Throughbreed injuries

Question
Hi
This is Kalle, i'm 13 and i'm doing a report of horse racing for my class. i don't have any experiance in this field, besides riding a throughbreed in my lesson a couple times. (i lease a quarter horse, so i'm not new to horses in general)

i was wondering if you could tell me why throughbreeds are more prone to injuries than other horses while on the race track, and ways that they might become injuried while racing.
Your input would help a lot.  

Answer
Hi Kalle,
      Todays thoroughbreds are the result of years of inbreeding, often with several crosses of the same family. They are fragile in structure and weak in their systems. They catch every stable bug and flu and break bones easier than any other animal.
On the track at full speed theses breaks and strains are compounded by the speed they are travelling at.
A common injury is shin soreness which affects the shin bone. It becomes sore (causing the horse to 'step short' like you do when you have a prickle in your toe! The cure is rest and walking in the sea.
Strains to tendons and ligaments are also quite common.
This generally causes soreness and if left untreated or not noticed it can shorten the racing career of a horse.

Fortunately crashes during races are fairly rare so not a significant cause of injury altho when they happen they are often very severe.

Check some vet sites for a skeletal picture of a horses legs and you will see how many little bones and tendons there are that can get injured.
Hope this helps,
Regards,
Don Boddie
New Zealand.