Excerpt From ‘Effectively Armed: A Thoroughbred of Future’

A brand new ebook written by BloodHorse senior columnist Jay Hovdey, “Effectively Armed: A Thoroughbred of Future,” tells the story of the horse overcoming bodily setbacks to win the 2009 Dubai World Cup (G1) in addition to the story of the house owners, Invoice and Susan Casner, and the way the horse supplied hope after the lack of their daughter Karri Casner in 2002. Effectively Armed was born in 2003 on what would have been Karri’s twenty fourth birthday.

The writer has shared an excerpt for readers of BloodHorse Each day. The excerpt, Chapter 7, “A Miracle Restoration,” seems to be at an prolonged rehabilitation for Effectively Armed at age 3 and 4.

The ebook could be bought at www.WellArmedBook.com.

A Miracle Restoration

With regards to the outcomes of equine joint surgical procedure, there are not any ensures, regardless that orthopedic procedures had improved by leaps and bounds by means of the final many years of the twentieth century. 

Cannon bone fractures may very well be stabilized with stainless-steel screws, whereas bone chips present in knees and ankles may very well be eliminated arthroscopically, making for quicker and higher possibilities for restoration and rehabilitation. The place as soon as an proprietor was grateful if their injured racehorse could be declared “pasture sound,” medical procedures had progressed to the purpose the place that very same Thoroughbred may be capable of race once more.

The bone chip present in Effectively Armed’s left knee was of no specific consequence. Its place allowed for removing with a wonderful prognosis for full restoration. Dr. William Baker, who pioneered arthroscopic equine surgical procedure within the early Nineteen Eighties, carried out the process shortly after the horse returned from Dubai at his Woodford Equine Clinic in Versailles, not removed from WinStar Farm. 

“Every thing went very nicely,” Invoice Casner mentioned. “Then three days later I obtained the decision from Dr. Natanya Neiman, the farm vet. He had fractured his proper hip, and knocked off a reasonably good chunk of that bone. I used to be devastated.”

Casner had each proper to be. Not solely was Effectively Armed a worthwhile Thoroughbred commodity, with strong prospects of a worthwhile profession as soon as the comparatively minor knee harm had been resolved, however he additionally was nothing lower than Karri Casner’s spirit animal, a manifestation of her lacking presence within the lives of her household. For this horse to have incurred such an pointless calamity was nearly an excessive amount of to bear.

“How he did it should eternally be a thriller,” Casner mentioned. “We will speculate, however we are going to by no means know for positive.”

Casner rushed to the barn and beheld Effectively Armed standing on three legs in apparent discomfort.

“You would inform he was in a number of ache,” Casner mentioned. “I used to be devastated. At one level, a vet mentioned that euthanasia is likely to be essential if he developed laminitis within the reverse rear leg. However that was out of the query, a minimum of till each potential choice was exhausted. And I do know, if Effectively Armed might have spoken, he would have mentioned, ‘I will beat this.'”

The equine pelvis represents the most important bone advanced within the physique, a becoming a member of of matching spheres that helps the hind legs and is laced with an intricate community of muscular tissues, ligaments, nerves, and blood vessels. Considered from above, the highest of the bone construction flares to the left and proper within the type of huge, flat wings, whose edges current themselves from the surface because the hips flanking both aspect of the backbone. It was the fitting hip Effectively Armed fractured.

“Dr. Neiman saved Effectively Armed,” Casner mentioned. “She used all of her abilities to mitigate the ache the place he might put occasional weight on the injured aspect, permitting the other rear leg to relaxation periodically and forestall laminitis.

“It was a number of months earlier than we might convey him house to the Texas ranch,” Casner mentioned. “By then, there had been a lot atrophy that the entire hip had dropped. We started his rehab and began swimming him as quickly as we might.”

Effectively Armed swam as a yearling. He swam in England with Clive Brittain. And now he was swimming once more, again within the Casners’ deep, invigorating pond simply down the highway from the primary barn. The preliminary purpose was to salvage a top quality of life Effectively Armed so well-deserved. Casner set his jaw and devised a plan that may take consummate persistence and dedication on the a part of each man and beast. 

“Once we began swimming him, we solely gave him one lap across the swimming island,” Casner mentioned. “Then after some time, I would do some interval work with him–swim him out and across the island, take him out, after which return within the pool a short time later. He was so weak on that aspect, he was mainly swimming with three legs. It compelled him to make use of the injured leg. However that was the one means he was ever going to construct that leg again up, if he was compelled to make use of it.”

Effectively Armed’s program included time spent on a floor of deep sand in an automated walker, designed to let him transfer at a gentle tempo as he examined the restoration of the hip.

“The energy got here again to it over a time period,” Casner mentioned. “His pelvis was really tilted, then because the energy got here again, every little thing began to right because the muscle steadiness returned. We performed it by ear, figuring out what he might take. We have been going fairly evenly till he obtained to a degree the place we noticed he was beginning to deal with it higher and higher. So we poured just a little extra into him. There got here a time when he was strolling two hours within the morning, then happening and swimming after lunch.”

Effectively Armed was strolling these two hours below a inventory saddle, which may weigh about fifty kilos. As Effectively Armed grew stronger, Casner would drape over the saddle what he described as an “previous Pony Specific mail pouch,” whereas steadily including extra lead weight. This went on, month after month, the person and his horse, with the assistance of the devoted ranch crew, devoting increasingly time to the restoration course of. 

“When a horse has a layoff, they lose bone,” Casner mentioned. “Mom Nature is all the time on the lookout for effectivity. So after they’re idle, their bone turns into much less dense. We would have liked to account for that. Bone responds to muscle contraction, and when that muscle contracts, the sign goes to the bone, in addition to the endocrine system, to construct extra bone. A whole lot of horses coming again will fracture their shoulder, a standard harm, as a result of you have not paid consideration to bone loss. That is why swimming is such an excellent rehab instrument.

“You see, horses breathe heavy after a race due to warmth dissipation,” Casner mentioned, explaining how physique temperature is so vital to restoration. “They’re an enormous animal, and so they have all this inner warmth, so that they’re attempting to chill down. That is the wonderful thing about swimming. It retains their inner temperature down, and so they get better so much faster. It permits for a way more intense exercise.

“Effectively Armed was as much as swimming twenty-two, twenty-three laps, a complete lot greater than most horses,” Casner mentioned. “A few of them you will see attempting to swim solely with their entrance legs. They must study to make use of all 4, get their butt up, in order that they get probably the most profit on their high line. Effectively Armed was like a cigarette boat going round there. When he’d come out, he’d take about three or 4 breaths, and he was steady. Would not have blown out a candle.”

As Effectively Armed progressed, life went on past the gates of Casner Ranch. Out within the racing world, the 2006 season drew to an finish with the presentation of the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs. Invasor received the Breeders’ Cup Traditional for the Shadwell Secure of Sheikh Hamdan al Maktoum, Sheikh Mohammed’s older brother, whereas Sheikh Mohammed completed second with Bernardini. Bluegrass Cat, the star of the WinStar racing steady, didn’t make it to the Traditional, having fractured an ankle whereas ending second to Bernardini within the Travers Stakes that summer season.

At one level, as Effectively Armed started to thrive throughout his restoration program, Casner needed to depart the ranch on enterprise. 

“I assumed we have been able to high out on his laps,” Casner mentioned. “I advised Chop Chop, my man in cost, that in a few days he might enhance him a lap. I suppose there was form of a miscommunication. He thought I meant enhance him a lap each two days. So he did. After I obtained again, I requested him, ‘Quantos vueltas?’ What number of laps? He answered, ‘Oh, treinta cinco.’

“Thirty-five! That was fifteen extra laps than any horse earlier than.”

By then, Effectively Armed’s day regarded like this: Two hours on the walker within the morning below inventory saddle weighted to about 125 kilos, adopted by lunch, then these thirty-five laps within the pool. Quickly they added thirty minutes within the lined area, with Casner within the saddle–the identical Invoice Casner who was paid a greenback additional for galloping robust horses in his racetrack youth.

“It was throughout these final thirty days that I rode him myself across the area,” Casner mentioned. “Getting on him within the afternoon, you’ll have thought he would have been drained in spite of everything he’d performed within the morning, on the walker and within the pool. However nope. He was a recent horse.”

Nearly too recent.

“He was so fast,” Casner mentioned. “I needed to watch him on a regular basis. I imply, he was robust and powerful, after which increase! He’d do a do-si-do, and also you’d higher be screwed down. In the event you weren’t heads up, he might drop you in a second. And he was all the time on the lookout for an excuse. Birds. He’d see a hen and increase!”

The cowboy in Casner was loving the problem, principally due to what Effectively Armed was speaking by his emphatic conduct. 

“When a horse is like that, you understand they are not hurting,” Casner mentioned. “I would experience him for about thirty minutes each day–jog, jog, jog–and then I would gallop him some. I threw a lot at him, actually poured the coal to him, however I by no means threw him greater than what he might take. It was all performed over a nine-month interval, steadily constructing him up.”

Come the spring of 2007, Casner proclaimed the horse sound and match sufficient to go again to WinStar for extra formal coaching, with the purpose of a return to racing. Effectively Armed had been gelded. He had grown to just about 17 arms and was near what could be his optimum operating weight of 1,275 kilos.

“After I despatched him to WinStar, they jogged him for a month,” Casner recalled. “They have been very conservative. That is after I known as Eoin Harty. I advised him, ‘It is time for him to return to you. You take a look at this horse. I do know he is obtained expertise. And he is match. After what he is been by means of, he is obtained nothing to lose.'”