He won't be at Champions Day http://www.racingpost.com/news/horse-racing/#newsArchiveTabs=last7DaysNews
Saw them discussing this on the Morning Line. At least they had photos of the state of his hoof to try and avoid the usual complaints
No great loss to racing, very overrated in my opinion. If it's injured then I'm glad they've done the right thing and retired it, the horses welfare is paramount
They said he developed a foot abscess. They poulticed it and the infection came out the top of his hoof, but a few days later he was lame and they discovered the infection was deeper set and was starting to come through the bottom of the foot. Usual practice with a foot abscess, which is fairly common, is to poultice the foot and quite often get the farrier to cut away the infected area to speed recovery. However it obviously requires a decent spell of recovery to allow the infection to clear up and the hoof to repair itself. A minor abscess might have set him back a week or two, but this one sounds like it will need more time, and crucially medication, so as they planned to retire him anyway the decision had to be taken.
I saw the photos shown on The Morning Line but given my complete lack of veterinary knowledge, they meant very little. Indeed, the cynic in me would suggest the photos could have been any horse. This year’s Champions’ Day is starting to unravel and it seems to be more a case of who will not be there. We knew Kingman was AWOL and now the Derby winner is a no-show too. The hype is what really has set so many of us against Australia and yet again the horse has not lived up to what we were told. There have been the lame excuses for the defeats and the ratings tell us that Australia was not the best horse that Aidan O’Brien has ever trained; but I am sure the marketing men at Coolmore will manage to gloss over that verbal faux pas by effectively their private trainer.
Sadly too many people became somewhat obsessed by O'Brien's admittedly poorly judged comments and therefore lost all objectiveness discussing Australia... A dual derby winner who won a Juddmonte in stunning fashion, not too many have done what he did. Happy retirement Aussie
I'm not suggesting for one moment that Australia has problem feet as all thoroughbreds are prone to feet problems; some more so than others. However, I would be inclined to look very closely at pedigrees to see if there is any doubling up of horses with any indication of feet weaknesses (I assume that info could be found somehow). I know of one thoroughbred breeder and most of the foals and yearlings had feet you wouldn't want and certainly would not want to pass on (don't take that literally). It would be interesting to hear Princess's take on it.
Shame, thought he was going to be the bet of the season on Champions Day, class horse. How much better would Ascot have been with Kingman in the QEII and Australia in the Champion. Lucky I suppose that this is the flat were we dont depend on one end of season meeting.
At least we've still got Treve next year. http://www.racingpost.com/news/live.sd?event_id=3902324&category=0
Very good Boris! Of course if it was jumps they wouldn't be whipped off to stud though would they?! One season wonders!!!
Ron you're right that it would be interesting to know about the feet of his ancestors. I looked after a Nureyev mare out of Arc winner Detroit, she had awful feet but I don't know if that was a family trait. I do know that OUIJA BOARD's offspring to date have had quite a few physical problems, VOODOO PRINCE had shocking knees as a youngster and I'm sure I heard that FILIA REGINA (Australia's sister) had eye problems.
Samanda, in Ouija Board's pedigree was blind, but I think that was the result of an accident rather than disease. I really think that more care should be taken over selection for soundness and some stallions shouldn't go to stud at all. I know this would have ruled out some of the "greats" but the gene pool has shrunk a lot in recent years. Coolmore have a lot to do with this shrinking gene pool. I'm not saying the hoof problem is due to this, I do not know, but need to be looking towards the physical traits of the horses they breed and stand.
I know bugger all about genetics, but from what I've read, it seems as though the X chromosome is extremely potent, so maybe it's the girls that need to be regulated, not us studs.
Samanda was blinded as a foal - her dam ran through a fence. Way back in the mists of time I remember reading about it in a book that was written about 7 Stanley House foals born in 1965. One was Rainhill (out of Samanda) who sadly had to be destroyed as a yearling. Another was Mountain Call and one of the fillies was called Bikini and ended up in New Zealand. I can't remember the others or the name of the book
Real shame that Aussie bows out with just Epsom and York as his best performances. Irish Derby was an embarrassment and he was given a very poor trip by his pilot when beaten in the Champion Stakes. genuinely think he had the ability and attributes to be a brilliant racehorse. To miss the Eclipse, King George, Arc and/or Champion Stakes leaves the trophy cabinet threadbare for a horse aimed at being a new supersire. I'd have liked to have seen a 4 year old career where he could have been targeted better rather than having to get him out in the Guineas immediately.
Thanks Gladness. As I say it was a long time ago when I read it and I could not remember the name of the book
