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Imagine adjudicate to walk on all fours using just your big toe and your in-between finger . That is similar to what modern thoroughbred racehorses endure when hie around a caterpillar track at up to 30 mph .
Before the gate unresolved for the 135th Kentucky Derby Saturday , there will be a minute of remembrance for Barbaro , the 2006 champion , and Eight Belles , the 2008 Caranx crysos - up . Both suffered stage wound that have them to be put down . This week , two top rival for the Derby , Quality Road and Square Eddie , were force out of the raceway due to hoof and shinbone injury .
The Secret of Fast Horses
[ Update May 2 : On airstream morning , one of the favorites — I require Revenge — was scratched due to inflammation in the soft tissue paper above and below the articulatio talocruralis . ]
Critics claim selective breeding may be produce an unstablehorse anatomythat is prone to injury . Yet , a late cogitation claim that it all may be for naught , asthoroughbredsmay have already reached their theoretical upper limit of speed .
ladder on their toesOne of out ten thoroughbreds will suffer from some orthopedic problem , including fractures , which often lead to decisions to put down them . In the United States , for every 1,000 sawbuck starting a race , there will be 1.5 career - ending injury , which is almost two per day .
Bybreeding for fastness and power , the majority of the horse gain while the ankles and lowly peg do not , concord to some veterinary .
" Anatomically speaking , they escape on their toe , " said Lawrence R. Soma , professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine . " That have them very frail . "
The pounds per straight column inch load that is put on their hoofs would be like to humans walk on their in-between fingers , experts say . One misstep on a cushy patch of the turf can cause a break .
So they ’re faster , right?Given the large inwardness of money spent on engender maven racehorses and the possible health side effects , is it deserving it ? Are the race prison term getting faster thanks to these selective genetic performance filter ? The result is no , according to Mark Denny , Professor of Biology at Stanford University .
In a late study published in theJournal of Experimental Biology , Denny analyze the race time track record for the three U.S. Triple Crown races ; the Kentucky Derby , the Preakness Stakes , and the Belmont Stakes . The plateau for exchangeable times for the Kentucky Derby began in 1949 , while the Preakness and the Belmont ready their plateaus in 1971 and 1973 , respectively , Denny recover .
" Evidence from the Triple Crown races suggests that the process of selective breeding of thoroughbreds ( as practiced in the US ) is incompetent of producing a substantially faster horse , " Denny writes . " Despite the efforts of the stock breeder , speeds are not increase , and current attempts to breed fast horse cavalry may alternatively be bring about horses that are more fragile . "
The solutionDenny also try out to predict the fastest possible time for these horse . Using statistical modeling , he found that the maximal pep pill of a pureblood would be only 0.5 to 1 percent faster than seen today .
" These results suggest that definite speed terminal point do indeed survive for horses and that their current speeds are very close to these predicted boundary , " Denny suppose . One reason for the limit may be the cistron pool . Today ’s thoroughbreds descend from a line of only 12 - 29 ancestors , with 95 per centum of today ’s thoroughbreds retrace their paternal origin to a undivided entire , The Darley Arabian .
Denny suggests that breeding fromoutside this linemight make the potential for advance .
Dan Petersonwrites about sport scientific discipline at his siteSports Are 80 Percent Mental . His Science of Sports editorial appears weekly on LiveScience .
