Steeplechasing Woes

Mary Whalen · Post by **Mary Whalen** » 17 years ago

I have this mare that as a new user eager to get some horses running, bought without looking into her much at all. She never did much on flat so when steeplechasing started I figure I'll give her a try as my first steeplechaser. She once again, has not been doing too well. Is it time to cut my losses and send her on her way to the bid pasture in the sky? Or is there something that might be done to help improve her a little more so she can start to earn her keep?

<a href='http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php?HorseID=19846' target='_blank'>http://www.simhorseracing.com/horse.php ... D=19846</a>

Thanks for the help in advanced.

Lauren Haggerty · Post by **Lauren Haggerty** » 17 years ago

I'd try her again for a couple of reasons. The first is that she didn't have the best trip. A bad start, she was rank... and she didn't finish badly. Not quite sure what equipment to try, maybe blinkers or a figure 8. The other reason I'd try again is that if you did retire her, she'd just be sitting around wasting money. Might as well at least try to get something from her.

Katie Grenier · Post by **Katie Grenier** » 17 years ago

From looking at her first race (3 1/4 miles) looks like she only needed a figure eight. At the same time, however, I would also put the shadow roll back on her since you had totally changed her equipment around for this last race. Which can make it hard to tell weather or not it was the equipment she didn't like or the distance as she went from 4th place week 1 to 7th place week 8. In all I would say try running her with Lasix, Figure Eight, Shadow Roll, Hind bandages and Front Bandages and then keep monitoring her progress. Like Lauren said you might as well try to get some money from her instead of letting her sit and take money from you by not being raced at all. Anyone feel free to correct me if I goofed up and said something totally out of line, I'm still learning and am not perfect, and would rather be corrected on things so that I can learn from my mistakes and go on. It's easier to apologize than to run around being a selfish 'know it all'

Laura Ferguson · Post by **Laura Ferguson** » 17 years ago

Once you put a horse on lasix, you've more or less made a permanent commitment to keep the horse on lasix, so definitely keep that. I'd put the shadow roll and figure 8 back on. The tongue tie shouldn't really hurt anything.

However, because both the equipment and the distance keep changing from race to race, it's really hard to tell what is contributing to some of these comments (is it the distance? the equipment? some combination?). So, I'd go with lasix, shadow roll, figure eight, tongue tie, and try to find a race that's either 3 miles or as close to 3 miles as you can get. Once you get those race comments, then you can start playing around with distance.

I agree with some of the other comments, in that you have a chance of earning some money while she's racing. If you retire her, particularly mid-season, you'll still have to pay board for her, plus fork out money for the stallion fee, and honestly, you'll have a baby you need to support for a while before it gets to the races with no real assurance that he or she will run any better than mom did. So, it's worth giving her two or three more races, because if you can get her to improve, you'll be financially better off.

Mary Whalen · Post by **Mary Whalen** » 17 years ago

Thanks all for the help once more. I guess I won't be sending her to the 'don't want this horse anymore account' and see if she can start earning her keep.