What's the deal with all these wind ops

I heard Paul Nicholl's gets one himself every other week.

All joking aside, it seems they are very common and in a lot of cases necessary, but like anything the level of expertise probably depends. Just go to whoever Nicholl's goes to as he always seems to be just a step or two ahead of the posse in England.

Horses did not evolve to run fast for 3 miles or even 2 so their throats tend to constrict their breathing after sustained galloping. There have been many advances in corrective surgery since the first one that was called a "hobday" after the vet that first used it.

Seems to act like a magic wand for some horses. Definitely something the punter should be aware of on the racecard in my opinion.

Yeh...I remember when they used to say he's been hobdayed now...years ago....don't they end up with a hole visible on their neck...remember seeing a piece on it now a few years back and remember them saying that on soft ground when the mud is flying you wouldn't want a bit of mud flying up and blocking it up.

Duffy, no that was called tubing which goes back a hundred years .Hobday was the first to perform an operation that avoided the tube.

ah right...another one there in the last wasn't it?

I'm sure plenty of horses get the op whether they've made a noise or not. It's like the racing community is saying the natural horse isn't good enough so surgery is required to improve it. Once one has it they all have to have it. I appreciate tubing and hobdaying have been around for years but it seems the number of horses getting modified has increased massively over the last few years. There is no plausible organisation running the sport so I doubt if there are any figures to confirm it.

Run it down field, get hcap mark down, do a 'wind-op'. bingo suddenly back to form or better than ever....next race, back to obscurity.....theses wind ops seem to only work for one race