Thoroughbreds live a one-and-done life

The breed is getting weaker.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Big Brown figures to produce big green as a stallion, which is why the Kentucky Derby winner most likely will retire young, just as his parents did.

“We’ll never know how sound he could be,” said Ken Carson, a pedigree adviser in Pilot Point, Texas. “He could run 100 more times, but given what he’s done at the racetrack, that won’t happen. Genetically we won’t know how many races he has in him.”

Such is business these days. But while the trend has proved highly lucrative for owners who can fetch far more from breeding their young stars than racing them, some in the industry say durability is now becoming an afterthought. Those fears were heightened in the Derby when the second-place finisher, the filly Eight Belles, broke both ankles and was euthanized on the track.

Although the cause of the breakdown remains unknown, Larry Bramlage, the on-track veterinarian at Churchill Downs, says the thoroughbred breed is getting weaker in part because top stallions and mares are now judged largely by their ability to produce foals that win early races with colossal payouts. Little attention is paid to late-blooming horses with long racing careers that are steadier but a tad slower, he added.

“If we keep breeding the short careers together, we’re going to get short careers,” Bramlage said. “If we want durability, we have to select for it — and we really don’t. We select for their ability to win.”

Larry Jones, who trained Eight Belles — a large, muscular filly by anyone’s standard — agrees times have changed.

“Are they more fragile?” Jones said. “When you take big — and long, spindly legs — and fast, that is somewhat of a deadly combination, but that is what wins races. Can a horse that size hold up and run? Well, yeah, they can, but if you took 100 of them like that, you would have a higher percentage of them breaking down.”

A look at Big Brown’s pedigree underscores the way the breeding business has focused on mating horses with top-heavy racing careers.

His sire, Boundary, now retired from breeding, ran only eight times — all of them sprints — before an injury ended his racing days at age 4. Big Brown’s dam, Mien, made only two lifetime starts. And each of the Derby winner’s grand-sires, Danzig and Nureyev, raced three times.

Compare those statistics with those from two generations earlier on Big Brown’s family tree — Round Table made 66 career starts, Admiral’s Voyage 52 and Nearctic 47.