In futurity trials at Ruidoso Downs (New Mexico) on Friday, a pair of 2-year-olds – Ivory On the Up, Old Happy Cowboy – were vanned off with possibly (probably?) fatal injuries in the same race.
A reminder from equine vet Kraig Kulikowski: “A two-year-old horse is the equivalent to a six-year-old human.” Defend that, horseracing.
Thank you, Kelly, for rescuing Mystic Crystal. Also, I’m quite sure you have rescued many TB’s that have been discarded by the racing industry.
Mystic Crystal was rescued from slaughter 12/2015 by Omega Horse Rescue.
Diana, just to be clear, Ruidoso is in New Mexico, not Mexico.
It’s not only the horses’s owners who are at fault. Any vet that promotes racing 2-3 yr. old horses should be disbarred as a vet. The race tracks where these poor young horses meet their unnecessary deaths are just at fault and should be held accountable. The only organization I know to write is The Humane Society of the United States. However, this happened in Mexico, I’ll have to research that, too. The smell of deaths is in the air at every race track in the United States.
No one, who truly loves these athletes, can defend the carnage that happens on tracks throughout the country. However, the racing industry will feebly attempt to defend these breakdowns. It might be the proverbial statement that the horses took a “bad step” or, my personal favorite…”accidents happen”. Racing is nothing more than a gambling industry and gambling occurs in order for people to win/make money. Yes, Rose, you are right. Waiting for a horse to mature, in order to minimize the carnage on the tracks, isn’t something that appeals to the racing apologists. Waiting means money lost.
The defenders will not show up on this one !
The only reason a 2 yr. old races is because these people can’t “afford” to wait until animal is at least 3 or 4. At every stage of this sorry game the money is front and center. Disgusting !