2-Year-Old Secret Compass Dead at BC

2-year-old Secret Compass broke down during the running of the Breeders’ Cup $2 million Juvenile Fillies Saturday afternoon, suffering, in the words of the on-call vet (The Washington Post, 11/2/13), “the worst type of injury we get,” a lateral condylar fracture. The child-horse was put out of her misery. Dead.

She crumples at 1:12…

In an AP article (11/2/13), famed trainer Bob Baffert says, “When you lose a horse like that, it just took all the wind out of our sails.” Undeterred, though, Baffert, according to the AP, “was smiling later” when his New Year’s Day won the boy’s version. Win some, lose some, I guess.

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16 Comments

  1. Memo to the on-call vet regarding his statement…”we” didn’t suffer the worst type of injury!…little Secret Compass did. What a disgusting industry.

  2. Just admit it LOVE GUYS LOVE IT!!! You just could not wait to look at the results and see which horses broke down or were vanned off. As you are looking though the results you are saying to your selves “Please Please Please let there be break downs” and deep down you wish there were more. Just so you could drag some more people through the mud. If in fact this is a disgusting industry, guess what YOU FIT IN WELL…..

    • What on earth are you saying. I was in no way hoping for a horse to breakdown. I’m very sad to see a 2 year old, or a horse of any age, breakdown in any race. You are out of line with your comment and I, for one, take exception.
      Nobody is dragging anybody “through the mud”. The concern is for the horses..

    • So true… Amazing aint it?! They have nothing better to do. They say they don’t watch racing… We’ll for someone who doesn’t watch racing ur sure as he’ll on top of ur game….

  3. I never want to see a horse breakdown or die. The truths of the Horseracing industry speak for themselves. There are pages and pages of information–evidence–here. We do not wish or hope for a breakdown. Casualties must be reported. The horses that give their lives to this ‘sport’ must be acknowledged–they are not anywhere else. Obviously, you do not understand the point of this website. Dead horses are not front page news (or even a sidebar note). They are hidden, along with all truths of horseracing. When has there been a movement to try to stop something where truths are not at the forefront. If what you see here is disgusting, then we are doing our jobs to bring the truths to light and change minds.

  4. Disgusted …. by all the people who enjoy racing … THIS is why I STOPEPED watching races … why I hate racing … jockeys have a choice, horses not, so send them off to their deaths just to make money !

  5. For all you that hate racing and don’t watch it ur sure as he’ll up on ur game….

    • Ms. Manning, I guess I’m confused. Although I no longer watch horseracing, I am able to read about the number of horses that “die in the dirt” daily, weekly and yearly. I would think anyone who is reasonably intelligent would be able to do so. Patrick reports the deaths and injuries WHEN state racing commissions provide that information. Of course, the racing industry doesn’t like to give up the names of their dead athletes. Why is that? Perhaps it is because they like to keep the atrocities behind closed doors.

      I never fought in the Vietnam War although I have read extensively about it. I have never been to Russia nor did I meet Man O’ War. So what? Have you heard of the library or the internet? Oh, and there are schools around the country where you can get a phenomenal education. You can read, listen, and learn should you choose to do so. A person can learn about the exploitation of the racehorse if they so desire. Just to bring you up to speed, I spent years on the backside of a low level track trying to help horses discarded by your corrupt industry. Been there…done that, Ms. Manning.

      Thank you for the compliment. Yes, we, the anti-racing folks, are on “top of our game”. Also, just to be clear….if we enjoyed horses snapping their legs off, we would be promoting racing and encouraging people to gamble on the horses. We would get a thrill when horses suffer multiple fractures or a condylar fracture unless we were unfortunate enough to bet on those horses. Anyone with minimal intelligence should be able to figure that out, but it may be a real stretch for you and your pro-racing colleagues.

      Finally, this blog is called Horseracing Wrongs, not Horseracing Rights. For the life of me, I can’t understand why the pro-racing folks, such as yourself, can’t seem to grasp that, but many are either delusional or incredibly stupid.

  6. If one wants to change something (ANYTHING), one has to know what one is talking about – that’s just the simple truth. I would not take anyone seriously who puts his/her opinion out there without knowing what s/he is talking about …. no matter what the topic might be. Period.

    • Love this comment ^^^^. You have to watch horse racing, because you hate horse racing, so you know that you hate horse racing, and can tell everyone why you hate horse racing. Lunacy!!! Kind of like “Porn is bad, I need to watch more porn so I know I don’t like porn”. At the end of the day all you are doing is watching porn… Keep watching and telling yourself how much you hate it…

    • Jenny, the typical horse doesn’t reach full musculoskeletal maturity till six. So, racing two-year-olds is only marginally worse than racing three or four year olds.

  7. Horse Injured at Charles town CLassic
    4/18/2015 from Paulick Report

    Shared Belief Eased Out Of Race

    After a pair of graded stakes victories at Santa Anita Park, Shared Belief was expected to win again on his first trip outside California.

    Shared Belief broke poorly and settled back toward the rear of the strung-out field as longshot Warrioroftheroses strode out to take the lead. Rounding the second turn, jockey Mike Smith pulled Shared Belief out of the race; the gelding walked onto the equine ambulance after the race.

    “When I got to the horse, I saw a little soft tissue swelling in the right stifle,” said state veterinarian Dr. Elizabeth Daniel. “We gather it’s something that happened leaving the starting gate. He didn’t appear to be traveling well from the time he left the gate.”

    • Poor Shared Belief is a gelding, so he will have the s*** run out of him. I think he’s made nearly 3 million. His trainer is Hollendorfer and he shares ownership, as well. Jim Rome is also an owner…his arrogance is difficult to tolerate…he got into racing TB’s several years ago and from listening to him talk about his experiences as an owner, he knows basically nothing about horses – one of the worst kind of owners. Even racing die-hards were disgusted SB’s connections ran him at CT because of the condition of the track.

      The winner of the CT Classic was Moreno, another gelding. He’s won well over 2 million. And his trainer – Eric Guillot – has been noted here on HW when his little 2-year-old colt Sir William Bruce “fell fatally” after his very first start (but he came in 5th and earned nearly 3K in his death race). I’ve included the link to the article about this Guillot…Moreno won that day, as well, but in a race after Guillot’s Sir William Bruce died. Check out the photo of Eric Guillot…he was so “emotional” when Sir William Bruce died…doesn’t he look broken up?

      http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/day-tragedy-triump-eric-guillot-saratoga-article-1.1890517

      • Joy,

        The fact that SHARED BELIEF has won all that money is probably the only reason Paulick wrote about him. He generally does not write about horses with injuries unless their champions.

      • That’s right, Kathleen. SB is a star on a brightly lit stage…it’s hard to keep the injuries of the “elite” a secret. And although the gelding doesn’t deserve his enslavement in an industry that is just using him to pad their own pocketbooks, neither does the bread and butter racehorse that labors under the radar. Not ONE deserves to have their lives stolen for someone’s entertainment or livelihood. It is no different than ANY animal being exploited in ANY entertainment industry.

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