Finger Lakes Racetrack wasted little time in recording its first victim of the brand-new 2014 meet: 3-year-old Recovered suffered a slab fracture in the 3rd race yesterday and was subsequently killed. The thing is, if not for NY’s unique database, Recovered’s death would never have come to light; in fact, the chart shows her as finishing, with no indication of an injury – not pulled-up, not eased, not vanned off. In other words, there are anonymous horses dying back in the barn, off our radar, off anyone’s radar. They simply disappear, just the way racing wants it. Dead horses are bad for business.
Recovered was trained and owned by Donna Bireta and ridden by Jeremias Flores. She was running in a $5,000 claiming race – “for sale” the day she died. This is horseracing.
So…what was Recovered ‘running on’ that she was able to finish her race without feeling the pain of a broken knee?
And of note, this filly, passed through FOUR trainers in just six and half months from the date of her first start on October 2, 2013…..ALAN GOLDBERG, DOMINIC GALLUSCIO, GARY CONTESSA, and her last DONNA BIRETA….
Seems one of these horsemen or horsewoman would have detected something amiss…..JMO.
And Susan, it’s JMO that one or more of the filly’s trainers DID know something was amiss. There does come a point in these racehorses’ lives – even babies like Recovered – when their connections decide that running them carries no risk at all. They’re dead if they do and dead if they don’t. So why not.
What happens out of sight is unbelievable and sickening. Daily I find horses that have dropped off the radar and vanished. No one is looking for them – no one even knows they’re gone. It’s as if they never existed, poof, just gone. Hundreds, perhaps thousands over the years. The list is endless and growing every day. Horses arrive at auctions for the kill buyers sometimes with their wrappings from a recent race still in place. Sick, sick, sick.
Jeanette, that is so true. We have no idea how many are disappearing, dying. So many racehorses the public never even knew existed.
All such carnage flies under the radar and this is how the business wants to keep it. This is a sick industry at every level.The people involved could not stay involved if they had any compassion or human decency. They know the vast majority of Thoroughbreds foaled each year are doomed.