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Dear Zooarchers -- OK, now I've got myself in trouble and am pleading for any assistance y'all can give me. With the recent (spectacular, tragic) deaths of Thoroughbred racehorses Barbaro and Eight Belles, and the memory of Ruffian breaking her leg during a high-stakes match contest not that distant, suddenly I find myself deluged with requests for a paper I've had running on my website for years. The paper is familiarly entitled "the Ranger piece", and in it I discuss a GENERAL summary for the growth plate fusion in horses, vis., that fusion occurs "from the bottom up", with distal limb elements fusing before those in the proximal elements, and the vertebral physes and other ossification centers fusing last of all, at about 5.5 to 6 yrs. of age. Besides my own research, I have relied on data on bone development given in Sisson & Grossmann's Anatomy of the Domestic Animals (one does have to read the fine print, but it's there); combined with close reading of David P. Willoughby's two books, "The Empire of Equus" and "Growth and Nutrition in the Horse", both of which are simply stuffed with useful tables of data. HOWEVER -- what is happening now is that I'm getting calls from media and racing officials and supporters. The latter are mad because what the "Ranger" paper is basically saying -- which is irrefutable -- is that there is no horse, of any breed, at any time in history, that is mature at age three, the age at which the Kentucky Derby and the other Triple Crown races, and many other famous races, are run: they are all "futurity" contests. So I need to be sure I've got all the references possible on this, not because I'm against racing young horses necessarily, but because the media, horse owners, and the general public need accurate information in order to make good management decisions and it turns out I'm the one who they turn to for that info. What I'm asking y'all for is, then, any references you may know of that speak directly to this subject. Besides Sisson & Grossmann, I have the 2007 paper by Strand, et al. which compares limb bone growth in Icelandic horses to TB's and other breeds. This paper is typical of veterinary studies in totally leaving out the vertebral column, which I think is the most important part of the skeleton! I suspect that some of you in Europe could be of great help to me here, because my guess is that the original studies (Sisson and Grossmann don't cite their sources) probably are 19th-century European. I was amazed to look in Gobaux and Barrier (1898) and Horace Hayes (1908), both otherwise so comprehensive, and find not one word! Thanks to all in advance for any assistance you can give. -- Deb Bennett > > > > >