIPH (2), heart failure (5), and abdominal hemorrhage (1). The actual catastrophic deaths in HK are at 0.7 per 1000 starts—a figure much lower than the 1.5 per 1000 usually associated with US racing but far higher than the figure he quoted as such.

The debates about EIPH and Lasix are important to the future of racing in this country, and it’s vital that only legitimate figures, statistics, and arguments are put forward by both sides, don’t you think?

A look at EIPH history and its prevalence in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) has strict testing requirements in place for exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH) in potential imports, but nevertheless would you believe that bleeders (defined here as those exhibiting epsitaxis, or bleeding through the nostrils) are more prevalent there than here? Part of the reason for this is that race-day Lasix or training with Lasix (furosemide, known under brand name Salix now) is prohibited in Hong Kong.

At present in Hong Kong, there are 4.7 incidents of  post-race epistaxis per 1000 runners versus 0.7/1000 in the US with Lasix, according to data compiled by Dr Brian Stewart of the HKJC. This implies that A) Lasix is effective in treating epistaxis and B) that where there’s epistaxis, there’s also milder forms of EIPH that don’t include bleeding through the nostrils—perhaps blood in the pharynx, larynx or trachea only.

According to Dr Stewart’s data, EIPH is indeed “an important cause of disappointing racing performances.” He calculates that EIPH (scopes of 3-4 from a grading system that goes from 0-4, then epistaxis) is responsible for approximately 30 percent of poor racing performances in Hong Kong versus approximately 25 percent for lameness.

An earlier study on bleeders by D K Mason, E A Collins, and K L Watkins (“Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Haemorrhage in Horses”) from 1981 in Hong Kong confirms Dr. Stewart’s findings that EIPH is common to racehorses in the region and has been for 30-odd years. Mason et al found that 46.8 percent of runners exhibited EIPH, “but in those examined more than three times, an incidence of 82% was recorded.”

Considering that only the fittest specimens are imported for racing in Hong Kong, the incidence of EIPH in this controlled population without Lasix suggests that EIPH in less elite stock—such as those toiling away in cheap claiming races across the US—without Lasix would create even worse “disappointing racing performances.”

Dr Stewart’s presentation of EIPH included six bullet points for why the HKJC doesn’t allow Lasix, and they are:

1. “Race-day medication may be seen to be [a] substitute (‘crutch’) for (sic) skilful training, veterinary input, and horsemanship.”

2. “A desire to achieve international harmonization of medication policy.”

3. “Concerns about dehydration and electrolyte imbalance in sub-tropical conditions.”

4. “Concerns about the impact of (sic) raceday medication, especially ‘Lasix,’ on the consistency of racing performances.”

5. “The principle that a race should be a test of the best athlete at that point in time.”

6. “The ‘degradation of the thoroughbred breed’?”

These are all valid points. But are they valid enough to take our stock—especially the cheaper animals—off Lasix, as the US Jockey Club desires?

A closer look at the Hong Kong model, breakdowns, Lasix

Hong Kong racing is frequently cited as a model for US racing to follow because race-day furosemide is not permitted and breakdown rates are among the lowest in the world. Joe Drape, the New York Times racing writer, once tweeted: “Not complex: In Hong Kong, over past 5 years, only 8 deaths among 45,000, 1 per 5,692 starters vs. 2.14 per 1,000 here. Why? No drugs..”

Is it really that simple? No, it never is, is it?

Drape’s “No drugs” answer to his own question is only part of the story, and the entire story is much more complex and nuanced than Drape lets on if he knows the nuts and bolts of racing in Hong Kong. First off, racing is highly regulated in Hong Kong, and horses are imported from other countries because a local breeding industry doesn’t exist there. Horse ownership is also limited to members of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) and is as closely monitored as the runners that are imported.

Import requirements for horses are extraordinarily strict to protect the interests of the Jockey Club members, and most horses imported are geldings with a history of soundness of limb and wind. Before being allowed in, prospective imports are put through a series of rigorous veterinary examinations that would be unheard of here. The HKJC’s “The Veterinary Protocol for the Examination of Racehorses for Importation Into Hong Kong” lists, for example, a grading system for endoscopic exams for exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage (EIPH) that is specifically designed to keep “bleeders” out.  The EIPH ratings range from Grade 0 to Grade 4, with epistaxis, or bleeding through the nostrils, the worst rating after Grade 4. Horses that are graded Grade 0 must have “No blood detected in the pharynx, larynx, trachea or main stem bronchi,” while Grade 4 horses are those with “coalescing streams of blood covering more than 90% of the tracheal surface.” The HKJC will not allow the importation of any horse that has exhibited epistaxis, as well as those that are Grades 3-4, conditions only detectable through an endoscopic exam and the types that are treated by Lasix (Salix) here.

Similarly stringent examinations for musculoskeletal abnormalities, soft tissue issues, and internal organs are in place as well. In short, only the soundest specimens are imported, and they are raced on turf, not dirt—the primary racing surface in this country. Moreover, in Hong Kong few 2-year-old races are contested, the Hong Kong Derby is for 4-year-olds, and most of these imported horses have been allowed to mature and are older geldings. Intact horses and mares are rare because a breeding industry doesn’t exist for their future.

Hong Kong racing isn’t just about “No drugs,” it’s about an entirely different paradigm. Using the drugs/breakdown comparison alone with Hong Kong is a nifty camera trick to further an illusion and an agenda, but it’s not feasible to follow the Hong Kong model willy-nilly. Instead, we need to develop protocols here that are germane to US racing and breeding, and some of this involves examining medication, breeding stock, and track surfaces.

On Fire Baby’s early form without Lasix no different now

Anita Cauley’s highly regarded homebred On Fire Baby, 4-1 co-second choice on the morning line for the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks on Friday at Churchill Downs, began her racing career as a rarity these days. She made her debut at Ellis Park last August as the only member of the eight-horse field to race without Lasix (or Salix as furosemide is known by its brand name these days), and she won by four lengths, easily.

A daughter of Smoke Glacken and the Gilded Time mare Ornate, On Fire Baby was next sent to the Grade 1 Alcibiades at Keeneland by trainer Gary Hartlage. Again, she was the only one of 13 not to race on Lasix, but this time she finished fifth as the longest shot at 40-1. Undaunted, Hartlage wheeled her back in the Grade 2 Pocahontas at Churchill, and the filly won at 9-1. And yes, she was the only one of 12 in the race not on Lasix.

On Fire Baby concluded her 2-year-old season as one of the best fillies in the country by winning Churchill’s Grade 2 Golden Rod by more than six lengths, easily, Lasix-free again.

With two Grade 2 races in the bank and a winner of three of four at 2, On Fire Baby was ambitiously sent to Oaklawn for the Listed Smarty Jones Stakes on Jan. 16 against colts. She was so highly considered off her form that she was sent away the favorite against them—and again, the only runner of 12 not on Lasix—but this time the filly finished third, beaten a length for everything.

She reappeared in the Grade 3 Honeybee Stakes against fillies at Oaklawn on March 10, but this time on Lasix. She won by two lengths, showing the same form against fillies from a few months earlier. Nothing about the Lasix suggests that On Fire Baby became a different horse from what she was, because she won as expected against her own kind in Grade 3 race as a previous Grade 2 winner. But here’s the kicker: She hadn’t bled in the Smarty Jones. Hartlage was frank about why he put her on the anti-bleeding medication despite that when he told Daily Racing Form‘s Mary Rampellini before the Honeybee, “There’s no reason to put a horse through bleeding if they don’t have to. I’m not saying she’s going to bleed, but we’re not going to take a chance she bleeds.”

When Lasix first appeared on the scene in the early 1970s in Maryland, there were strict requirements for racing on furosemide, but that’s not the case now because most horses race on it. Judging by the way Hartlage has handled On Fire Baby’s career, he’s not a trainer that liberally medicates his horses—he could have raced On Fire Baby on Lasix throughout her career otherwise—but he also believes that Lasix will help a horse from not bleeding, even one that hasn’t bled before.

Most trainers feel the same way, and most owners—including those that recently testified at a hearing in Pennsylvania that race-day Lasix should be done away with—must feel the same way. Otherwise why would they race their horses on it? Or conversely, why don’t they race their horses off it, as Hartlage did with On Fire Baby until recently?

From TTimes TODAY: Salix talk on Twitter puts me to sleep

Horsemen and racing veterinarians, however, will tell you, me, Crist, and Drape that Salix, more than any of the other ‘adjunct’ anti-bleeding medications—Amicar, Kentucky Red, Clotol, and Tranex—that are also allowed on race day in Kentucky but rarely addressed in the media, is the most efficient means for controlling what is technically known as EIPH—exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage.

To read the column in its entirety from Thoroughbred Times TODAY (page 4), click here.