I heard it said today by race announcers that Big Brown has a "quater crack in his front (something)?" They've

Question

said he's fine to race, but what does this mean?

Answer 1

I think it was a quarter inch of a crack in one of his front hooves. As a horse owner (whose farrier does not come all the often), I have seen similar cracks that have not caused complications of any kind. Big Brown should be fine. They used wire sutures on it when they first saw it, and now have either used fiberglass or acrylic over it so it should be completely fine for him to race. His work-outs looked great, so I hope that he does take the Triple Crown.

Answer 2

it means that for the 31st year straight, NO TRIPLE CROWN WINNER! NO WAY HE CAN WIN WITH INJURY!!

Answer 3

Comet Girl!

He is fine to race. His hooves have been carefully shod in special shoes to support them.  You can read all about them at:

http://www.quartercrack.com/hoof_cracks....

Go Big Brown!

Read all about his special shoes, and how they work.

http://frequentlyfeline.blogspot.com/200...

Troublesniffer

Former horse owner and horse show competitor

Answer 4

Quarter cracks are common.  They discovered the crack last week and they've been treating it since then.  He missed a day or 2 of training, but he went out on Tuesday and worked great.  They patched it up yesterday and put acryllic over it so if you saw the horse today you wouldn't even be able to see that anything was wrong.  It's not a huge deal.  It is something to keep in mind.  It could bother him since the race is 12 furlongs... it's possible... but looking at his workout the other day, it didn't bother him then, so I doubt it will bother him now.

A quarter crack is a crack in the hoof... it's a vertical crack going up the hoof wall.  Here's a picture of Big Brown's hoof: http://sports.yahoo.com/rah/photo?slug=9...

it's on the back part of his left hoof.  It's been patched up since then so you can't see it anymore... this picture was taken earlier this week.

Very good explanation corundogs.  The only thing I would add is this...  If you look at the picture of Big Brown's hoof, you'll notice that the crack has opened up and that the hoof around that crack has sort of popped up... it looks like there's a bump there... like there's swelling.  That's because the reason that his hoof opened up is because of an abscess.  That's like having a little bit of infection in your nail bed too.  They couldn't just put a patch over the area immediately because they had to leave it open to let the infection dry out.  That's why you see in this picture that they put the steel sutures on the hoof, but didn't initially cover it... they left it open to let the abscess drain out.  Once the infection was gone, they could close it up.

Answer 5

I understand it was in his hoof.  They fixed it with wire sutures.  Poor thing.

Answer 6

Hopefully you just watched the coverage, because they just finished covering this.

Their hooves grow like fingernails.  It's like a crack in your fingernail that goes into your nailbed.

If you don't do anything with it, it's pretty sore until it grows out.

However, imagine if you went to a Nail Salon and had them put a fake nail on top of it.  This would seal the crack, it's no longer exposed to being ripped into the bed more and the pain is gone.

The nail grows out past the crack, you remove the fake nail and all is normal.

I think this is a very good analogy - anyone else agree?  

They have put a very strong acrylic patch over his quarter crack, therefore it is no longer exposed and cannot be felt.  It's actually stronger than the rest of his uncovered hoof - just like with the fake nail on top of your cracked nail, which is stronger than any of your natural nails.

Hope this helps and will allow you to see this is NOT A PROBLEM AT ALL!!!

He has had this problem his entire life.