November 24, 2011 • 36 mins
It's been just 300 years since the Thoroughbred breed has been around, but it has produced some of the most storied animals humans have ever loved. Chuck and Josh dive into what makes these horses special and the controversy around racing them.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready, are you hey? And welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Nice. That's
(00:23):
a pretty good horse. Was that a Mayor Philly whole
yearling gelding? Cole Stallion? Do you know a lot more
about horses? After reading? I do? And I was gonna
ask you if we could open up with a little
definition definitions with Chuck and Josh. I think we should,
(00:46):
But do your do your thing first and then we'll
do that. Just sometimes just going to mention Uncle Mo.
Al right here, Uncle Mo is the favorite at the
upcoming Breeders Cup by the time this comes out, the
Breeders couple of Come and Gone, because it's November four
and five, which is the weekend it is, isn't it? Um?
And Uncle Mo is the favorite for the Breeders Cup,
(01:06):
the real one because you know, like for something like
a Breeders Cup, and it's four or five, you know,
the fourth and fifth, So two days, um, they're gonna
have like fifty races because on a race day there's
like usually like ten to thirteen, so they probably have.
And the big one is the last one in this case,
and the Breeders Cup is gonna be at Churchill Churchill
(01:27):
Downs in Kentucky where they hold a Kentucky Derby and
Uncle Mos favorite. He's five to choice by oddsmaker Mike Battellia,
who had not heard of until I read this article
about Uncle Mo. But he scratched. I was gonna see
him at the Kentucky Derby and he scratched with a
liver problem, so he didn't make it to post. And
(01:50):
I can't remember. I think Animal Kingdom ended up winning.
But I went to the Kentucky Derby, you mean I did,
And then we went to the Preakness, and after that
I was like, I have to do or about this.
So I came back and started researching and wrote this
article how Thoroughbreds work. And then and now the next
horse race you go to, you will be the most
obnoxious person there. No, I'll keep my mouth. I bet
(02:11):
a lot of people know a lot, and I bet
a lot of people know nothing. Yeah well, were at
the big ones like that? Yeah you well, yeah you you.
I would say most of the people there know nothing
at the big ones because it's just filled with tourists,
and for some people it's like, hey, it's I come
here every day. It's just another race day. Get out
(02:32):
of here. Right. But ultimately, and because of Perry Muto
mew too well, betting interesting, it's what it's Perry Perry mutel,
that's what it is. But it's a French word. Um.
Your odds go up and down depending on how many
other people are betting on a horse or betting against
it or whatever. So I imagine if you are like
(02:54):
just one of those people where the Kentucky Derby is
just another race day for you, you hate that day,
the first Saturday in May, you probably skip it. Maybe
you got you got a line, well yeah, true, Yeah,
this mutter is a mutter. Yeah. So let's let's do
your definition, chuck, all right. A cult is a male
under five years old. Philly is a female under five
(03:15):
years old, right, but from two age two to age five,
the yearling is either one or two years old. Okay.
A foal is newborn yeah, correct, and it's also over
being folds being born right. A sire is the father,
which is a stallion yep. Stallion is an adult male
(03:37):
horse over five years old, but also a stud if
he's doing that for money or pere or is he
a stud no matter what, he's a stud, no matter what.
That's what I like to think. And then the damn
the d A m is the female, which is a mayor, right,
and she is a breeder over five and she produces
(03:58):
a If she produces a female, it's a broodmare, or
she a brood mayor she's a brood mare. So a
brood mare and a stud are one and the same,
but different breeds, different genders, genders, yes, yes, but they
are like it's that's all the act of doing it.
(04:19):
After that, when reproduction takes over, they become a sire
in a damn, okay, in relation to the full and
a pony is just a small horse which has very
disappointing Yeah, well unless you meet one, then you're like,
I'm not at all disappointed by this Shetland pony. Shetland
ponies are awesome, all right, So that'll that'll help you
(04:39):
out here going through this excellent article. I might add,
thank you, thank you, it's very good. Well, I really
like thoroughbred horses are really interesting. They're probably new and
it's one of those that if you don't know anything
about something. You can sit down in thirty minutes and
read this and know a lot about something you never
kne anything about, which is our goal. Yeah, alright, so
(04:59):
let's go. Well, Um, like I said, though, breds are
pretty new. They just came about within the last like
three hundred or so years, Like they're an entirely new breed.
You know that. Well, you want to talk about the
beginning of the uh yeah, the history of Thoroughbreds by
Josh Clark. Every thoroughbred alive comes from one of three bloodlines,
(05:23):
which is really remarkable. Um. The well, let's here, you
give me a little background, then we'll talk about the
horses themselves. So, uh, the this breed has three foundation
sires is what they're called. And they're so they're three
stallions that all belong to the Oriental group, and the
Oriental group are Turks, Barbs and Arabians. Very fast, like
(05:48):
these are the ones that you see in Lawrence of
Arabia haulling through the desert. Exactly. Very muscular and fast, yeah, exactly, Um,
and fairly light to write, like, yeah, I used to
Like I was like, how do you want me to
finish that? Yes, we like them. Um. The Arabians for
at least a couple of thousand years have been prized
(06:11):
for their quickness and their courage. They're very courageous horses,
so they war horses. They serve as really good war horses. Yeah. Um.
And because they were quick and because Bedouins Shake used
to like to make money however however he could, including wagers,
(06:31):
they would be raced in match racism, match races just
one horse against one horse. Um and uh. And about
the seventeenth eighteenth century, the late seventeenth early eighteenth century,
three sires arrived in England and those became the foundation
sires for the thoroughbread Beat breed. Each one has a
(06:54):
really cool story. If you ask me, I agree. In
Captain Robert by Bayerley captured a Turk, very fine looking
horse from the Turkoman horse in the Middle East, right,
and the that's part of the Oriental group, the Turk,
the Turkoman. That's it's an Oriental horse. Yeah, these are
all Oriental horses, right. And they he captured this in
(07:16):
a in a battle in Hungary and it was like,
you know what, this horse is really fast and it's
really brave. I'm taking it back to England, and he did,
and UH. That was number one. Number two was the
Byerly Turk UH. And this was a stolen barb, another
Oriental obviously called the Darley Barb or the Darly Arabian UH,
(07:37):
purchased by Thomas Darley and he was a diplomat to
Syria and he said, Hey, I love that four year
old colt Mr Bedouin Shake, and so I'd like to
purchase from you. And then the shake renigged and he said, well,
I'm gonna go steal it from you then if you're
not gonna give me the horse. And in in Darley's
um defense, I believe he had paid for it already,
so just outright theft he was. He was claiming the
(08:01):
horse he he purchased. He paid somebody to go steal it,
and they smuggled it out through Turkey back to England,
and that became the Direly Barb. So now the Diarly
Barb is there. And then the third one was a
little less interesting, but sort of interesting in an underdog
sort of way and a Dickenzie sort of way exactly
the Go Dolphin Arabian from Yemen and UH was given
(08:24):
to the King of France along with three other horses
and seventeen twenty four. I'm sorry he was born in
seventeen and being the King of France, he said, I
shall set them free, and set these horses free. It
ends up being a cart horse in Paris, which is
kind of cool when you think about it, that this
was like one of the three sires and uh eventually
(08:48):
was was bought and sold and bought and sold until
it was finally purchased by the second Earl of Godolphin
in seventeen thirty three. And I guess that must have
been a heck of a horse by that time. Yes,
it had seen the ups in the down. And so
the these three horses were bred with English mayors um
and the the I guess the English horse that they
(09:09):
were bred with was a lot bigger, a lot stronger,
but a lot slower. And so you took these oriental
group horses and these English horses, uh, English draft horses
maybe even, and what you had was a very strong,
muscular but extremely quick horse, which was the Thoroughbred breed,
(09:29):
don't that And so it's the three hundred year old
breed of animal, which is really cool, and that that
kind of um. It enlightens us to a characteristic of
the breed that from the very beginning, it's it's interactive
with humans, like it owes its origin to human interaction.
(09:53):
What you get with the thoroughbred, Josh, if you want
to throw down a couple of hundred bucks on one,
can you get a third bread for two hundred bucks? Can?
You could? But you'd have to stand outside of the
slaughterhouse and just offer. Okay, spoiler alert, you're gonna get
a horse that is weighs about a thousand pounds, very
light and fast light. Bones will be sixteen hands, which
(10:16):
is uh, a hand is four inches what you just said,
So that's sixty four inches about years old, six inches
sixty four sixty four inches. They'll live to be about
twenty five. They can take about a hundred and fifty
strides per minute and race up to an over forty. Yeah,
that's a cooking horse. And we should say that a
(10:38):
horse is measured from the ground to its withers, which
is a ridge right behind the shoulders, smithers withers. And
you said that they can run forty miles an hour.
You know why they can run forty miles an hour?
Because of its stride length. Let's talk about his stride length.
It's pretty remarkable. Uh. The average stride length of a
(10:59):
thoroughbred horse is twenty ft. Okay, that's long. So you
say you're subar U is fifteen ft long super outback.
So a stride length is the distance between let's say, um,
the moment the right hoof, right front hoof, any hoof.
But let's say the right front hoof touches the ground
(11:19):
to the to the next point where that same hoof,
that say, the right hoof touches the ground again. So
on a thirdbred and average thoroughbred horse, it's twenty ft.
That's very long, longer than a Subaru wagon. Um. And
then some other horses have had even longer stride lengths
like Man of War who raced and I think, um,
(11:42):
he had a stride length of twenty eight ft when
he was eight and a half meters. That's that's really
really long. Um. And he was taller too, I guess, huh,
he was a very tall horse. And also, so you've
got a stride length of twenty ft right. Um. They
can run up to a hundred and fifty strides a minute,
(12:05):
which means they can go up to forty. But they
can do this for like over a mile, which is
amazing when the reason that they can do this for
over a mile is because they're freaks of nature. As
far as breeds go, breeds of animal go, right they are.
They have very special internal organs, specifically a very large
heart and a very efficient spleen. So while this heart
(12:28):
is able to pump out seventy i'm sorry, circulate seventy
five gallons of blood a minute when running, that's a
lot of blood. The spleen all all of a sudden says,
you know what, I'm gonna kick it into turbo and
I'm gonna, you know, get a bunch of oxygen rich
blood cells and shoot them all over the blood stream.
And in the end it's going to increase the total
(12:49):
red blood cell count thirty five to six total blood volume.
So the red blood cell count or percentage is normally
thirty five while it's running, goes up to sixty. So
it's just delivering oxygen to every part of the running machine.
And the third bread has a couple of other unique
characteristics as far as it's run goes. All horses can
(13:11):
only breathe through their nose. Did you know that? Okay,
I did not until I wrote this article. Um. And
then they breathe in while their legs are extending, and
then they exhale well when the legs come together on
the ground, so it acts like a bellows. So they're
breathing in tons of oxygen very efficiently. And then its
legs do something pretty spectacular. Well, its neck does first. Yeah,
(13:35):
the neck moves in unison with the front legs, which
is gonna just give you more propulsion. You need to
explain the rear hind legs. Okay, So Chuck and I
had a little in atypical discussion because we normally don't
discuss things beforehand. But um, that the the back legs
of a thoroughbred create a spring like motion. They basically
(13:55):
pump up and down right, which gives the horse a
lot of rust. It produces a lot of gs. Um.
Chuck showed me a video, the very same video I
looked at to make sure that I knew what I
was talking about when I read that, and then you
know wrote it. Um that it's not the legs necessarily
(14:17):
just staying in like a stiff up and down motion.
It's the the overall motion that is being created by
the legs, the spring like back legs, springing, springing. What
I noted about behind legs is that they stay almost
completely straight, so it's just like buying, buying, buying, springing,
(14:40):
springing down, springing down. However, you look at the back
legs create like a spring like motion very much that
propels the horse forward. So that's why thorerbreads are so
prized for racing. That's right, because they take all the
speed and the agility of the Arabian and the strength
(15:01):
and endurance of the English mayors that they were bred with,
and you've got the Thoroughbreds had a very special horse.
Uh Josh. It wasn't just those three, as you point out,
that created the whole bloodline. There was a lot of
hanky panky going on with Oriental group horses that were
brought over during wartime from the Middle East, and they
(15:22):
really helped the bloodline out obviously, but a lot of
them were lost to history because maybe they had only
female daughters, and that means that's the end of you,
or at least your bloodline, or maybe you got it
on with a different breed and that means you're a dirty,
dirty horse now, and you can't be counted as a
Thoroughbred any longer. You could be, but you're going to
(15:45):
be even even if they say all right, fine, I'll
go back to the Thoroughbred, They're like, Nope, you did
it with that other kind of horse, so you're done. No,
I don't think so, oh what, No, it's just your offspring. Okay.
So like if if the horse never made it with
anything but non thoroughbreds, then it's bloodlines lost. I thought
(16:08):
you were saying that if out, um, well that's good
to know because I thought that was a little harsh. Yeah. No,
it's not like that. But all of that is based
on a decision that was made in sevente by a
guy named James Weatherbee who created this thing called the
General Stud Book, and that is that all thoroughbreds are
traced through the sire, so they can be traced back
(16:30):
through the to the three and all thoroughbreds alive today
can be traced back to those three foundations sires. And
this General Stud Book is a closed registry, meaning only
Thoroughbred full Thoroughbred horses that are born to full Thoroughbred
parents can be included in this General Stud book, that's right,
and more than a hundred thousand or fold worldwide every year,
(16:51):
and so that's a lot of horses to keep track
of and trace their lineage. Although once you have it
done the first time, like that General stud Book serves
as the mother ship of which all other stud books
are based. So you've got the foundation there you do,
so it's not like you have to keep tracing back
to the original three. No, once you can link it
up to say the last one in the in the
(17:14):
General stud Book exactly, it's last ancestor then it takes
over from there. So thank you. Weather Bees. Well yeah,
well they still do that. The weather Bees Limited is
still an incorporated company in the UK. I thot they
have a nice box there at Churchill Down. Oh yeah
they do, or anywhere anywhere, um they so yeah. James
Weatherby in se was actually the second weather be his
(17:37):
uncle um clem no also James. He was the first
secretary of the Jockey Club and uh he was hired
to keep track of purses, Chuck, what's a purse? Well,
a purse. A purse is the winnings, the the total
u amount of money that a horse can win for
(18:00):
its owner. I should say, horses traditionally don't get to
keep the money themselves. It goes to the owners, who
in turn pay the jockeys and all those other people. Um.
But the the the first James Weatherby was hired in
seventeent um to basically keep the books for the jockey club.
(18:22):
So the weather Bees are like a family, a long
line of accountants basically. And the reason why the first
Jeames Weatherby was hired was because he, um, he was
hanging around at a time when they really needed to
start keeping track of the incredible sums of money that
were being bet on these races. Yeah, what happened was
they you know, as soon as two rich people get
(18:44):
something fast, they're gonna want to race against each other.
And so that's what happened. And they were just like,
let me race my horse against yours. And then that
became like, well, let's have a few races, and let's
add even more horses, and horse racing very organically. Thoroughbred
racing was very organically. And like you said, then once
things are racing, some dude's gonna want to bet and
(19:06):
then all of a sudden, it's a huge cottage industry
that the weather Bees were put in charge of Yeah, exactly.
Back in seventeen seventy. When he was hired, the purses
were reaching something like two thousand pounds. There's a lot,
a lot. I didn't see a conversion for today's dollars,
but it's a lot of pounds. It's a lot. So
they hired the weather Bees and um, ultimately James Weatherby
(19:30):
the younger created the General Stubb Book, which, like you said,
is like the central stud book for all the others.
America has its own. Um, the American stud Book goes
back to eighteen sixty eight, and U Thoroughbreds in America
go back far, far, um earlier than that. Thirty I
(19:50):
think was the first one. Yeah, bull Rock, which is
a pretty cool name as a heck of stallion. Yeah,
Bull bull Rock. So Bull Rock was here, and apparently
there was a horse racing on Long Island as far
back as the late seventeenth century. Yeah, but thoroughbred's bloodlines
are and are kept such such exact records are kept
(20:12):
of the bloodlines that they basically said, you guys had
a civil war, We're not sure of your records any longer.
Start over, So the American stud Book goes back to
eighteen sixty eight, and that's it. It's the as far
as anybody's concerned, the beginning of thoroughbred horses in America. Yeah,
and then the in nineteen thirteen, the Jockey Club passed
(20:32):
the Jersey Act, which basically said a lot of these
American horses don't count because unless you're in these other books,
then you can prove that. Then uh, then your s
o L right, if your parents don't show up in
other general stud books that were previously published, then whatever.
And since there was a break in the records, a
lot of American horses couldn't get in there, it's right
(20:53):
until nineteen nine, and they felt bad for them and said,
you know what, we're gonna let you in and year
now in the study. So if the stud book says
who who's in and who's out, and the Jockey Club
controls the stud book, that means that the Jockey Club
basically defines what a thoroughbred horses. And when I say basically,
(21:16):
I mean in every single sense of the word. So color,
there's nine colors cover everything, though, don't they like what colors?
Are horses that aren't listed? Is what I wondered. Any
kind of neon is is left out. They also determine
whether the name is appropriate, which, uh, you know, you've
(21:37):
seen some pretty silly horse names, but you notice that
you've never seen one that was a slur, like a
Rachel slur, social slur. Never one that's offensive. Uh, never
one that was named after someone famous, unless they said, hey,
you should name this after me the w C. Fields.
Well know, if you're if they're alive. Still, I thought
they had to have consent you of a living famous person.
(21:59):
I think you can't get interesting, not without reanimation. Oh,
I just thought like the state could give consenters. But
I think I think I remember seeing that part of
the rules if it's a live person interesting Uh, And
it cannot the name cannot consist of entirely of numbers,
which makes sense, I guess. But and you can also
(22:21):
name like um, you can't name it after another winning
horse traditionally, unless it's like a play on it, like
seed biscuit was a son of like hard tack, I think,
which does that type of bread that sailors eight? But
could you name one like tea biscuit? You could, but
(22:41):
I'll bet everybody think you're a jeer tea biscuit nine
O nine sevent eight nine four. Well, and it says
the Jockey club has the final authority, so they might
just shut that down on you know, hinkiness alone. Yeah,
and they can say you name your horse whatever you want,
but it's not coming in the register. And you're like, okay,
al right, right, all right, all right, I'll let you.
All right, Josh, we're talking about purses and it is
(23:03):
big money now in the US alone, in two thousand
and ten, the gross purses UH total more than a
billion dollars. That was actually a pretty big decline. Well
not big, but there was, there was. It was worth
more even earlier, like two five was a huge peak
for purses in the US for horse racing. Yeah, well
that means if there's a lot of money to be
(23:24):
one as a horse owner, that means there's a lot
of money to be made as a horse owner and
paid as a horse owner. It's very expensive. In fact,
I looked into this when I remember when I wrote
that article on unusual investments for Sunny Paper, one of
them was investing in horses and it didn't seem like
a very good idea at the time. This is before
(23:46):
the horse bubble though, because of how much it costs
to maintain a horse, you know, and just like you
can buy into it without owning a horse, like almost
like stock in these operations. So there I think the
problem is then would be like the the chance, the
percentage percentage of a chance that you have of that
particular horse really bringing home big money. Well, you've got
(24:09):
the chances in here. Six of all year lings fold
in a given year will be trained to race, so
almost all of the our trained to race, almost literally
born to race, and only about five percent of those
will win any kind of substantial purse. And I think
you said, was it like point two percent of that
(24:29):
will ever win a Grade one stakes race? And Grade
ones are the big ones like the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness.
Point two percent. Man, that's very low. It is extremely low, um.
And I mean, if you have a horse that wins
like a daily race a couple of days a week
and it's forty grand and it's just a reliable winning horse,
(24:50):
you're still going to make some money off of it.
But still the big problem that all thoroughbred horse owners
face is you have a very very limited time to
raise your horse, like all prime athletes except even Shorter,
very much shorter. Cigar Um was a very long lived
or had a long racing life. He was he had
(25:12):
sixteen consecutive wins. But he raced until he was five.
He was five when he raced UM, so he raced
even longer than just his fifth birthday. UM. But for
the most part, like I mentioned Man of War, he
raced like eighteen times I believe, and it was over
the course of like nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty. It
wasn't like two full years UM. And he is one
(25:34):
of the greatest race horses of all time. Well, the window,
I mean, just to be at that peak of physical condition.
The window is just so small because they're the best
of the best. So if you drop off by what
are the links called like a head length for long?
An eighth of a mile is a for long. If
you drop off by just a tiny the tiniest bit,
(25:55):
you're done. So that's why I guess most of the
Colts and Phillies are two to three, even though all
the Triple Crown races are three years old only, right,
and fact of the show, they're all born on well
they're not all born but they all have the same
birthday to help keep track of bloodlines. And what is
(26:15):
that just January one? January one, But that means that
the horses racing could potentially be three hundred and sixty
four days apart from each other in age, but they're
all considered one year old. They're all considered one um,
which is a problem. If you are a horse, uh
that's born on December thirty one, uh, two thousand eleven
(26:36):
January onwelve, you're considered one um and if you are
going to race, you're gonna have to race horses of
your own aid for like the Kentucky Derby's only open
to three year olds. So yeah, there's the other horses
in your class have the same have a whole year's
worth of training ahead of you, and they're gonna dust you,
(26:57):
which means that if you are a damn and you're
pregnant and you're about to give birth on December thirty one,
your owners are probably injecting you with drugs that are
going to keep you from going into labor. Yet another
example of how humans have like always uh, they play
(27:17):
an interventionist role in the thoroughbred breed. And if you
are a little baby born fold that's born in let's
say June, you're not gonna be very valuable. They want
horses that are born probably in the first couple of
months of the year, right, usually the first half of
the year. Um. And there's I guess here now we
(27:40):
kind of reach like the somewhat depressing part, well, the
extremely depressing part of thoroughbred racing, and why I don't
go to horse or dog races any longer. Well, so
we talked about injecting damn with um with drugs to
keep her from going into labor um. The If you're
a sire, it might sound cool at first, right, but
(28:04):
having a lot of sex, I'm sure it adds up
if you are, especially if you're a stud. If you're
collecting stud fees, um, that means that you're probably owned
by a breeding syndicate that just makes their money, like
an investment group, um, that makes their money by by
hiring you out for stud called covering, that's what it's called.
(28:26):
When horses do it, um, And they're going to make
you do it very very, very frequently, as many as
three females a day for six month stretches for twenty
years or more. Yeah, And Uh, if things don't go well,
you will be killed. Slaughtered for the most part in
(28:46):
Great Britain alone. In two thousand eleven, the U The
Observer reported that almost eight thousand horses were slaughtered there
in two thousand ten, which was at increase over two
thousand nine. And they don't let you slaughter horses in
the United States anymore since two thousand seven, so we
ship them to Canada to do it right. And then
(29:07):
in Canada, about two thirds of all thoroughbred race horses
UM are youthanized, slaughtered or abandoned from racing. I'm sorry,
not in Canada, but just in the United States, UM,
after they retired, After they retire from racing. UM. In Canada,
about a hundred and twenty thousand horses, including thoroughbreds, not
(29:27):
just for thoroughbreds, were slaughtered in two thousand nine. UM.
So that's a big problem. And we actually know where
this problem came from. You said it earlier. It's a
horse bubble. Yeah, I mean it was literally almost the
exact same scenario as the housing bubble, except we didn't
go out and kill houses. No. So basically what happened was, UM,
(29:50):
there was a lot of money to be made in horses.
People started um getting their sires to cover more and
more frequently, which means that more and more folds were born,
and the the number of foals born in a given
years called the full crop um. More and more folds
meant the market was saturated, which meant that prices dropped
finally normalized, which meant that there was a lot of
(30:13):
and I'm making quotes here because I don't actually think this,
but surplus folds, which led to a an increase in slaughter, euthanasia,
and just general like abandonment of folds that didn't quite
meet the requirements. It couldn't be sold very well, which
meant the horse bubble burst, which is good in one
way because it means that the breed is no longer
(30:33):
being rampantly abused as it was a couple of years ago.
It also means that if you're an enthusiast or a breeder,
that the breed itself is going to get better because
apparently rampant reproduction lead to kind of a decrease an
emphasis in quantity over quality. That's going to change, um.
But the problem is whether or not anybody will learn
(30:56):
anything from it. Well, yeah, and the problem too is
this breeding, very specific, scientific breeding of this horses. Even
when they do it perfectly right, you've got a scenario
where you've got a horse with very light bones. Um.
But you know this one writer said the heart of
a locomotive and Champagne glass ankles. So as we all
(31:17):
saw in two thousand six when Barbaro very gruesomely broke
its foot. Um, they tried to fix it, but I
think that was I don't know, they didn't fix it.
Youthanized in two thousand seven, and then eight Bells, Uh,
they just youuthanized her right on the track, which was
(31:37):
very sad at Churchill Downs in two thousand eight. So
Animal eight. If you want to look into organizations like that,
they do a good job. They documented seven twenty nine
horses that were injured and euthanized and from March two
thousand seven to August eleven, and uh, you know, depending
on which way you fall on that fence, the information
(31:59):
is out there. Yeah, there's also a ton of um
thoroughbred and just horse in general. But there's a lot
of thoroughbred rescue organizations that UM taken abandoned or retired
or whatever. Thoroughbred horses that aren't wanted any longer and
care for them one riding around your property exactly real fast,
(32:19):
keep it as a as a watch horse. UM. Also,
I want to mention something before anybody writes in UM.
January one is the universal birthdate for UM. Thoroughbred horses
in the Northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere is August one.
Thoroughbred horses lovely, lovely, lovely animals. They're beautiful, they are UM.
(32:40):
Let's see, there's a pretty cool documentary. UM. It's sad
because Barbara is in it. Oh man, it's sad. UM.
It's called I think the First Saturday in May. It's
a documentary about the Kentucky Derby and specifically the two
thousand six Kentucky Derby. UM and all the horses that
are starting to make their way toward it's really um.
(33:01):
And then, of course you can read my article on thoroughbreds. UH.
If you want to learn more about thoroughbreds, can read
that article. Type in thoroughbreds t H O R O U,
G H B R E B S in the handy
search bar how stuffworks dot Com and that will bring
up this article. And I said handy searchbar. So it's
time for a listener mail. Josh IMNNA call this cool
(33:24):
kid from Minnesota. It's from Gauge. He has a cool name.
That's pretty cool. Hey, guys, I'm fifteen years old. I
am from Moose like Minnesota, where it is winter for
about nine months out of the year. Cool play hockey, golf,
and I water ski is the water skis in those
three months. Um in the tenth grade, I'm on track
(33:44):
to be one of the youngest graduates in school history.
People are starting to ask me what I want to
do when I'm older. I usually say doctor because I
find the human body and especially the brain, extremely fascinating.
Mostly the same time and the explanation of what I
really want to do. Guys. Ever since the first episode, okay,
maybe not the first, for a long time, I've wanted
(34:04):
to work for how Stuff Works dot com so neurologist
or right for how Stuff Works a neurologist. I'm wondering
what kind of qualifications I would need and if there's
any way to get a leg up on the competition.
I'm a major fan. I won't say biggest because you
then you wouldn't believe me, but you two have been
big role models for me, and I hopefully will continue
to look up to you. No pressure, hopefully as long
(34:28):
as we're gonna screw it up. So please write back
with any advice and good luck to you. I did
write Gauge back. Did you tell him that a good
way to get a leg up over the competitions for
his parents to give us some money? Yeah, and then
just to submit your letter and your portfolio and your
a little tryout article. It's really easy to get a
job here, or it was. Now we're not hiring a
(34:50):
lot of full time writers anymore. Unfortument Wow, what can
read what your poce? Can we give him? Uh? I
think we should make him a blogger for stuff you
should know. Oh that's a good idea, huh. In fact,
our boss even mentioned I showed him the scene and
he was like, yeah, what if we can get just
get some work? And I said, sure, you can blog
for me? So what did he say? He kind of
(35:12):
died there, But it could be it could be resurrected
if if Gauge was up for something like that. I
feel like you really just applied the pressure. Maybe. So alright, Gauge,
let's get this ball rolling. Why don't you write us
back after you hear this and take a nice little
victory lap around your high school. Um, wearing a parka
because it's gonna be cold. Um. And uh, if you
(35:35):
think Gauge should blog if we want to hear about it, right,
I think you should under the name Charles W. Bryant.
If if you want to, if you want to see
if you can tell the difference between a Chuck blog
and a Gauge blog, let us know, Cage just about it.
We'll get this started. We'll figure out what shape is
gonna take eventually. But just show us some support so
Chuck can get out of blogging. UM, tweet to us
(35:57):
maybe pound go Gauge or something like that. Uh. That's
s y s K podcasts. Um. You can do something
on Facebook at facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know,
and you can send us regular old emails at Stuff
Podcast at how Stuff works dot com. Be sure to
(36:20):
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by
the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready are you
Brought to you by the Reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready, are you hey? And welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Nice. That's
(00:23):
a pretty good horse. Was that a Mayor Philly whole
yearling gelding? Cole Stallion? Do you know a lot more
about horses? After reading? I do? And I was gonna
ask you if we could open up with a little
definition definitions with Chuck and Josh. I think we should,
(00:46):
But do your do your thing first and then we'll
do that. Just sometimes just going to mention Uncle Mo.
Al right here, Uncle Mo is the favorite at the
upcoming Breeders Cup by the time this comes out, the
Breeders couple of Come and Gone, because it's November four
and five, which is the weekend it is, isn't it? Um?
And Uncle Mo is the favorite for the Breeders Cup,
(01:06):
the real one because you know, like for something like
a Breeders Cup, and it's four or five, you know,
the fourth and fifth, So two days, um, they're gonna
have like fifty races because on a race day there's
like usually like ten to thirteen, so they probably have.
And the big one is the last one in this case,
and the Breeders Cup is gonna be at Churchill Churchill
(01:27):
Downs in Kentucky where they hold a Kentucky Derby and
Uncle Mos favorite. He's five to choice by oddsmaker Mike Battellia,
who had not heard of until I read this article
about Uncle Mo. But he scratched. I was gonna see
him at the Kentucky Derby and he scratched with a
liver problem, so he didn't make it to post. And
(01:50):
I can't remember. I think Animal Kingdom ended up winning.
But I went to the Kentucky Derby, you mean I did,
And then we went to the Preakness, and after that
I was like, I have to do or about this.
So I came back and started researching and wrote this
article how Thoroughbreds work. And then and now the next
horse race you go to, you will be the most
obnoxious person there. No, I'll keep my mouth. I bet
(02:11):
a lot of people know a lot, and I bet
a lot of people know nothing. Yeah well, were at
the big ones like that? Yeah you well, yeah you you.
I would say most of the people there know nothing
at the big ones because it's just filled with tourists,
and for some people it's like, hey, it's I come
here every day. It's just another race day. Get out
(02:32):
of here. Right. But ultimately, and because of Perry Muto
mew too well, betting interesting, it's what it's Perry Perry mutel,
that's what it is. But it's a French word. Um.
Your odds go up and down depending on how many
other people are betting on a horse or betting against
it or whatever. So I imagine if you are like
(02:54):
just one of those people where the Kentucky Derby is
just another race day for you, you hate that day,
the first Saturday in May, you probably skip it. Maybe
you got you got a line, well yeah, true, Yeah,
this mutter is a mutter. Yeah. So let's let's do
your definition, chuck, all right. A cult is a male
under five years old. Philly is a female under five
(03:15):
years old, right, but from two age two to age five,
the yearling is either one or two years old. Okay.
A foal is newborn yeah, correct, and it's also over
being folds being born right. A sire is the father,
which is a stallion yep. Stallion is an adult male
(03:37):
horse over five years old, but also a stud if
he's doing that for money or pere or is he
a stud no matter what, he's a stud, no matter what.
That's what I like to think. And then the damn
the d A m is the female, which is a mayor, right,
and she is a breeder over five and she produces
(03:58):
a If she produces a female, it's a broodmare, or
she a brood mayor she's a brood mare. So a
brood mare and a stud are one and the same,
but different breeds, different genders, genders, yes, yes, but they
are like it's that's all the act of doing it.
(04:19):
After that, when reproduction takes over, they become a sire
in a damn, okay, in relation to the full and
a pony is just a small horse which has very
disappointing Yeah, well unless you meet one, then you're like,
I'm not at all disappointed by this Shetland pony. Shetland
ponies are awesome, all right, So that'll that'll help you
(04:39):
out here going through this excellent article. I might add,
thank you, thank you, it's very good. Well, I really
like thoroughbred horses are really interesting. They're probably new and
it's one of those that if you don't know anything
about something. You can sit down in thirty minutes and
read this and know a lot about something you never
kne anything about, which is our goal. Yeah, alright, so
(04:59):
let's go. Well, Um, like I said, though, breds are
pretty new. They just came about within the last like
three hundred or so years, Like they're an entirely new breed.
You know that. Well, you want to talk about the
beginning of the uh yeah, the history of Thoroughbreds by
Josh Clark. Every thoroughbred alive comes from one of three bloodlines,
(05:23):
which is really remarkable. Um. The well, let's here, you
give me a little background, then we'll talk about the
horses themselves. So, uh, the this breed has three foundation
sires is what they're called. And they're so they're three
stallions that all belong to the Oriental group, and the
Oriental group are Turks, Barbs and Arabians. Very fast, like
(05:48):
these are the ones that you see in Lawrence of
Arabia haulling through the desert. Exactly. Very muscular and fast, yeah, exactly, Um,
and fairly light to write, like, yeah, I used to
Like I was like, how do you want me to
finish that? Yes, we like them. Um. The Arabians for
at least a couple of thousand years have been prized
(06:11):
for their quickness and their courage. They're very courageous horses,
so they war horses. They serve as really good war horses. Yeah. Um.
And because they were quick and because Bedouins Shake used
to like to make money however however he could, including wagers,
(06:31):
they would be raced in match racism, match races just
one horse against one horse. Um and uh. And about
the seventeenth eighteenth century, the late seventeenth early eighteenth century,
three sires arrived in England and those became the foundation
sires for the thoroughbread Beat breed. Each one has a
(06:54):
really cool story. If you ask me, I agree. In
Captain Robert by Bayerley captured a Turk, very fine looking
horse from the Turkoman horse in the Middle East, right,
and the that's part of the Oriental group, the Turk,
the Turkoman. That's it's an Oriental horse. Yeah, these are
all Oriental horses, right. And they he captured this in
(07:16):
a in a battle in Hungary and it was like,
you know what, this horse is really fast and it's
really brave. I'm taking it back to England, and he did,
and UH. That was number one. Number two was the
Byerly Turk UH. And this was a stolen barb, another
Oriental obviously called the Darley Barb or the Darly Arabian UH,
(07:37):
purchased by Thomas Darley and he was a diplomat to
Syria and he said, Hey, I love that four year
old colt Mr Bedouin Shake, and so I'd like to
purchase from you. And then the shake renigged and he said, well,
I'm gonna go steal it from you then if you're
not gonna give me the horse. And in in Darley's
um defense, I believe he had paid for it already,
so just outright theft he was. He was claiming the
(08:01):
horse he he purchased. He paid somebody to go steal it,
and they smuggled it out through Turkey back to England,
and that became the Direly Barb. So now the Diarly
Barb is there. And then the third one was a
little less interesting, but sort of interesting in an underdog
sort of way and a Dickenzie sort of way exactly
the Go Dolphin Arabian from Yemen and UH was given
(08:24):
to the King of France along with three other horses
and seventeen twenty four. I'm sorry he was born in
seventeen and being the King of France, he said, I
shall set them free, and set these horses free. It
ends up being a cart horse in Paris, which is
kind of cool when you think about it, that this
was like one of the three sires and uh eventually
(08:48):
was was bought and sold and bought and sold until
it was finally purchased by the second Earl of Godolphin
in seventeen thirty three. And I guess that must have
been a heck of a horse by that time. Yes,
it had seen the ups in the down. And so
the these three horses were bred with English mayors um
and the the I guess the English horse that they
(09:09):
were bred with was a lot bigger, a lot stronger,
but a lot slower. And so you took these oriental
group horses and these English horses, uh, English draft horses
maybe even, and what you had was a very strong,
muscular but extremely quick horse, which was the Thoroughbred breed,
(09:29):
don't that And so it's the three hundred year old
breed of animal, which is really cool, and that that
kind of um. It enlightens us to a characteristic of
the breed that from the very beginning, it's it's interactive
with humans, like it owes its origin to human interaction.
(09:53):
What you get with the thoroughbred, Josh, if you want
to throw down a couple of hundred bucks on one,
can you get a third bread for two hundred bucks? Can?
You could? But you'd have to stand outside of the
slaughterhouse and just offer. Okay, spoiler alert, you're gonna get
a horse that is weighs about a thousand pounds, very
light and fast light. Bones will be sixteen hands, which
(10:16):
is uh, a hand is four inches what you just said,
So that's sixty four inches about years old, six inches
sixty four sixty four inches. They'll live to be about
twenty five. They can take about a hundred and fifty
strides per minute and race up to an over forty. Yeah,
that's a cooking horse. And we should say that a
(10:38):
horse is measured from the ground to its withers, which
is a ridge right behind the shoulders, smithers withers. And
you said that they can run forty miles an hour.
You know why they can run forty miles an hour?
Because of its stride length. Let's talk about his stride length.
It's pretty remarkable. Uh. The average stride length of a
(10:59):
thoroughbred horse is twenty ft. Okay, that's long. So you
say you're subar U is fifteen ft long super outback.
So a stride length is the distance between let's say, um,
the moment the right hoof, right front hoof, any hoof.
But let's say the right front hoof touches the ground
(11:19):
to the to the next point where that same hoof,
that say, the right hoof touches the ground again. So
on a thirdbred and average thoroughbred horse, it's twenty ft.
That's very long, longer than a Subaru wagon. Um. And
then some other horses have had even longer stride lengths
like Man of War who raced and I think, um,
(11:42):
he had a stride length of twenty eight ft when
he was eight and a half meters. That's that's really
really long. Um. And he was taller too, I guess, huh,
he was a very tall horse. And also, so you've
got a stride length of twenty ft right. Um. They
can run up to a hundred and fifty strides a minute,
(12:05):
which means they can go up to forty. But they
can do this for like over a mile, which is
amazing when the reason that they can do this for
over a mile is because they're freaks of nature. As
far as breeds go, breeds of animal go, right they are.
They have very special internal organs, specifically a very large
heart and a very efficient spleen. So while this heart
(12:28):
is able to pump out seventy i'm sorry, circulate seventy
five gallons of blood a minute when running, that's a
lot of blood. The spleen all all of a sudden says,
you know what, I'm gonna kick it into turbo and
I'm gonna, you know, get a bunch of oxygen rich
blood cells and shoot them all over the blood stream.
And in the end it's going to increase the total
(12:49):
red blood cell count thirty five to six total blood volume.
So the red blood cell count or percentage is normally
thirty five while it's running, goes up to sixty. So
it's just delivering oxygen to every part of the running machine.
And the third bread has a couple of other unique
characteristics as far as it's run goes. All horses can
(13:11):
only breathe through their nose. Did you know that? Okay,
I did not until I wrote this article. Um. And
then they breathe in while their legs are extending, and
then they exhale well when the legs come together on
the ground, so it acts like a bellows. So they're
breathing in tons of oxygen very efficiently. And then its
legs do something pretty spectacular. Well, its neck does first. Yeah,
(13:35):
the neck moves in unison with the front legs, which
is gonna just give you more propulsion. You need to
explain the rear hind legs. Okay, So Chuck and I
had a little in atypical discussion because we normally don't
discuss things beforehand. But um, that the the back legs
of a thoroughbred create a spring like motion. They basically
(13:55):
pump up and down right, which gives the horse a
lot of rust. It produces a lot of gs. Um.
Chuck showed me a video, the very same video I
looked at to make sure that I knew what I
was talking about when I read that, and then you
know wrote it. Um that it's not the legs necessarily
(14:17):
just staying in like a stiff up and down motion.
It's the the overall motion that is being created by
the legs, the spring like back legs, springing, springing. What
I noted about behind legs is that they stay almost
completely straight, so it's just like buying, buying, buying, springing,
(14:40):
springing down, springing down. However, you look at the back
legs create like a spring like motion very much that
propels the horse forward. So that's why thorerbreads are so
prized for racing. That's right, because they take all the
speed and the agility of the Arabian and the strength
(15:01):
and endurance of the English mayors that they were bred with,
and you've got the Thoroughbreds had a very special horse.
Uh Josh. It wasn't just those three, as you point out,
that created the whole bloodline. There was a lot of
hanky panky going on with Oriental group horses that were
brought over during wartime from the Middle East, and they
(15:22):
really helped the bloodline out obviously, but a lot of
them were lost to history because maybe they had only
female daughters, and that means that's the end of you,
or at least your bloodline, or maybe you got it
on with a different breed and that means you're a dirty,
dirty horse now, and you can't be counted as a
Thoroughbred any longer. You could be, but you're going to
(15:45):
be even even if they say all right, fine, I'll
go back to the Thoroughbred, They're like, Nope, you did
it with that other kind of horse, so you're done. No,
I don't think so, oh what, No, it's just your offspring. Okay.
So like if if the horse never made it with
anything but non thoroughbreds, then it's bloodlines lost. I thought
(16:08):
you were saying that if out, um, well that's good
to know because I thought that was a little harsh. Yeah. No,
it's not like that. But all of that is based
on a decision that was made in sevente by a
guy named James Weatherbee who created this thing called the
General Stud Book, and that is that all thoroughbreds are
traced through the sire, so they can be traced back
(16:30):
through the to the three and all thoroughbreds alive today
can be traced back to those three foundations sires. And
this General Stud Book is a closed registry, meaning only
Thoroughbred full Thoroughbred horses that are born to full Thoroughbred
parents can be included in this General Stud book, that's right,
and more than a hundred thousand or fold worldwide every year,
(16:51):
and so that's a lot of horses to keep track
of and trace their lineage. Although once you have it
done the first time, like that General stud Book serves
as the mother ship of which all other stud books
are based. So you've got the foundation there you do,
so it's not like you have to keep tracing back
to the original three. No, once you can link it
up to say the last one in the in the
(17:14):
General stud Book exactly, it's last ancestor then it takes
over from there. So thank you. Weather Bees. Well yeah,
well they still do that. The weather Bees Limited is
still an incorporated company in the UK. I thot they
have a nice box there at Churchill Down. Oh yeah
they do, or anywhere anywhere, um they so yeah. James
Weatherby in se was actually the second weather be his
(17:37):
uncle um clem no also James. He was the first
secretary of the Jockey Club and uh he was hired
to keep track of purses, Chuck, what's a purse? Well,
a purse. A purse is the winnings, the the total
u amount of money that a horse can win for
(18:00):
its owner. I should say, horses traditionally don't get to
keep the money themselves. It goes to the owners, who
in turn pay the jockeys and all those other people. Um.
But the the the first James Weatherby was hired in
seventeent um to basically keep the books for the jockey club.
(18:22):
So the weather Bees are like a family, a long
line of accountants basically. And the reason why the first
Jeames Weatherby was hired was because he, um, he was
hanging around at a time when they really needed to
start keeping track of the incredible sums of money that
were being bet on these races. Yeah, what happened was
they you know, as soon as two rich people get
(18:44):
something fast, they're gonna want to race against each other.
And so that's what happened. And they were just like,
let me race my horse against yours. And then that
became like, well, let's have a few races, and let's
add even more horses, and horse racing very organically. Thoroughbred
racing was very organically. And like you said, then once
things are racing, some dude's gonna want to bet and
(19:06):
then all of a sudden, it's a huge cottage industry
that the weather Bees were put in charge of Yeah, exactly.
Back in seventeen seventy. When he was hired, the purses
were reaching something like two thousand pounds. There's a lot,
a lot. I didn't see a conversion for today's dollars,
but it's a lot of pounds. It's a lot. So
they hired the weather Bees and um, ultimately James Weatherby
(19:30):
the younger created the General Stubb Book, which, like you said,
is like the central stud book for all the others.
America has its own. Um, the American stud Book goes
back to eighteen sixty eight, and U Thoroughbreds in America
go back far, far, um earlier than that. Thirty I
(19:50):
think was the first one. Yeah, bull Rock, which is
a pretty cool name as a heck of stallion. Yeah,
Bull bull Rock. So Bull Rock was here, and apparently
there was a horse racing on Long Island as far
back as the late seventeenth century. Yeah, but thoroughbred's bloodlines
are and are kept such such exact records are kept
(20:12):
of the bloodlines that they basically said, you guys had
a civil war, We're not sure of your records any longer.
Start over, So the American stud Book goes back to
eighteen sixty eight, and that's it. It's the as far
as anybody's concerned, the beginning of thoroughbred horses in America. Yeah,
and then the in nineteen thirteen, the Jockey Club passed
(20:32):
the Jersey Act, which basically said a lot of these
American horses don't count because unless you're in these other books,
then you can prove that. Then uh, then your s
o L right, if your parents don't show up in
other general stud books that were previously published, then whatever.
And since there was a break in the records, a
lot of American horses couldn't get in there, it's right
(20:53):
until nineteen nine, and they felt bad for them and said,
you know what, we're gonna let you in and year
now in the study. So if the stud book says
who who's in and who's out, and the Jockey Club
controls the stud book, that means that the Jockey Club
basically defines what a thoroughbred horses. And when I say basically,
(21:16):
I mean in every single sense of the word. So color,
there's nine colors cover everything, though, don't they like what colors?
Are horses that aren't listed? Is what I wondered. Any
kind of neon is is left out. They also determine
whether the name is appropriate, which, uh, you know, you've
(21:37):
seen some pretty silly horse names, but you notice that
you've never seen one that was a slur, like a
Rachel slur, social slur. Never one that's offensive. Uh, never
one that was named after someone famous, unless they said, hey,
you should name this after me the w C. Fields.
Well know, if you're if they're alive. Still, I thought
they had to have consent you of a living famous person.
(21:59):
I think you can't get interesting, not without reanimation. Oh,
I just thought like the state could give consenters. But
I think I think I remember seeing that part of
the rules if it's a live person interesting Uh, And
it cannot the name cannot consist of entirely of numbers,
which makes sense, I guess. But and you can also
(22:21):
name like um, you can't name it after another winning
horse traditionally, unless it's like a play on it, like
seed biscuit was a son of like hard tack, I think,
which does that type of bread that sailors eight? But
could you name one like tea biscuit? You could, but
(22:41):
I'll bet everybody think you're a jeer tea biscuit nine
O nine sevent eight nine four. Well, and it says
the Jockey club has the final authority, so they might
just shut that down on you know, hinkiness alone. Yeah,
and they can say you name your horse whatever you want,
but it's not coming in the register. And you're like, okay,
al right, right, all right, all right, I'll let you.
All right, Josh, we're talking about purses and it is
(23:03):
big money now in the US alone, in two thousand
and ten, the gross purses UH total more than a
billion dollars. That was actually a pretty big decline. Well
not big, but there was, there was. It was worth
more even earlier, like two five was a huge peak
for purses in the US for horse racing. Yeah, well
that means if there's a lot of money to be
(23:24):
one as a horse owner, that means there's a lot
of money to be made as a horse owner and
paid as a horse owner. It's very expensive. In fact,
I looked into this when I remember when I wrote
that article on unusual investments for Sunny Paper, one of
them was investing in horses and it didn't seem like
a very good idea at the time. This is before
(23:46):
the horse bubble though, because of how much it costs
to maintain a horse, you know, and just like you
can buy into it without owning a horse, like almost
like stock in these operations. So there I think the
problem is then would be like the the chance, the
percentage percentage of a chance that you have of that
particular horse really bringing home big money. Well, you've got
(24:09):
the chances in here. Six of all year lings fold
in a given year will be trained to race, so
almost all of the our trained to race, almost literally
born to race, and only about five percent of those
will win any kind of substantial purse. And I think
you said, was it like point two percent of that
(24:29):
will ever win a Grade one stakes race? And Grade
ones are the big ones like the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness.
Point two percent. Man, that's very low. It is extremely low, um.
And I mean, if you have a horse that wins
like a daily race a couple of days a week
and it's forty grand and it's just a reliable winning horse,
(24:50):
you're still going to make some money off of it.
But still the big problem that all thoroughbred horse owners
face is you have a very very limited time to
raise your horse, like all prime athletes except even Shorter,
very much shorter. Cigar Um was a very long lived
or had a long racing life. He was he had
(25:12):
sixteen consecutive wins. But he raced until he was five.
He was five when he raced UM, so he raced
even longer than just his fifth birthday. UM. But for
the most part, like I mentioned Man of War, he
raced like eighteen times I believe, and it was over
the course of like nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty. It
wasn't like two full years UM. And he is one
(25:34):
of the greatest race horses of all time. Well, the window,
I mean, just to be at that peak of physical condition.
The window is just so small because they're the best
of the best. So if you drop off by what
are the links called like a head length for long?
An eighth of a mile is a for long. If
you drop off by just a tiny the tiniest bit,
(25:55):
you're done. So that's why I guess most of the
Colts and Phillies are two to three, even though all
the Triple Crown races are three years old only, right,
and fact of the show, they're all born on well
they're not all born but they all have the same
birthday to help keep track of bloodlines. And what is
(26:15):
that just January one? January one, But that means that
the horses racing could potentially be three hundred and sixty
four days apart from each other in age, but they're
all considered one year old. They're all considered one um,
which is a problem. If you are a horse, uh
that's born on December thirty one, uh, two thousand eleven
(26:36):
January onwelve, you're considered one um and if you are
going to race, you're gonna have to race horses of
your own aid for like the Kentucky Derby's only open
to three year olds. So yeah, there's the other horses
in your class have the same have a whole year's
worth of training ahead of you, and they're gonna dust you,
(26:57):
which means that if you are a damn and you're
pregnant and you're about to give birth on December thirty one,
your owners are probably injecting you with drugs that are
going to keep you from going into labor. Yet another
example of how humans have like always uh, they play
(27:17):
an interventionist role in the thoroughbred breed. And if you
are a little baby born fold that's born in let's
say June, you're not gonna be very valuable. They want
horses that are born probably in the first couple of
months of the year, right, usually the first half of
the year. Um. And there's I guess here now we
(27:40):
kind of reach like the somewhat depressing part, well, the
extremely depressing part of thoroughbred racing, and why I don't
go to horse or dog races any longer. Well, so
we talked about injecting damn with um with drugs to
keep her from going into labor um. The If you're
a sire, it might sound cool at first, right, but
(28:04):
having a lot of sex, I'm sure it adds up
if you are, especially if you're a stud. If you're
collecting stud fees, um, that means that you're probably owned
by a breeding syndicate that just makes their money, like
an investment group, um, that makes their money by by
hiring you out for stud called covering, that's what it's called.
(28:26):
When horses do it, um, And they're going to make
you do it very very, very frequently, as many as
three females a day for six month stretches for twenty
years or more. Yeah, And Uh, if things don't go well,
you will be killed. Slaughtered for the most part in
(28:46):
Great Britain alone. In two thousand eleven, the U The
Observer reported that almost eight thousand horses were slaughtered there
in two thousand ten, which was at increase over two
thousand nine. And they don't let you slaughter horses in
the United States anymore since two thousand seven, so we
ship them to Canada to do it right. And then
(29:07):
in Canada, about two thirds of all thoroughbred race horses
UM are youthanized, slaughtered or abandoned from racing. I'm sorry,
not in Canada, but just in the United States, UM,
after they retired, After they retire from racing. UM. In Canada,
about a hundred and twenty thousand horses, including thoroughbreds, not
(29:27):
just for thoroughbreds, were slaughtered in two thousand nine. UM.
So that's a big problem. And we actually know where
this problem came from. You said it earlier. It's a
horse bubble. Yeah, I mean it was literally almost the
exact same scenario as the housing bubble, except we didn't
go out and kill houses. No. So basically what happened was, UM,
(29:50):
there was a lot of money to be made in horses.
People started um getting their sires to cover more and
more frequently, which means that more and more folds were born,
and the the number of foals born in a given
years called the full crop um. More and more folds
meant the market was saturated, which meant that prices dropped
finally normalized, which meant that there was a lot of
(30:13):
and I'm making quotes here because I don't actually think this,
but surplus folds, which led to a an increase in slaughter, euthanasia,
and just general like abandonment of folds that didn't quite
meet the requirements. It couldn't be sold very well, which
meant the horse bubble burst, which is good in one
way because it means that the breed is no longer
(30:33):
being rampantly abused as it was a couple of years ago.
It also means that if you're an enthusiast or a breeder,
that the breed itself is going to get better because
apparently rampant reproduction lead to kind of a decrease an
emphasis in quantity over quality. That's going to change, um.
But the problem is whether or not anybody will learn
(30:56):
anything from it. Well, yeah, and the problem too is
this breeding, very specific, scientific breeding of this horses. Even
when they do it perfectly right, you've got a scenario
where you've got a horse with very light bones. Um.
But you know this one writer said the heart of
a locomotive and Champagne glass ankles. So as we all
(31:17):
saw in two thousand six when Barbaro very gruesomely broke
its foot. Um, they tried to fix it, but I
think that was I don't know, they didn't fix it.
Youthanized in two thousand seven, and then eight Bells, Uh,
they just youuthanized her right on the track, which was
(31:37):
very sad at Churchill Downs in two thousand eight. So
Animal eight. If you want to look into organizations like that,
they do a good job. They documented seven twenty nine
horses that were injured and euthanized and from March two
thousand seven to August eleven, and uh, you know, depending
on which way you fall on that fence, the information
(31:59):
is out there. Yeah, there's also a ton of um
thoroughbred and just horse in general. But there's a lot
of thoroughbred rescue organizations that UM taken abandoned or retired
or whatever. Thoroughbred horses that aren't wanted any longer and
care for them one riding around your property exactly real fast,
(32:19):
keep it as a as a watch horse. UM. Also,
I want to mention something before anybody writes in UM.
January one is the universal birthdate for UM. Thoroughbred horses
in the Northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere is August one.
Thoroughbred horses lovely, lovely, lovely animals. They're beautiful, they are UM.
(32:40):
Let's see, there's a pretty cool documentary. UM. It's sad
because Barbara is in it. Oh man, it's sad. UM.
It's called I think the First Saturday in May. It's
a documentary about the Kentucky Derby and specifically the two
thousand six Kentucky Derby. UM and all the horses that
are starting to make their way toward it's really um.
(33:01):
And then, of course you can read my article on thoroughbreds. UH.
If you want to learn more about thoroughbreds, can read
that article. Type in thoroughbreds t H O R O U,
G H B R E B S in the handy
search bar how stuffworks dot Com and that will bring
up this article. And I said handy searchbar. So it's
time for a listener mail. Josh IMNNA call this cool
(33:24):
kid from Minnesota. It's from Gauge. He has a cool name.
That's pretty cool. Hey, guys, I'm fifteen years old. I
am from Moose like Minnesota, where it is winter for
about nine months out of the year. Cool play hockey, golf,
and I water ski is the water skis in those
three months. Um in the tenth grade, I'm on track
(33:44):
to be one of the youngest graduates in school history.
People are starting to ask me what I want to
do when I'm older. I usually say doctor because I
find the human body and especially the brain, extremely fascinating.
Mostly the same time and the explanation of what I
really want to do. Guys. Ever since the first episode, okay,
maybe not the first, for a long time, I've wanted
(34:04):
to work for how Stuff Works dot com so neurologist
or right for how Stuff Works a neurologist. I'm wondering
what kind of qualifications I would need and if there's
any way to get a leg up on the competition.
I'm a major fan. I won't say biggest because you
then you wouldn't believe me, but you two have been
big role models for me, and I hopefully will continue
to look up to you. No pressure, hopefully as long
(34:28):
as we're gonna screw it up. So please write back
with any advice and good luck to you. I did
write Gauge back. Did you tell him that a good
way to get a leg up over the competitions for
his parents to give us some money? Yeah, and then
just to submit your letter and your portfolio and your
a little tryout article. It's really easy to get a
job here, or it was. Now we're not hiring a
(34:50):
lot of full time writers anymore. Unfortument Wow, what can
read what your poce? Can we give him? Uh? I
think we should make him a blogger for stuff you
should know. Oh that's a good idea, huh. In fact,
our boss even mentioned I showed him the scene and
he was like, yeah, what if we can get just
get some work? And I said, sure, you can blog
for me? So what did he say? He kind of
(35:12):
died there, But it could be it could be resurrected
if if Gauge was up for something like that. I
feel like you really just applied the pressure. Maybe. So alright, Gauge,
let's get this ball rolling. Why don't you write us
back after you hear this and take a nice little
victory lap around your high school. Um, wearing a parka
because it's gonna be cold. Um. And uh, if you
(35:35):
think Gauge should blog if we want to hear about it, right,
I think you should under the name Charles W. Bryant.
If if you want to, if you want to see
if you can tell the difference between a Chuck blog
and a Gauge blog, let us know, Cage just about it.
We'll get this started. We'll figure out what shape is
gonna take eventually. But just show us some support so
Chuck can get out of blogging. UM, tweet to us
(35:57):
maybe pound go Gauge or something like that. Uh. That's
s y s K podcasts. Um. You can do something
on Facebook at facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know,
and you can send us regular old emails at Stuff
Podcast at how Stuff works dot com. Be sure to
(36:20):
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by
the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready are you
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