Al's Morning Meeting

Miss Pretty Promises is one of hundreds of racehorses in Texas that lose[s] a life-or-death gamble the public seldom sees.

At the state's five licensed tracks, [Dr. Stewart] Marsh and other veterinarians with the Texas Racing Commission have euthanized or documented the deaths of 300 horses in the past five years, usually after the animals broke ankles, legs or even spinal cords during races, according to the agency's database of horse injuries obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.

Vets who scratched injured horses from races and euthanized the grievously injured compiled the database, which never has been analyzed by outsiders.

While thousands of horses compete safely in Texas, the records reveal an ugly side to a moribund industry struggling to fill empty seats.

Even elite horses are at risk. At the Preakness Stakes on Saturday in Baltimore, favored thoroughbred Barbaro took a bad step at the beginning of the race and fractured his right hind ankle. By 7:30 p.m., Barbaro was being taken to Pennsylvania for an operation vets hoped would save his life, according to The Washington Post.

The injuries can be just as devastating in the lower-stakes world of Texas racing, far from the worldwide spectacle of wealthy owners sipping mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby. Many trainers and owners have concluded the risk isn't worth the reward, and are fleeing Texas for richer purses in other states.

As attendance in Texas has dropped -- from 1.6 million patrons at live races in 2000 to 1.2 million last year -- purses have fallen as well.

Tony Lostracco, a horse owner from Weimar, said declining purses encourage owners to train and race horses at a younger age to make their investment pay off.

"They want to push these little babies," said Lostracco, whose quarter horse, Doctor Passmore, competed at Retama on opening night. "If you push horses before they're ready, they will break down."

But beginning in 2003, injury rates began falling in Texas. A possible explanation is that regulators reduced the number of race days to ease the burden on the animals.

Speaking at an August 2001 racing commission board meeting, Mike Burleson, then-deputy director of racing, said vets were finding evidence that horses were being over-raced.

"We're seeing more tired, sore horses that are possibly increasingly susceptible to injury," Burleson told racing commissioners. "Therefore, our conclusion is that a slight decrease in racing dates will give these horses an opportunity to rest."

Five years ago, about 15 horses per 1,000 were killed or seriously injured in Texas. Last year, that rate had dropped by nearly half.

Besides the deaths, vets documented 2,000 scrapes and bruises, and 550 pulled tendons, broken bones and other serious injuries that weren't immediately life-threatening.

Here are some questions, followed by links to answers, about horses and leg injuries:

• How many racehorses die or are injured each year in races? State racing commissions may track this information. This is the Washington State Racing Commission's [PDF] report on fatal racehorse injuries, just as an example.
  

In California alone, another study says [downloadable document], "Musculoskeletal injuries were responsible for 77 percent of 946 deaths in California racehorses from 1997-1999." 

If that is right, then there were, on average, more than 300 deaths per year in California during that period of time.

An Australian advocacy group, Animal Liberation Inc., notes two U.S. reports that state that there are generally between 1.4 and 1.7 fatal injuries per 1,000 race entrants.

In 1997, a paper [PDF] issued by the American Association of Equine Practitioners reported study results from several states and countries, all showing essentially the same one-in-1,000 death rate -- give or take a tenth of a . The exception was Japan, where the rate turned out to be about 3 in every 1,000. The higher rate, though might have something to do with Japan's injury-reporting system being more thorough than its U.S. counterpart.

Another AAEP study from 1997 noted that the trainers who had the most wins on the track also had the lowest rate of injured horses. 

An animal-rights group, In Defense of Animals, has some figures but does not cite a source -- so who knows if they are accurate. 

• Why are some racehorses euthanized when they break a leg?  Why not just fix the fracture? Here are some answers from About.com.
  


• What is being done to reduce injuries? The veterinary school at the University of California, Davis has a veterinary orthopedic research laboratory with some answers.
  


• What about horseshoes? Just as human athletes need great shoes to perform, so do racehorses. One area widely investigated is the use of "toe grabs," which provide traction, but may also cause injury.
   
• Is horse-racing cruel?  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other groups have protested horseracing for years. Here is a PETA "fact sheet."  And here is an answer to the cruelty question, from a British group called The Jockey Club.
  

Prom Proposals

This one is new to me. The San Diego Union-Tribune says the ritual of boys asking girls to proms has taken on a whole new twist. Now, prom invitations are more like elaborate marriage proposals. And, the paper says, it is a national fad/trend:

There's whole skits involving multiple students and teachers with elaborately set-up plots," said Scott Chodorow, ASB adviser at Torrey Pines High School. "It is the latest trend, and I'm just waiting for a parachutist to land on campus during the middle of lunch."

From the heartwarming to the heart-wrenching to the downright hilarious, these unforgettable invitations are being rolled out across the county.

At Torrey Pines High School in Carmel Valley, one student hired an airplane to carry a sign over the beach to coax a girl to prom. Another spelled out his prom request using sushi.

English teacher Johanna Salem delivered an invitation from one student to another disguised as an order to attend Saturday school.

"She thought she was in trouble," Salem said. "It's out of control... Just buying a $1,000 prom dress or getting a Hummer limo doesn't give the thrill that it used to. Students feel that they have to do much more."

The story includes this passage:

At Patrick Henry High School in San Carlos, senior Andrew Sabat asked a girl from the roof of the cafeteria. He recruited the campus DJ to blare royalty fanfare, and a member of the marching band to give a drum roll as he unveiled a huge sign, which asked, "Steph, prom with me?"

Senior Stephanie Irwin was stunned. She'd been feeling down since a breakup with a boyfriend two weeks earlier.

"I was like, 'Oh my God. I'm not going to have someone to go to prom with,' " she said.

Now she was in the midst of a surreal moment where the entire school was awaiting her response to Andrew's spectacle. And when she accepted, the student DJ played "Hallelujah" and the students cheered.

Al's Morning Meeting reader Judd Sills tells me that, out in San Diego, they are in the height of the prom season now. Here in Florida, our kids are already out on summer vacation. 

Floundering Flounder
The Connecticut Post included an interesting story on the steep decline of flounder in Long Island Sound. It may be the product of over-fishing spanning decades. But there is more:

Still others say the real mystery is why winter flounder are abundant in the deeper waters mid-Sound and the ocean, where the species traditionally spends the summer and fall. It's possible they just aren't coming to shore to spawn.

I included this story because it is such a great example of a topic that connects with the ordinary reader.

Hey, we have to have something to take the place of the Florida alligator-attack stories, so now we can start the hurricane worry season. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there is plenty to worry about this year. Here are some resources that you might want to bookmark for your coverage this year:

• The mother lode of disaster-planning contacts and information, from CBS News.  
  
• 150 years of hurricane tracks from NOAA 
  
• One of the coolest parts of this site is that you can enter a ZIP code or a city and query historical storm tracks for that community. So when a storm is heading for a location, you can find the history of storms to that location in a click or two.
• Coastal Population Tool: This is a wonderful tool you can use to map out how many people live on any coastline and what the population trend has been for that area. It is vitally important to predict evacuation size and damage estimates. Just pop in a state and county. 
• NOAA Coastal Services Center resource page: Real-time imagery of storms, Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale explained and more resources.
• DisasterCenter.com: Another disaster collection -- ham radio operators use this one.
• DisasterRelief.org: A listing of major international disaster-relief efforts going on.
  

Garage-Sale Permits and eBay

A couple of Al's Morning Meeting readers have sent me notes in the last few weeks about what appears to be a decline in garage-sale permits. One reason, so the speculation goes, could be that people are selling their stuff on eBay instead.

In Okalahoma City, just for example, residential-sale permits were down 22 percent in April, compared to 2005 figures.

I suppose it could be that people are just choosing not to get permits. Does anybody enforce the garage-sale (also known as "residential-sale") permit laws that many cities have on the books? What happens if a seller gets caught without a permit?