Who will get the NSW training trophy

[Triple V]

He sure was butt ugly that horse, but geeze, tough as old goats knees with it.
Some horses have really surprised me conformation/gait wise. One was Monkey King. I saw him race a few times at Menangle during the 2010 ID & again later in the year at the MM and he seemed to me to go quite clean & he went bloody fast as well...and yet to my eye when I saw him down in the stabling are I thought he stood like Charlie Chaplin in front. I was a bit surprised he didn't belt his knees off. Another couple were Elsu and Thorate. Elsu's gait as a prospective sire reminded immediately me of the results of the subsequent siring career of Nihilator, not because he went the same as Nihilator but moreso because like him, I thought Elsu had a way of going that was all of his own...and if it was to be inherited by his foals, that they were largely not going to be able to live with it like he could. I think Nihilator had much the same problem, his foals often got his gait...one which had a kind of 'rack' to it, kind of like a Tennessee Walking Horse... but by and large they did not get the motor that he had, the one required to make it work. Thorate was a wonderful race horse too but he used to all but 'run' inside of his hopples. The vision in my head of him was watching him rip down the straight at Bathurst one night and hair into the first turn. Always thought he was a pretty strange going horse, for me he was pound for pound the most perculiar action for the fastest lifetime mark and most big races $$$ won of any horse I've ever seen.

[Danno]

Some horses have really surprised me conformation/gait wise. One was Monkey King. I saw him race a few times at Menangle during the 2010 ID & again later in the year at the MM and he seemed to me to go quite clean & he went bloody fast as well...and yet to my eye when I saw him down in the stabling are I thought he stood like Charlie Chaplin in front.

Whether they go the knee or not is all in the way the knee itself is constructed...it's about the angles within the knee, you can tell when you take their foot off the ground, not while their foot is on the ground. I know that I've not explained it very well, cos its difficult to describe in words what we look for...far easier to demonstrate...and I might add VERY seldom wrong, I'll not say never because there is always one that will make a liar of you. So I'm not surprised about the Charlie Chaplin stance with a horse going clean, similarly I have seen quite a few that stand a bit pigeon toed and bang their knees like buggery.

[Triple V]

Yeh, maybe. I'm not convinced by any one thing at the moment. I've seen guys pick their feet up and drop them, stand to the side and to the rear of them and rock them from side to side, lift up their tails and let them go...all sorts of weird stuff.
I can't say for sure one way or the other but I tend to think there's more factors involved than just their knee construction alone. Aspects of overall front end conformation/wither height/shoulder slope, if they have a narrow or wide base/stance etc come into it as well. I've got a mare with an ordinary knee on her offside & she's a touch benched on her nearside (if I remember to do so I'll get a pic tomorrow and I'll post it here so you can have a look at what I am on about) While ultimately we found she wouldn't stand up to a full race prep before going sore in that offside knee, she had a couple of short preps which showed she goes cleanly & quite powerfully to boot. She's very high at the withers and has a great slope to her shoulder which I think helps her move in the way she does, as in quite squarely, and despite her knee. Like yourself I've also seen what I'd say were very badly made front ends on horses & despite that they'll go cleanly and I've seen some apparently quite well made in the front ends horses that, on the surface of it at least, then inexplicably go a knee. I reckon that we can take a pretty educated guess at it...but nobody knows for sure until they get their pants and shoes put on them and they're asked to go forward in anger. We also had one years ago that looked great until he started to pace at speed and it showed he had a dreadful for want of a better term 'loose' fetlock joint that used to wing out and about and wobble all over the place like it was going to fall off. Often wondered what caused that. Any ideas? It was like his tendons/sinews in that area were slack or something, like the elastic in your old undies that finally gives up the ghost.

[Danno]

We also had one years ago that looked great until he started to pace at speed and it showed he had a dreadful for want of a better term 'loose' fetlock joint that used to wing out and about and wobble all over the place like it was going to fall off. Often wondered what caused that. Any ideas? It was like his tendons/sinews in that area were slack or something, like the elastic in your old undies that finally gives up the ghost.

loose joints are often associated with over fed youngsters who will often grow out of/through it with maturity, I have seen some foals with issues from day one but that is obviously not the case with this particular horse.. how old was he at the time? how much older did he get?? were there soreness issues associated? was he wacking his knee on the turns or straights?

[teecee]

And the most pertinent question of the thread......
Will he / did he win the NSW trainers trophy???...!!!!!

[strong persuader]

I think the events of the 17th September may have a large bearing upon the answer to that question Teecee.

[Triple V]

loose joints are often associated with over fed youngsters who will often grow out of/through it with maturity, I have seen some foals with issues from day one but that is obviously not the case with this particular horse.. how old was he at the time? how much older did he get?? were there soreness issues associated? was he wacking his knee on the turns or straights?

[VVV] That's interesting Dan. It was about 15 or 16 years ago. He was born straight & in place as far as I can remember, to my eye at least he looked quite Ok. Can't recall if he was over-fed but he didn't miss a feed, put it that way. He was broken in late, almost 2yo by the time he got a set of hopples on, didn't race at 2, started towards the trials at 3 and never got there, started up again at 4yrs, same problem as before, got sold, disappeared out Broken Hill way. Never heard of again. Probably fell down a mine shaft. 400m directly down would have been the quickest quarter mile he ever covered. What really baffles me is that if a horse has loose joints as a result of over feeding/immaturity or whatever...and I don't for one minute doubt that is indeed the case...why I wonder would it have only manifested in one joint, in this case his offside fetlock?

While we're on this general subject, a question without notice.
Do you think there is any link between being born with contracted tendons & subsequently having bad feet?...as in brittle/cracked/quartercrack style bad feet? The only foal we ever had that suffered from contracted tendons also proved to have the worst feet going. It didn't matter what you did, they would chip and crack and split and break away, even just as a yearling romping around in grassed paddocks. Unrelated?

[Danno]

While we're on this general subject, a question without notice.
Do you think there is any link between being born with contracted tendons & subsequently having bad feet?...as in brittle/cracked/quartercrack style bad feet? The only foal we ever had that suffered from contracted tendons also proved to have the worst feet going. It didn't matter what you did, they would chip and crack and split and break away, even just as a yearling romping around in grassed paddocks. Unrelated?

Haven't personally seen that Jamie, but my thinking is if the tendons are contracted the horse will put less weight on his heels? less weght on the heels could mean less bearing on the frog reducing the natural expansion/contraction of the hoof, hence reducing the blood flow leading to hoof health issues?

or of course it could be completely unrelated!

[p plater]

I think the events of the 17th September may have a large bearing upon the answer to that question Teecee.

Phil, any update on your comments here?

[strong persuader]

Phil, any update on your comments here?

That it has only been deferred to 2/10/2012. This is the date that Luke McCarthy's appeal has been set down for, originally it was the 17/9/2012. It may be one event that is tied to the Mayan calendar