Viewers of the Grade 1 Forego Aug. 28 got a surprise in the stretch run when experienced competitor Firenze Fire reached over and attacked rival Yaupon around the sixteenth pole. The act of one horse attacking another is called “savaging” and while not completely unheard of during the running of a race, it's not exactly common.
Up until now, the most famous image of a similar incident was probably taken in the final strides of the 1980 Tremont Stakes, where Great Prospector reached over to bite at eventual winner Golden Derby. A black and white photo of the moment, shot from underneath the inside rail by Bob Coglianese, became the Eclipse Award winning image of that year.
Firenze Fire, a 6-year-old intact male with multiple graded stakes races to his credit, came at Yaupon with his teeth several times before jockey Jose Ortiz was able to straighten him out. If Yaupon was disturbed by the behavior, it didn't impact his performance, as he prevailed by a head at the wire. Local reports indicated Yaupon was unharmed by the incident.
Strangely, Firenze Fire has been on the receiving end of such treatment, too. During the running of the G3 Gallant Bob in 2018 he was bitten by Whereshetoldmetogo just before the wire — although he seems to have only gotten a single, somewhat discreet nip on the neck, rather than a teeth-barred facial attack like the one he dealt to Yaupon.
Unreal. Firenze Fire, you savage. pic.twitter.com/hNNCOZcATj
— Ray Paulick (@raypaulick) August 28, 2021
We asked a few equine behavior experts about Firenze Fire's behavior to learn more about what makes horses do this. Here's what we learned.
Dr. Sue McDonnell, founding head of the Equine Behavior Program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and Certified Animal Behaviorist:
I don't think it does have much to do with dominance, but of course can't be sure. I see this all day every day in the herd and I don't think it gains the perpetrator any advantage or dominance. I think it's a reflex gesture that communicates, 'Slow down and let's play fight!' I agree to people it looks vicious, and people often assume it's a dominance thing, but that's a big assumption, probably without much evidence. What I see doesn't support that at all.
I see this among foals playing, bachelors play chasing and wrestling, usually after a long run or “race” if you will, and they are tiring and ones seems to want to slow or stop and wrestle. In serious combat between stallions, that particular biting gesture is not seen. It's more of very serious lunge to take the other down to the ground.
My first thought is that the previous incident is likely coincidence. The only thing that I can think of concerning the possible relationship of having been involved previously is that Firenze Fire is the type of horse that is paying attention to the competitor horse in the sense of actually “racing” the other horse rather just running in response to the rider direction and training — a different motivational state, which is likely perceived among horses. And that in the previous incident where he was the receiver, that competitor horse was reflexively responding to Firenze Fire's natural racing motivation/behavior.
Firenze Fire #10 (R) with Irad Ortiz, Jr. riding overcame a bite by 2nd place finisher Whereshetoldmetogo (L) with jockey Jeremy Rose to win the $300,000 Grade III Gallant Bob Stakes at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pennsylvania on September 22, 2018. Photo By Taylor Ejdys/EQUI-PHOTO
Dr. Nicholas Dodman, program director of the Animal Behavior Department of Clinical Sciences at the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and diplomate of American College of Veterinary Behaviorists:
Biting with ears pinned back is a typical behavior of an intact horse or a gelding given steroids. If you walk down track shed rows, you can pretty much tell the stallions by the way the horses lay their ears back and charge at people with teeth bared or they do it only to horses being hot walked around the shed rows. The walker knows to give them a wide berth from the stalls and needs to have their horse strong in hand when going by.
I doubt very much that Firenze Fire's biting behavior was a reaction to his being on the receiving end of similar behavior some years before.
Kerry Thomas, founder of the Thomas Herding Technique and THT Bloodstock:
[This incident is not necessarily about exerting dominance] because dominance and physical expression do not always go hand-in-hand by the laws of herd dynamics in nature. In this scenario I view it as more related to the manner of physical expression in what we at THT call a “close-space-fighter”, which means for us horses that have a tendency to exaggerate their physical expression during times of protracted competitive stresses.
It's more a re-direction of focus than a fracture. The same amount of emotional energy that was housed in the forward competitive aspect gets shifted to what the horse views as a close space infraction. This shift in emotional energy disrupts physical efficiency and subsequently affects physical pace. In short, what you have is the mental horse going one direction and the physical horse another for those moments.
By and large I view these as unrelated, separate incidents. However that said, Firenze Fire's herd dynamic rhythms and competitive nature in close space battles can lend itself to a variety of both dishing-out & eliciting of arbitrary expressions, most of which are subtle, some of which, as we have seen, not so subtle.
The emotional expressions of these athletes reminds us we should never underappreciate the beauty of their nature, nor undervalue the impact of it.
The post Ask The Experts: What’s Up With Firenze Fire’s Savagery? appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
