Destin’s Mission, as relayed in our weekly list, “suffered an injury, was placed to a protective hold, and subsequently vanned off” at Aqueduct Saturday. The Gaming Commission picks it up from there: “Horse’s health declined…later euthanized.” The “horse” had just turned four. He becomes the third confirmed kill on Preakness Day.
The Commission also reports this for 3-year-old Cracklin Cat: “Horse suffered a LH injury on May 10 [during] a workout and was sent to Ruffian on May 20 for examination. Horse’s health declined…euthanized [Tuesday].” Forced to endure extended, unnecessary suffering in a cynical attempt to keep those kill numbers down? That’s my guess.
In California, Fearless King is reported dead at Los Alamitos just this morning. No details (until I FOIA), but I can tell you he was two and was coming off his debut.
Interesting. The only two states with public racehorse death reporting requirements are featured in this post. Yet, depending on when poor Destin’s Mission was finally put down, it’s likely that neither of the New York killings would have been publicly reported if they’d occurred in California. (Too much time would have elapsed between injury and euthanasia.)
Makes you wonder whether the CHRB directly encourages EVEN MORE of the above-mentioned prolonged suffering so they can claim a lower Kill Count, doesn’t it?
With the government bankrolling this cruelty to horses being exploited for racing and wagering and the subsequent killing of horses that automatically goes with this cruel and deadly exploitation, the killing will most likely continue until the numbers of these particular breeds are on the critically endangered list of livestock breeds.
Hypothetically, if there were government-backed incentives for breeders to not breed and not race their horses, they could still have their “open spaces” in the form of ranches and farms.
Just because you have horses doesn’t mean that you have to exploit them to literal death. That doesn’t compute with the idea that these so-called horse people have a “dream” to have a horse that wins races, as in the “myracehorse” fractional ownership of the 2024 Preakness Stakes winner SEIZE THE GREY. D. Wayne Lukas said he gets paid to make it possible for these over 2,000 people to realize the “dream” of having a horse in the “winner’s circle”. This mindset of greed and selfishness is what drives this industry. It also drives the wanton destruction of horses.
To clarify what I meant by “to not breed” is if there was a government subsidized program that would pay breeders to keep their broodmares open as opposed to bred. Just allow them to live a more normal life instead of just constantly cranking out new foals or selling them into the slaughter pipeline.