Blind Luck? : After Burk’s Charger Wins Two of Nine, Veterinarian Finds Racehorse Can’t See

Burk’s Charger veered wildly in a race at Pimlico this month not because he was careless or clumsy or common. No, a veterinary specialist said, the horse smashed into the inside rail because he didn’t know it was there.

Seth A. Koch was blunt with his diagnosis: Burk’s Charger is blind and has been for some time.

Burk’s Charger became a winner in his fifth start, in February, and followed that with a first- and second-place finish. He was a 3-year-old on the rise, a black-maned bay with a strong closing kick, $19,595 won and a lot of promise.

But the usually obedient brown gelding had acted wacky in two of his nine races, darting right at the start of one, left in the homestretch of another. The latter started a two-horse tumble that left jockey Allen Stacy with a stiff neck and cracked ribs.

So Koch, a veterinary ophthalmologist, was summoned to trainer Jack Salter’s Laurel Park stable Saturday to examine the eyes of Burk’s Charger. Even before Koch unpacked his instruments and approached the patient, he saw trouble--ominous blue-gray pupils, permanently enlarged. Koch looked into them with a lighted scope and said later, “It blew my mind.”

There was severe degeneration in the retina and optic nerves of both eyes. Burk’s Charger’s retinas were “burned out,” Koch said, a condition no medicine or treatment can correct.

“I’m not going to say he has no vision whatsoever,” Koch said. “But he certainly doesn’t have usable vision. . . . You can safely say, from a functional standpoint, that he’s blind.”

The horse’s handlers were aghast. Sure, the dilated pupils had been noticeable, even unsettling, but in four months at Laurel, Burk’s Charger hadn’t acted like a sightless horse. Not around the stable, anyway, or during workouts.

“He never runs into anything,” said Sheila Kane, who became his groom last month. “He never hits his head.”

In walks around the shedrow, the horse seemed to stop at all the appropriate places. “He knows where the windows are,” said assistant trainer Michael Beck. “He knows where the water bucket is.”

Wouldn’t a blind horse be skittish, excitable? “He’s great to work around,” Kane said. “I don’t even tie him up to do his stall or brush him off or do his legs up or anything. He always knows where you’re at around him. . . .”

Koch questioned how such a horse could be permitted to race nine times in three states. But Pat Brackett, a state-designated veterinarian who works at Pimlico and Laurel, said it would be costly and impractical to check the eyes of every horse in every race.

Burk’s Charger will leave Laurel soon to gambol across open pastures indefinitely, a life geared to grass, carrots and candy. In the coming days, he’ll be sent to Point Lookout Farm in Brookville, Md., where Kane boards some show horses. She’ll care for Burk’s Charger and ride him.

“He’s survived through all this,” Tank Beck said. “He deserves to live on the farm and live the easy life for a while. Plus Sheila, she loves him. She’ll get on him, and he’ll have fun, and he’ll be happy. He took care of us; I guess it’s time now we took care of him for a while.”