what horses have fully recovered who broke their leg?

Answer 1

Recovery from broken bones is not an uncommon occurrance. Many fractures are minor and the bone will repair itself with enough R&R. Others require surgery but can be overcome. Someone above mentioned Personal Ensign, another Hall of Famer was Precisionist who ran with a screw in his leg during his later years. Recent runners who had fractures at one time or another include Brass Hat, Half Ours, Second of June, Sharp Humor and Smokey Glacken.

Here's an article on broken legs - http://www.bloodhorse.com/articleindex/article.asp?id=33663

Edited to add - one of the leading Kentucky Derby contenders of last year, Barbican raced at Gulfstream yesterday. He was knocked off the Derby trail by a broken bone and yesterday's race was his first start since. He finished a strong third and could well show up in a stakes later in the meet.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

They can't lay on the couch watching TV for 6-8 weeks while the bone heals. They have to heal standing up, in a sling, putting all the additional weight on the other three legs, which will cause a lot of problems. Not every horse is going to be a fan of standing still or being in a sling 24/7 either. Even if the leg heals, the horse will probably never be 100% sound again. It's also extremely expensive to get an injury like that to heal, and most of the time it doesn't, so you spend a ton of money to end up putting the horse down anyway. The front end of a horse carries 60% of their body weight. Let's say the left front leg breaks. Horse can't put any weight on that leg. That means that the remaining right front leg now has to support 60% of the horse's bodyweight. Bad. Very very bad. FYI Seabiscuit was a true story, and he never broke his leg in that movie so I don't see how it's relevant to the question.

Answer 4

Off the top of my head, none that I can think of - Seabiscuit didn't break his leg, he ruptured a tendon which is a whole different thing. Usually a horse is euthanized when a leg is broken, depending upon several things: how badly the leg is broken, the horse's temperament (a horse who can't stand to be confined and is restless/nervous is more inclined to fight the efforts to save it), and the ability for the owners to pay for the extensive ongoing medical bills. There is no health insurance available for race horses (although there is mortality insurance available for horses) so the money would have to come out of the owners' pockets.

Answer 5

Fully recovered might be a bit too much to expect, unless only a hairline fracture to heal, but the confidence would be gone. In the UK most If not all would not be allowed to race again, as much for PC image, as for cost/health. But if recovered sufficiently to walk and the possibility of a stud career which could easily out-do a one-off ins. claim. Breeders are trying to return to original Arab conformation, hopefully with robust legs? Will retro-breeding and cloning see the return of "The Turk" and his 6 fellow "Arabs".

Answer 6

The movie Dreamer, is actually based on a mare that did comeback in the movie her name is Sonador, but the real Mare's name is Mariah's Storm or something like that, she came back to a fairly successful career. But do remember breaks in different places, and of different types are of different severity. This mare's break could have been much less life threatening that Barbaro's

Answer 7

Kentucky Derby winner and champion Swaps recovered from a broken leg, after spending many months in a sling. He had a normal career at stud and became the sire of Chateaugay, who went on to win the Kentucky Derby in his turn.

http://www.trivia-library.com/a/biography-of-famous-horses-and-jockeys-swaps-and-willie-shoemaker.htm

Champion racehorse and sire Nureyev broke a hind leg when at stud, and underwent months of treatment in a sling, and was saved:

http://tcm.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=6788

There are others, although I can't remember all of them off the top of my head. Many stallions standing at stud have had non-displaced fractures which ended their racing careers but didn't interfere with their stud careers.

Personal Ensign, the hall of fame and undefeated champion mare owned by the Phipps family, had a non-displaced fracture and had a plate put on her leg with screws. Shug McGaughey was surprised when the vet returned the filly to his stable to race instead of sending her to the farm for a broodmare career, but he put her back into training and the rest, as they say, is history. (Personal Ensign was pensioned as a broodmare by Claiborne Farm after a very successful career as a mom, giving birth to 4 stakes winners, one of whom, My Flag, won a Breeder's Cup race and became in her turn the dam of Breeder's Cup winner Storm Flag Flying, who is the dam of a 2-year-old colt by A P Indy, Flying Indy, who should be one to watch for this year.

Answer 8

If you heard about Gretchen Jackson's horse it recovered but got an infection my friend's horse didn't have a problem when he broke his:)

Answer 9

most recent i can remember is Charsmatic bob and beverly lewis's horse. But his leg wasn't a complete break i don't think. It was a clean fracturce of his left front cannon bone. He now has a successful stud career.

Answer 10

Seabiscuit!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabiscuit