Not that long ago, the injury champion filly Echo Zulu sustained to her left front fetlock during a pre-Breeders’ Cup workout at Santa Anita likely would have ended her life.
Today, thanks to the advancements in veterinary medicine and surgical procedures, the daughter of Gun Runner has a fighting chance not only to survive, but to have a healthy and productive second career off the racetrack.
“My dream for her is that one day you’ll see her running around in a pasture in Kentucky with a foal on her side and we can see her babies perform on the racetrack,” said Dr. Ryan Carpenter, the Southern California-based veterinary surgeon who performed the operation on the Steve Asmussen-trained filly Oct. 14. “That would be a dream come true for all of us and that’s what we’re shooting for. It’s a realistic goal.”
Carpenter joins Ray Paulick and editor-in-chief Natalie Voss in this week’s Friday Show, providing details on the type of injury Echo Zulu sustained and explaining how the cutting-edge arthrodesis surgery is performed and how it has evolved in recent years. He also cautions that “we have a lot of hurdles that we have to get over in the coming weeks,” but points out the increasing number of success stories that have come out of this type of surgery.
3 Comments
Thank you for the in-depth information. I am also very hopeful that many more racehorses will be able to be saved and not have to be euthanized.
This level of transparency is remarkable. We love her and think we're entitled to this information but we're not. The willingness of the ownership to share this is much appreciated. Also… very educational .Thanks!
I loved Irap too. Happy to hear his name again even though it ended up sad.