Breathing operations

By James Condron

Zaarito, widely regarded as one of the most frustrating National Hunt horses in training last season, falling when looking the likely winner of the Powers Gold Cup and the Dr Moriarity Novice Chase, both valuable Grade One races, underwent a breathing operation during the summer. The decision of his trainer, Colm Murphy, to have the talented son of Tiraaz undergo this procedure, indicates that the trainer feels that Zaarito’s costly late mistakes at Fairyhouse and Leopardstown, were due to fatigue resulting from breathing problems and not just jumping frailties. It is worth noting how powerfully Zaarito travelled in his races last season and should the operation have the desired effect in galvanising his finish, he remains a horse to follow in top races ranging from two miles to two and a half miles this season.

The benefits of a breathing operation for a racehorse have been long accepted and can result in horses who may have previously been considered to be weak finishers finishing out their races in a stronger fashion. Doransfirth, trained by David Martin Kelly, for example, who previous to having a breathing operation, consistently travelled very strongly before finding little in the business end of her races has won successive handicap hurdles at Galway and Kilbeggan since the procedure. The daughter of Fleminsfirth’s best effort to date actually was in finishing third in her most recent start, a competitive handicap hurdle on the opening day of the Listowel festival, behind the handicap ‘blot’, Elyaadi.

To fully understand the benefit of a breathing operation, one must examine how the horse’s respiratory system operates. Horses must breathe through the nose, unlike humans and a lot of other animals, who have the option of breathing either through the nose or mouth. The air from the nasal passages is inhaled and exhaled through the pharynx (a collapsible muscular tube which closes when swallowing) and then the larynx, otherwise known as the voice box, before proceeding down the windpipe to the lungs. The amount of oxygen that a horse gets into its lungs and its bloodstream greatly impact upon its performance, particularly in racing, which places great stress upon a horses respiratory system.

The larynx, which contains a muscular double gate entrance which needs to be held open for the horse to breathe, can often suffer from paralysis of the left side of the larynx. This essentially means that the double gate does not open properly, causing an obstruction. Other problems can occur from soft palate displacement when the soft palate rises in front of the larynx partially obstructing the horse’s air way.

To alleviate these problems, there are three different types of operations; a hob day operation which removes a large portion of the left side of the larynx removing the obstruction, a tie back operation where the larynx is permanently tied open and finally a procedure where a permanent metal tube is placed in the horse’s throat bypassing the larynx altogether.

While some trainers like Paul Nicholls are very open about their horses having breathing operations, most trainers do not make this information public. Very often, the first one hears about a horse that has undergone this procedure is when winning connections are interviewed after a race! It would be extremely helpful to punters if details were readily available, similar to the manner that a trainer has to declare cheek pieces and blinkers for his or her runners before being included on the race card, but unfortunately this is not the case and the racing public must survive on a drip feed of information in this regard.

While I do not believe in rigid betting systems generally, following horses who have had breathing operations is a punting angle which I personally have found profitable in recent seasons and for the purposes of this article, I propose a simple system for this National Hunt season, which is to follow horses who have had a breathing operation on their next three starts. The reason I have selected three races, is that any improvement in a horses performance is likely to have levelled out after three runs and a horses true ability should be apparent, whether it be the handicapper ‘catching up’ with the particular horse and allocating a stiff handicap mark or the progression of the horse to graded company, where the effect of the breathing operation is likely to be far more minimal than at a lower level of competition.

The most difficult part of this approach is likely to be the creation of a database of horses to follow. Unless you are fortunate to have the inside track on a particular stable’s runners, the most accessible source of information is likely to be stable tours in the racing newspapers such as the Racing Post, Racing Post Weekender and The Irish Field and websites such as www.attheraces.com.

I hope to return with a follow up article in six to eight weeks time with a comprehensive list of horses from Irish and British National Hunt stables who have undergone recent breathing operations, which it may prove profitable to follow and give regular updates throughout the season of the profitability of this ‘angle’.

By James Condron