Was Ruffian's break down in the match race man-made or was it just one of the those things that happens?

Question

Was Ruffian's break down in the match race man-made or was it just one of the those things that happens?

Answer 1

I believe it was man-made because they ( the racing people)

didn't want a filly to beat the boys,,these kind of things happen all the time,,and it goes to the evils of man ,,it's called

GREED

Answer 2

i just happens, she took a bad step, just like animals do in the wild.  Nothing is invincible.

Answer 3

I heard that it was just one tiny little mis step....so I'm guessing its just one of those things that happened.

Answer 4

just one of those things that happens. also...whats the big deal with barbaro...what did this horse do that was so amazing!!

Answer 5

Nobody really knows how she got injured so terribly. Some say that she hit the gate at the start and put more weight on her soon to be broken leg and then it snapped. Some say that there was birds on the track that day that distracted her and made her leg snap (which is just a happening).

Then again she came out of anethisia and broke her other leg (which is man made).

So it depends on how you look at it. I think that it was just a happening though.

Answer 6

Everyone is pretty sure it was just a freak accident. Even though I have heard of 3 different opinions people think about, as in how she broke it...

(1) As you notice in the ESPN Movie "Ruffian" at the end when she breaks down they restate everything and one of the opinions was when her and Foolish Pleasure frist were out and running out of the gate, Ruffian veered off and didn't come out so straight, and they think that maybe that had an effect.

(2) When her and Foolish Pleasure were racing down the strech there was a few birds in the track and as the two horses roared down the strech the birds flew off and one was in front of Ruffian and in this video tape they have of her ((I'll provide you the link)) it shows her at the end when she freaks out and his jumped everywhere. So I think that that was the main factor, but thats just me.

((Here's the video link, now when she breaks down is pretty into the video, but if you like Ruffian you'll love this interview!))

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GhSjGcsPJxY

(3)Then the last reason is just because it was that one mis-step. Maybe the mis-step happened when she got spooked by the bird or she just ran and stepped on it wrong. We don't really know the real, correct answer.

So them are major reasons I've heard before. Just you can think what you want =]

-mel

Answer 7

Ashlee, before I answer your question, I have to admit to how tired I get of having to dispel the myths and half truths which surround Ruffian's tragic breakdown and death over 30 years ago. The simple truth is that the filly broke her leg because she was like all young racehorses were then and are now- she was still a young, growing baby whose bones were still soft and hadn't fully developed yet. Horses normally do not become fully mature until they are at LEAST 4 years old, and in some breeds, this age is actually higher. To subject a young horse's legs to the stress of race training and pounding on the track when they are that young is very cruel, and I don't care what anyone else says about it. That's racing's dark side, and one that will always be a part of the sport, as long as there is such a huge demand for horses to race early in their lives for economic reasons.

In Ruffian's case, both jockeys reported hearing a loud cracking sound, much like that of a firecracker or gun going off, the instant before the filly stumbled and almost fell. That crack was the bones breaking in her ankle. At that time, there really was no way to save a horse with that kind of injury- facilities like the famous New Bolton hospital either didn't exist yet, or they were in their infancy. Besides which, Ruffian was a horse who had already shown that she would not be a good patient, the way Barbaro was 30 years later. At the end of her 2 year old season, the filly had suffered a stress crack in one of the bones in her hind leg. The vet tried to put a regular cast on the leg, but the filly kicked and kicked, and kicked, until she finally smashed the cast against the wall of her stall and broke it. This was a full year or more before the match race- and the filly was sending a clear warning about what she would do if she was hurt like that again, but the men working with her couldn't understand it. They eventually solved this first problem by putting a modified pillow cast of compressed cotton on the leg, and Ruffian tolerated that. But these same people were in no way prepared to deal with what followed her breakdown in the match race- and it has long been my belief that the filly should never have left the track alive. The technology which proved so useful in Barbaro's case, such as the swimming pool, for example, didn't exist then- and even had it been available, it's really questionable whether or not it would have helped Ruffian at all. Given her temperament and intolerance of confinement, my thinking is that the answer is probably no, it wouldn't have.

After her breakdown, the filly reacted very violently when she woke up following surgery- and again, had something like the water pool at New Bolton been available at that time, it's possible, though not likely, that she might have been saved. Contrary to the popular stories, Ruffian DID NOT break her other leg coming out of the anesthesia- what she did was to twist, smash, and break the special cast that had been put on her, and reopen the wounds in her already broken leg. In other words, she did what she had warned her handlers and trainer that she might do, more than a year earlier, when she was hurt the first time. To spare her further pain, Ruffian was euthanized shortly after she stopped struggling.

Was her accident manmade? Absolutely. Could it have been prevented? The answer to this is yes, it could have.  Has much changed in the sport of horse racing, and have efforts been made to prevent more tragedies like this one? The answer there is, unfortunately, NO. Racing is as cruel in many respects today as it was over 30 years ago, and if anything, the situation has gotten worse with time, because the economic pressures on the industry have grown to such an extent.  People could change the sport for the better if they wanted to, but most don't.