Fatality
no significant rain at the time. He said the question of whether Santa Anita’s surface predisposes horses to an increased incidence of injury long term was beyond the scope of his report.
Bramlage said Mongolian Groom had small stress fractures in both hind cannon bones before the Classic, but they hadn’t caused any inflammation in the fetlock joint even though they were just millimeters away from the joint surface. He said once the gelding’s left hind fracture occurred during the race, it resulted in a chain of events that created the fatal injury.
“There is no evidence that the horse’s injury was ignored or covered up,” Bramlage wrote.
He said the defect in Mongolian Groom’s left hind cannon bone was roughly one- quarter inch in size and not easily spotted on X-rays. It would have taken a combination of confirming lameness and X-ray proof to diagnose.
“It is not an easy task at any time,” Bramlage wrote, “but is especially difficult in the circumstances of a prerace examination.”
Bramlage also found there was “no reason to believe medication played any role in the horse’s injury.”
During Breeders’ Cup week, Bramlage said Mongolian Groom was informally on a watch list for increased observation, but he said four other Classic runners were on the same list. In all, 24 Cup horses — including Mongolian Groom — were on the list for extra scrutiny. Of those, eight were disqualified from competition.
Three different officials made multiple observations that Mongolian Groom was “stiff” or “choppy” from behind, but was symmetrical in both hind legs, similar to his previous two races. He was one of 17 horses that had such issues on the prerace barn exams. Sixteen of those horses competed without incident.
“It is hard to fault a process that had a 99.6% accuracy rate,” Bramlage said, noting that of the 229 horses that competed in last year’s world championships, Mongolian Groom was the only one to be injured.
Bramlage’s six recommendations were:
After the event, the Breeders’ Cup board of directors hired Bramlage, of Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Kentucky, to conduct an evaluation of Mongolian Groom’s prerace condition and injury, as well as all pre-race safety and evaluation protocols in place for the two- day world championships.
At the time, Mongolian Groom became the 37th horse to die at Santa Anita since December 2018.