Besides Chiffy and How Far We’ve Come, four other horses broke down this weekend and should be presumed dead:
5-year-old Lake Brilliant in Friday’s 2nd race at Prairie
3-year-old Cole Forty Five in Friday’s 8th race at Santa Anita
6-year-old Birthday Wish in Saturday’s 7th race at Belterra
3-year-old Shanes Social Cat in Saturday’s 2nd race at Lone Star
And earlier in the week:
4-year-old My Jordy in Tuesday’s 2nd race at Presque Isle
2-year-old Summer Sanctuary in Thursday’s 4th race at Delaware
3-year-old Ol’ Bob in Thursday’s 4th race at Louisiana
That’s 9 breakdowns. In addition, 34 horses were vanned off last week. If only half of them died – a conservative estimate – we end up with some 26 dead athletes – just on the flat tracks and just while racing. Insanity.
These people are utterly crazy and have lost their minds. A 2 yr old horse racing? 3 yr old, 4 or old? This is animal cruelty and I don’t understand why the Humane Society of the United States doesn’t stop this. I also don’t understand why the owners are allowed to enter these young horses in the races from the beginning. There must be rules and regulations concerning the minimum age for a horse to race. It’s so heart breaking to know all these people, from the spectations, trainers, owners, media, race horse association, etc., don’t say “enough is enough”. These reckless and horrible people should not be allowed to even own a horse, simply because they know their rigorous training is only sending the horses to an early death, and don’t even care if the horse dies, where it dies, and at a young age. I have enough experience with horses to know that you don’t even put a saddle on a horse until it is 2-3 yrs old. I pray God stops this in some way soon. These poor horses don’t deserve to die such a horrific death at such a young age by the hand of man. It’s worse than sending them to the slaughter as people sit by and watch.
Diana, racing is a gambling industry that is all about the revenue. 2 year olds standing in their stalls can’t generate revenue, nor can 3 year olds. There is pressure at the tracks to fill the cards even if the horses aren’t ready to race. Whenever you mix money and animals, the animals always lose. There is an easy way to fix this…don’t bet on the horses, or the dogs!
Trainers in horse racing consider their horses athletes, but what other sports allows as many athletes to die as horse racing and still consider it ok? This is the 21st century. Gambling needs to get with the times and move away from animals and toward technology.
That is correct, yoshigirl28! There does not NEED to be animals involved in gambling! We’ve said it before many, many times…and I’ll say it once again…pit money versus the welfare of an animal and money will win out the majority of the time. Decks of cards and dice are disposable, horses are not. The suffering and death the racing industry subjects the horses to is barbaric. Let’s continue to educate folks on the realities of horseracing and help it along to its demise!
I definitely agree Joy! Animals have no place in gambling. The amount of horses that are injured and/or killed or sent to slaughter on a weekly basis by the racing industry is staggering. It’s so unbelievable that young horses are raced until their legs literally snap apart and nobody bats an eyelash at it. They just euthanize the horse and move on to the next one. It’s really despicable. There are so many new electronic ways to gamble, horse racing needs to be phased out.