Good morning!
Kate Echeverria’s passion for horses began before she was old enough to climb the paddock fence at Val Deane’s Stoney B Acres in Bernardston. While her brother David played ice hockey at Collins-Moylan Arena, she was show jumping at the Stoneleigh-Burnham Equestrian Center.
Echeverria graduated from Wake Forest, did four years of vet school at N.C. State and completed a three-year residency in Equine Internal Medicine at the University of Illinois. Now she’s Dr. Echeverria, one of eight veterinarians who work at Ocean State Equine Associates in North Scituate, Rhode Island.
During Thanksgiving weekend she watched a UMass hockey game with her parents, Tom and Anne Echeverria, at the Mullins Center. Her father skates with a group of graybeards in Gardner, and Kate could’ve used his helmet a few weeks ago. While tending to a sick horse, the ungrateful steed kicked her in the side of the head. The impact left a nasty black-and-blue mark on her neck, and a jagged cut over her forehead that needed 10 stitches.
It’s part of the job, she shrugged.
Echeverria specializes in gastrointestinal and metabolic disorders, and has kept a keen eye on Santa Anita Park, where 37 horses have broken down this year. Ten more have died at Del Mar since November.
The west coast tracks have taken the brunt of the bad publicity, but it happens everywhere. The Louisville Courier Journal reported this summer that of 237 race-related deaths that have been logged by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission since 2010, more than 85 percent involved a fracture.
This tragic side of thoroughbred racing was witnessed by millions on television last month during the Breeder’s Cup Classic at Santa Anita. A 4-year-old gelding named Mongolian Groom had been supplemented into the race for $200,000. Ridden by Abel Cedillo, the 15-1 longshot was running second when it turned for home and broke its left hind leg. He was eased up, put into a van and taken to a barn to be euthanized.
Horse racing isn’t about Eclipse Awards and sentimental movies about Seabiscuit and Secretariat. It’s about money, and Mongolian Groom’s demise was caused in large part by greedy owners who wanted a slice of the $6 million purse. The horse was making its ninth start in seven months, and after it broke down the silence from NBC commentators Laffit Pincay III and Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey was deafening.
“It was like a coverup,” somebody said.
“It sure was,” replied Echeverria, who thinks a drug called bisphosphonate might be to blame. Commonly used to treat degenerative bone disease in people, the FDA approved it in 2015 to treat foot pain in older horses. “It reduces the swelling and it’s an analgesic. And it’s hard to detect.”
Trainers entrusted with million-dollar yearling purchases are under great pressure to succeed. There’s simply not time in a 2-year-old’s training regimen to rest over-worked bones, and bisphosphonate will help keep the workouts on schedule.
For younger horses still developing, it can be a time bomb. An article by Natalie Voss in The Chronicle of the Horse quoted equine vet Dr. Jonathan McLellan regarding the drug’s potential consequences. “For want of a better description,” said McLellan, “bisphosphonate-treated bone has the material properties of a concrete block: very strong but easy to fracture.”
Horse trainers know every trick in the book but they’d better tread lightly with this elixir, because seeing horses die on the track is bad for business.
UMass running back Bilal Ally, who rushed for 853 yards and seven touchdowns this season, has entered the NCAA transfer portal.
Ten other Minutemen have put their names into the transfer portal, which is posted on 247sports.com. They include three-star running back Kevin Brown (27 carries for 119 yards, one touchdown), defensive lineman Dennis Osagiede (30 tackles) and defensive back Joseph Norwood (27 tackles, 1 interception).
“Other than Osagiede and Norwood, the others can’t play a lick,” said a stalwart alumnus.
But now Ally has run up the flag, and three-star recruit Freddie Brock of Rochester, N.Y., has decommitted.
“It’s not who’s leaving, it’s who’s coming,” said Johnny Alum.
Whoever they are, there will be plenty of locker space.
Despite upsetting Pitt on the road Saturday, Boston College fired its charmless coach Steve Adazzio after seven years and an unremarkable 44-44 record.
“I could tell you stories for days,” tweeted former SID Chris Cameron, who claimed that Addazio once ordered him to track down a writer who’d penned a negative piece about him.
Control issues aside, Addazio’s real sin was failing to find the next Doug Flutie.
All was good after Clemson quarterback Kelly Bryant announced last season he was Mizzou-bound. Alas, his 15 touchdown passes and 138.6 quarterback rating wasn’t enough to save Tigers coach Barry Odom, who was done in by a five-game losing streak in the heart of the season.
SQUIBBERS: There was a time when the Maine Black Bears made the NCAA tourney for nine straight years. Their coach was Tim Whitehead, who’s now behind the bench at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire. … Schoolboy bragging rights will be on the line Wednesday when the Northfield Mount Hermon School hockey team hosts Deerfield Academy in its old, cold barn at 5 p.m. …. Deerfield’s still working out the kinks with its new multi-million dollar skating rink that has the playground on top. The company that built the multiplex had to work all summer to correct condensation problems, which in turn begat other problems. … Miami got the best of Baltimore when it traded minor league pitcher Easton Lucas to the Birds for veteran infielder Jonathan Villar, an iron man who played all 162 games and had a .339 on base percentage. … In the midst of a four-game losing streak, UMass hoops has fallen from a high of 111th when they were 5-0 down to 174th in the Sagarin Ratings. The top three New England teams are UConn (58th), Yale (72nd) and URI (85th). … The NY Post’s Joel Sherman suggests that Chaim Bloom’s priorities will be to unload high-priced pitchers David Price and Nathan Eovaldi, and to look for a way to get value from pending free agent Mookie Betts. … The KC Chiefs played flag-free football for the first time since 1974 while beating the hapless Raiders on Sunday. … The once mighty Adam Vinatieri has missed eight field goals and six extra points this season. … DA grad Hunter Long had a touchdown catch for BC in its win at Pitt. The 6-5, 255-pound tight end has 26 catches and two touchdowns for the Eagles. … LSU QB Joe Burrow was 200-1 to win the Heisman, but that was before he took the Tigers on their undefeated run. LSU is a 7½ -point favorite to whoop Georgia this afternoon in the SEC championship game (4 p.m.on CBS). … So long Sandy Leon. You came to Boston making the minimum $510,400, and you left making $2.475 million. You must’ve done something right during those 385 games. … Andy Isabella’s kid brother Joey wants to come to UMass, but 247sports says Valparaiso’s been the only school to offer. … Mark Whipple remains as popular as ever in Amherst, quickly forgiven and always admired for coaching UMass to the I-AA title two decades ago. Whipple is the offensive coordinator at Pitt this season. The Panthers are 7-5 and were ranked 47th (of 130) in passing yards per game. … A security worker at the Harvard-Yale game said he was in the parking lot while the students were demonstrating for climate change. “I was having a sandwich in my car as their diesel buses were idling, waiting to take them back to campus.”
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley.