Big Brown Update

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Ran Down on Hind Heels. Dutrow said that Big Brown ran down on the back of both his hind heels in the Preakness. His heels scraped the dirt, which causes rubbing of the skin. Degrees of the condition vary.

“He burned a little bit,” Dutrow said. “It’s not an issue. He will be fine. He didn’t run down up front; he may have scraped it, but I don’t see no open sores. He just touched it very lightly back there because of the track. It won’t happen next time because I will put patches and bandages on him.”

Big Brown’s heels were treated with a topical ointment, Dutrow said

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The Blood-Horse reported yesterday that Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown was affected by run down problems on his hind legs and feet in the Preakness.

This prompted a rash of questions about this sort of injury. And "rash" is the right word. Rundowns are sort of like a bad road rash! And if you've ever fallen off a motorcycle, fallen on the street while rollerblading, or skiied over rough terrain in shorts in the spring, you know what I'm talking about. Ouch!

With horses, it is usually the back of the pastern and the heel bulbs that get rubbed or scraped, but it can go up the back on the cannon, too.

Rundown injuries usually clear up pretty easily but the question to be asked is why it happened in the Preakness, and if the horse changed his gait or running style. It could also have been the track. And it could have happened in other races, but the horse wasn't under such a microscope of scrutiny until the past few weeks.

Big Brown ran with front wraps in the Preakness because of Dutrow's desire to avoid hitting injuries (interference) although it is not clear if the interference was front left to right, front to hind, or diagonal. Horses have all sorts of hitting issues based on conformation, fatigue, pulling up sharply, accelerating out of the gate, clipping heels, etc. and this is probably not something to think of as a performance-limiting injury.

Horses only get rundown injuries on dirt tracks, although I don't know about artificial surfaces. It seems like they could be abrasive, too. The Dutrow team will just have to wrap his legs and pad his pasterns when he trains at Belmont, until this clears up. There are all sorts of wraps and boots and patches that can be used so he can train normally.

It's not likely that this will be a problem for Big Brown, but with any animal you don't want the possibility of an association between speed and pain, or going out on the track and pain. Big Brown seems like a tougher horse than that.

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Big Brown’s “Run Down”

By Alex Brown - exercise rifer for Steve A.

The Blood-Horse reported Big Brown had a slight run down behind coming out of the Preakness.

Obviously you want to try to avoid having a horse run down. It is very rare for horses to run down on any surface other than dirt. Once a horse has had a “run down,” he can be prone to repeating it. When he works and runs you would apply “run-down patches” to the bottom of the backside of the ankles. These are applied over vet wrap bandages to keep the area protected.
We are told Big Brown only ran down a little bit behind. This could be for a number of reasons.

The most likely explanation, the different racetrack surface of Pimlico and the stop-and-go-type moves of Big Brown might have made him a little unbalanced. Other explanations would include that he was a little sore going into the race. In this case, this is not likely at all.

Especially with the decision to blow him out the morning of the race. You just would not do that if you thought there was even a chance your horse was not 100 percent. A change in shoeing could also affect how he hits the ground and cause a run down. Again, while he may have been reshod before the Preakness, I would doubt this caused the problem.

Finally, what can they do with the run down, and will it affect Belmont preparations? They can apply topical solutions to the area to help it heal and keep it soft. They can also use hind bandages and perhaps some cotton on the inside when he gallops to make sure there are no further burns to the area. He will work with run-down patches. It is very unlikely this issue will affect his training routine at all. It will just be important not to let the area get further irritated and protect it very well when the horse trains and runs.