Could Ruffian Have Been Saved?

It began as the race of the year when the two horses broke from the starting gate at New York's Belmont Park for the much-ballyhooed mile-and-a-quarter match race. The contest between the record-breaking three-year-old filly Ruffian, winner in all ten of her starts and holder of the filly's Triple Crown for 1975, and the Kentucky Derby-winning colt Foolish Pleasure was a perfect Him v. Her extravaganza for the 50,764 people at Belmont and for millions watching on CBS, which put up $350,000 to televise the event. Then, 3 1/2 furlongs and some 35 seconds into the race, with Ruffian slightly ahead, there was a sharp snap. "Like a pistol shot," said the filly's jockey Jacinto Vasquez. Ruffian's right front ankle had cracked. The cheering faded as the afflicted horse pounded on, then slowed to a stop with the fragile sesamoid bones above the hoof completely shattered. Within nine hours Ruffian was dead, put down with the assent of her owners, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart Janney Jr. Ruffian's death came as an enormous blow to the racing fraternity. But for sportswriters and just plain enthusiasts, it was a beginning of controversy over the cause of the accident and the quality of medical treatment the stricken Ruffian received.

There were immediate charges that the track was unusually fast that day, and thus too hard for Ruffian's legs. Replied Track Superintendent Joe King vehemently: "The day of the race, the 3%-inch sandy loam surface was normal, and we had normal moisture conditions." Other observers felt that Ruffian's first match race placed her under unusual stress. Noted one racehorse owner, "When you figure that 1,125 Ibs are being carried on cannon bones as thick as broomsticks, it is a wonder that such an accident doesn't happen more often." However, another compelling hypothesis emerged days after the tragedy, when a film showed four pigeons flapping off from the track as the two horses approached, seeming to startle Ruffian. Vasquez doubts the thes ory: "We see those birds every day. Most horses don't bother with them. No, this was a freaky accident. If she had shied away from the birds, I would have felt it."

The medical treatment given the huge filly caused more comment. Immediately after Ruffian, her foreleg in an air-inflated splint, was moved to her trainer's barn, a mob of doctors, track officials and hangers-on descended.

Questions arose over the drugs that Veterinary Dr. Alex Harthill administered, which, some charge, worsened the horse's physical condition during surgery--though perhaps any sedation might have. Harthill's presence in itself was controversial since he does not have a New York license arid had been disciplined by the Kentucky state racing commission for giving an illegal painkiller to one of the 1968 Derby contestants.

The decision for a quick operation also raised doubts.

In retrospect, Veterinary Dr. William O. Reed, who runs the hospital, remarked, "I would have preferred to have been able to wait a day or so prior to surgery simply because the filly's condition was anything but stable." But most believed that the contamination in Ruffian's dirt-filled wound required an immediate operation. Once Ruffian was trucked to the equine hospital behind the Belmont track, Dr. Reed removed bone chips, repaired some of the ripped ligaments, flushed the wound with antibiotics and saline solutions and inserted drains. Then Dr. Edward C. Keefer, an orthopedist, put on a cast and special shoe.

Untimely Death, The second-guessing among the experts was intense. Some questioned the failure to use more care in easing Ruffian out of the anaesthesia. When she awoke, she knocked off her cast in frenzy, which led to the decision to destroy her. Would other methods of treatment have worked? Continuous sedation is unrealistic because a horse lying too long on its side develops radial paralysis; placing a horse in a sling often impairs circulation and waste elimination and could cause death; finally, putting a horse on a rubber raft in a pool, so that kicking off a cast becomes impossible, is still an experimental technique. At 'week's end Jack Dreyfus, chairman of the board of the New York racing association, said, "The inadequacy of knowing what to do was the problem. It happened to strike an area of incompetence in the whole industry." Meantime, Ruffian had been buried quietly at Belmont, mourned by millions who knew little of racing but were moved by the untimely death of a great horse.

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