Dr. Larry Bramlage

If pressed to pinpoint a single Achilles heel in the racehorse, it's probably a fair bet to assume many would zero in on the fetlock--the intricate joint mechanism that in a racehorse travelling at top speed proves especially vulnerable to system failure. Indeed, 19 of the 22 horses that suffered catastrophic musculoskeletal injuries at Santa Anita during its benighted winter-spring meet nearly two years ago had sesamoid fractures. In most cases, the prognosis for horses who suffer severe fetlock breakdowns is grim, but a procedure pioneered at the end of...

According to a tweet from co-owner Jeff Bloom, Eclipse Award-winner Midnight Bisou (Midnight Lute) has been sent to Dr. Larry Bramlage to be evaluated after a four-furlong workout in 50.15 seconds Monday at Saratoga. "Midnight Bisou had an easy routine maintenance breeze this morning at Saratoga. Our champion mare was a bit 'off' after cooling out. Out of an abundance of caution she will be sent to Dr. Larry Bramlage in Lexington, KY for a full evaluation," Bloom wrote. She was being pointed to the Oct. 4 GI Spinster S....

Arnaldo Monge and Rey Hernandez's Finnick the Fierce (Dialed In), a Friday scratch from last Saturday's GI Kentucky Derby after appearing off during morning training, has been diagnosed with a minor strain of his upper suspensory ligament. The injury is not career-ending, and the one-eyed gelding must rest for 30 days before resuming training. "We sent Finnick to Dr. Larry Bramlage at Rood & Riddle and he found him to have a slightly enlarged proximal suspensory ligament with no fiber disruption. In layman's terms, it's a strain, not a tear,...

Dr. Larry Bramlage and William S. Farish, Jr. have been elected to the board of stewards of The Jockey Club, filling the expired positions of Barbara Banke and Michael O'Farrell, Jr. Bramlage is an internationally recognized equine orthopedic surgeon and a shareholder in Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky. Additionally, he is a member of the Thoroughbred Safety Committee. Bramlage was awarded The Jockey Club Medal in 1994 in recognition of his contributions to Thoroughbred racing. He has been a member of The Jockey Club since 2002 Farish...

Suspended trainer Rick Dutrow's attempts to resume his career were dealt a blow Tuesday by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission's License Review Committee. After hearing from Dutrow and others who testified on his behalf, the committee voted unanimously to allow Dutrow to withdraw his application for a license. It was within the committee's right to grant Dutrow a license, with or without conditions. Dutrow's attorney, Karen Murphy, reluctantly agreed and withdrew the application for the license. Dutrow was suspended for 10 years in 2011 by New York regulators for what...

Owner Gary West released a report Saturday from Dr. Larry Bramlage, whom he commissioned to examine Maximum Security (New Year's Day) "from hoof to tail." Bramlage did not find any major problems with the horse but did recommend that he be given a break from training to overcome some problems he was having with minor bruising and inflammation in all four limbs. West called on Bramlage to examine last year's 3-year-old male champion after his trainer, Jason Servis, was among 27 individuals indicted after an FBI investigation into horse doping....

Admitting that the charges that trainer Jason Servis drugged Maximum Security (New Year's Day) threaten the integrity of Thoroughbred racing, his owner, Gary West, has announced that he has hired veterinarian Dr. Larry Bramlage to examine the horse "from hoof to tail." When asked by the TDN in a follow-up email that if further testing revealed that Maximum Security had illegal drugs in his systems in any races if he would advocate that the horse be disqualified, he replied: "I am not an authority on medications and SGF-1000 (the drug...

The Breeders' Cup Board of Directors met during a regularly scheduled meeting in February to discuss future business plans for the company, including next steps in advancing safety measures and purse levels for the two-day World Championships. The Breeders' Cup Board continued its commitment to using the organization's leadership position within the industry to encourage the adoption of increased safety requirements within and beyond the World Championships. Beginning at the 2020 World Championships, the Breeders' Cup will adopt all six recommendations from Dr. Larry Bramlage's report, (pages 18-21). These process...

Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital will host Rood & Riddle Responds, an educational seminar for people engaged in the equine industry, Mar. 4 at Embassy Suites in Lexington. Now in its thirty-fifth year, the Rood & Riddle Client Education Seminar will continue with the question and answer format. Questions submitted by clients and veterinarians prior to the seminar are assigned to one of the experts at Rood& Riddle to answer. This year's panel will include surgeons, internal medicine experts, podiatrists, reproduction specialists and breeding farm practitioners. Additionally, Dr. Larry Bramlage...

The Week in Review, by T.D. Thornton Although the long-term implication of breeding trends on the soundness of racehorses was not an aspect that got covered in the post-mortem report released last week on Mongolian Groom (Hightail)'s fatal injury in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, the author of that analysis, Dr. Larry Bramlage, did address the topic in a Jan. 16 media teleconference that followed up on the study he was commissioned to write for the Breeders' Cup. And while the breeding-related remarks by the internationally respected equine orthopedic surgeon...

Veterinarians who work in the Thoroughbred industry are still a year or two away from being able to make better practical use of emerging digital imaging technologies to avoid racehorse injuries before they happen, but there are some low-technology tools and practices that can be implemented to identify at-risk horses at both high-profile racing events and on a day-to-day basis. That was the takeaway message in a half-hour Thursday teleconference that featured Dr. Larry Bramlage. The internationally recognized equine orthopedic surgeon was fielding media questions one day after the release...

A Breeders' Cup-commissioned evaluation of the catastrophic injury that led to the euthanization of Mongolian Groom (Hightail) in the GI Classic has concluded that the gelding had small, pre-existing stress fractures in both hind cannon bones, and that when the one in his left hind displaced during the race, it created chain-reaction downward force that acted "as a screwdriver" to apply "a huge amount of torque to the bone," causing multiple fractures in that leg. The 25-page report, released Wednesday by the Breeders' Cup and authored by internationally recognized equine orthopedic...