The following, unless otherwise noted, were “vanned off” American tracks this weekend.
Friday:
4-year-old Windswept Summer, Charles Town, race 8 (“broke down”)
3-year-old How Bout Junior, Laurel Park, race 2 (“lame,” vanned off)
3-year-old Crabapple, Thistledown, race 4 (“lame,” vanned off)
Saturday:
3-year-old Wasted at Midnight, Hollywood Park, race 3
7-year-old Suyeta, Churchill Downs, race 3 (bled, vanned off)
4-year-old Offshore Banker, Delta Downs, race 2 (bled, vanned off; 2nd consecutive DNF due to bleeding)
3-year-old Long Beach Logan, Golden Gate, race 9
5-year-old Vianney Lane (48th start), Laurel Park, race 6
6-year-old All About Larry, Los Alamitos, race 6
3-year-old Royal Regard, Los Alamitos, race 9
7-year-old Candyonmymind (45th start, $5000 claiming), Mountaineer, race 5
6-year-old Fast Footed Frog, Retama, race 4 (not vanned off but bled)
Sunday:
4-year-old Space Traveler, Aqueduct, race 8
4-year-old Cadet Logan, Calder, race 1 (“broke down”)
3-year-old Pursteena, Churchill Downs, race 2 (bled, vanned off)
5-year-old Smokin Motion (46th start, $3200 claiming), Los Alamitos, race 1
2-year-old Survive, Los Alamitos, race 3
4-year-old Taba’s Gold, Portland Meadows, race 6
4-year-old Win the Future, Thistledown, race 3 (“broke down”)
4-year-old Trilite Thunder, Thistledown, race 8 (“lame,” vanned off)
2-year-old Cafe Bonita (1st start), Zia, race 6
2-year-old JC Storm (1st start), Zia, race 7
I have never seen this website before but recently “stumbled onto it “. I guess all you do is chronicle bad things happening to racehorses. Then it looks like you belittle the genuine feelings that the people involved with these horses have. Your surrounding tidbits are inaccurate or totally wrong. Fifty percent t of the annual foal crop is not slaughtered. The mare Wait A While is now producing babies not a statistic as you implied. If you have a real interest in helping the industry then use whatever audience that drinks your kool aid to bring about change. If on the other hand you want to finish the sport know you don’t have and never will have enough of a following to do that. If this is your lot in life you must have too much free time on your hands.
It is indeed true that 50% of the number of TBs registered each year (approx 40,000) are slaughtered each year (20,000 Tbs going to slaughter). It is a “throw away” industry.
I think that it is well past time that it was exposed and shown for the predatory, callous exploitation of such remarkable, intelligent creatures that have been brushed aside for far too long. Thank you Patrick for teaching us how this cruel and inhumane business works. IMHO…..good riddance to this type of “entertainment” if that is what you want to call it. You have had decades to clean this sport up, but yet, it continues AND is funded by the unsuspecting tax payer as well. If means taking unconscionable people like you “out of the game” so be it.
Well-said.
Jay, absolutely this site exposes all of the wrongs in horseracing, ie, chronicles the bad things happening to racehorses. The drugging – both legal and illegal – is rampant, enough so that there was a need for a Congressional hearing regarding it. Anyone who doesn’t live in a cave knows about the drug abuse in racing!…it’s a common topic of conversation these days via racing publications and websites! Slaughter of every breed of our nation’s horses (including the Thoroughbreds) continues in Canada and Mexico, and now U.S. slaughterhouses are ready to start butchering as soon as they receive the “go ahead”. And you’re correct about the TB slaughter statistic of 50% being off…it is closer to 70% of the annual TB foal crop. The claiming game, the “backbone” of the racing industry, continues to chew horses up and spit them out. Horses are being maimed and destroyed on the track. Then to add insult to injury, those that limp off the track limp right into a kill buyer’s slaughter-bound trailer. We have been hoping for changes for years, and nothing happens. And unfortunately, the mare Wait A While IS still a statistic…now she’ll be bred over and over, and after a while, she’ll be tossed aside as well, just like the 10 broodmares the Asmussen’s sent to the Round Mountain auction (see Shedrow Secrets, Royal Finder). And you are asking US, the readers here, to implement change??…when this multi-billion dollar gambling industry cannot do it? Of course they can’t, because they do NOT want to put the horse first! This is NOT a sport, although I used to think it was…I loved it, LOVED it. But my eyes were opened, and I witnessed the abuse again and again. These abuses are not occasional isolated incidents…there are countless horses that have labored and died in the name of “sport”. It has got to stop. And Jay, I agree that it will not be “us” that finishes this “sport”…this “sport” is doing a damn good job of seeing to its own demise.
Joy – all good points! The “nurse mare foals” are the ones who take the “hit”. They are taken away from their dam and the dam is sent to a new born TB foal to nurse, then the TB mare can be bred again or return to the track. The “nurse mare foal”, if not rescued, are slaughtered for pony skin rugs, purses, boots, shoes etc., or simply left to die. Young TB’s, if not showing promise are shipped off to auctions, many winding up on the road to Canada or Mexico. The Quarter Horse industry is guilty of the same practice. My eyes have been opened up in the last 3 years, and what I have learned has sickened me. If Ferdinand could wind up in a slaughter house after winning the freaking Derby, how much hope is there for those who don’t “make the grade”..are they a tax write-off, a loss? I honestly don’t know, but seeings it’s a business, I can only assume that it is so. With the danger of slaughter resuming in the United States, people are very blind if they cannot see how this will benefit these kind of practices. Just another business transaction at the expense of innocent lives.. once again..thank you for your comment