Last week’s U.S. horseracing casualties.
Reported as Dead or “Broke Down” (racing-speak for dead):
Princes On Thelake, Dec 3, Aqueduct 5
Precocious Kitty, Dec 3, Delta 8
Carla Sweetrevenge, Dec 3, Finger Lakes 7
Sweet Strider, Dec 3, Turf 1
Crazy Bear, Dec 4, Charles Town 4
Boca Babe, Dec 4, Laurel 2
Half Nelson, Dec 5, Aqueduct 8
Quick Money, Dec 5, Aqueduct 8
Jacaranda Cat, Dec 6, Turf 5
“Vanned Off” – horses who required an ambulance (in crudest sense of the word) to leave course; a better-than-even chance of dead:
Demetrius, Dec 2, Portland 10
Beau American, Dec 3, Charles Town 8
Rosemarie, Dec 4, Aqueduct 2
Warrior’s Hero, Dec 4, Aqueduct 3
Hurta, Dec 4, Hawthorne 9 (subsequently confirmed dead)
Jax’s Daddy, Dec 4, Remington 6
Best Girl Ever, Dec 5, Los Alamitos (Q) 1
Dillon’s Actor, Dec 5, Tampa Bay 4
Spinning for Home, Dec 6, Aqueduct 7
Written Consent, Dec 6, Charles Town 2
Skipper Annierose, Dec 6, Delta 5
Triforce, Dec 6, Fair Grounds 4
Quiet Ruler, Dec 7, Gulfstream 9
Rule by Faith, Dec 7, Los Alamitos (Q) 5
Other:
Solidus, Dec 2, Mahoning 7, bled
Peppi Knows, Dec 2, Parx 6, “returned bleeding from both nostrils”
Mr Rico Is Valid, Dec 3, Aqueduct 5, “fell…heavily (over stricken rival),” DNF
Nike Jump, Dec 4, Delta 5, bled
My Katcandu, Dec 4, Fair Grounds 4, “taken up badly”
Judy’s Birthday, Dec 4, Fair Grounds 8, “taken up badly”
Spectacular Act, Dec 4, Hawthorne 9, fell, DNF
Laila’s Jazz, Dec 5, Aqueduct 8, “fell heavily,” DNF
H Man, Dec 5, Aqueduct 9, “stumbled badly,” DNF
Tttduplicatehalo, Dec 5, Evangeline 9, hit rail, DNF
AS we are are all painfully aware on this list, Horses are being killed at the racetrack and horses are being brutally killed in Mexico and Canada for food.
Friends of mine that have a non profit have been trying to stop this brutal murder of horses for ten years. A very wealthy woman joined that non profit group aprox three years ago and has been fighting ever since to help stop horse slaughter and indeed this past year with the help of Joe Biden stopped horse slaughter from coming back to America this year by getting a number of Congressman to change their vote..
Since Congress would not listen from the standpoint that it is cruel and evil to kill horses in a brutal and inhumane way, my friends have taken the approach that the horse meat is toxic to consume since many of the horses being killed are racehorses that have been drugged for many years with toxic drugs and many horses not racing are also being given drugs that got their attention and helped to stop the slaughter houses from opening back up this year.
My friends have also taken the fight to Europe which is where they are eating horse meat.
Here is the latest on that fight.
Europeans Suspend Horsemeat Imports From Mexico – Deal Huge Blow to North American Slaughter Operations | Wayne Pacelle: A Humane Nation
The horse slaughter industry has been dealt the biggest blow since The HSUS led the fight in Congress, the states, and federal courts to shut down the three operating horse slaughter plants in the United States in 2007. Today’s game-changing news: the European Commission has suspended the import of horsemeat from Mexico to the European Union (EU) due to food safety concerns.
Mexico not only kills thousands of its horses for export to the EU, but accepts tens of thousands of American horses for slaughter and shipment to Europe. This announcement could prove to be an earthquake for the North American horse slaughter industry, since Belgium, France, Italy, and other EU nations are major consumers.
HSI EU executive director Jo Swabe and I have personally appealed to senior EU regulatory leaders multiple times on this issue. I have long wondered how the Europeans could tolerate the rampant abuse and drugging of horses endemic to the North American trade, given their rigorous adherence to humane food safety standards for other species. The regulatory correction to the situation in Mexico has now finally occurred.
Stopping the export and Horse Slaughter of American Horses by the SAFE Act would be a major step in the right direction for horses
Every five minutes a horse is slaughtered in Canada or Mexico and more around the world in China, Russia, Australia, Japan. etc
Horse trainers and owners would no longer be able to just call kill buyers and have their horse taken away to be brutally murdered. They would be responsible to take care of their horse or kill them themselves which many of them do not do now.
Plus the auction houses would no longer be able to sell these race horses to kill buyers.
The EU just suspended all US horse imports for slaughter.
I mean slaughtered US horses for food.*
Forgot to include link to actual article that has photos and links
This article is from Today Dec. 8th, 2014
Europeans Suspend Horsemeat Imports From Mexico – Deal Huge Blow to North American Slaughter Operations
http://blog.humanesociety.org/wayne/2014/12/europe-bans-mexican-horsemeat.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=humanenation
This is the link to write to Congress to encourage them to pass the SAFE Act Bill which would Stop All American horses from being round up or sold or kidnapped and herded on to cattle trucks to be slaughtered anywhere including Canada and America.
https://secure.humanesociety.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=6605&autologin=true&s_src=blog_post120814
My friends group
http://www.equinewelfarealliance.org/
Effective today, the EU has pulled the plug on horse meat imports from Mexico. It is important to understand this does not close the border. Mexico can still take horses but they cannot sell to the EU. As you know, that is huge and a good step in the right direction to ending the slaughter of US horses. There should be a few articles and more information that we’ll pass on as it is released. The press release from HSI is at the bottom of this email.
We haven’t seen anything from the darkside so we have no idea what, if any, plans are underway.
At this point, we don’t know if there are any horses in the pipeline and if so, how many. We caution everyone to beware of scammers. History has proven that this type of situation will bring them out of the woodwork. If we hear of any known situations, we’ll let you know but please thoroughly research any rescue that is asking for money to pull horses. Check and check again!
We’d also like to remind everyone that EWA does not recommend or comment on rescues so please don’t ask!
Maybe some followers would be interested in signing this petition to get the NYRA to revoke the license of trainer David Jacobson. As seen in the petition, he is responsible for the deaths of many horses and, even if nothing is done about him, it is important to get his info out there. Please consider signing and sharing. Thank you!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/320/440/210/demand-that-the-new-york-state-gaming-commission-revokes-david-jacobsons-ownertrainer-license/
Thank you Louise.
I have signed it. I encourage everyone to sign it. I hope he loses his license. Having him get banned, could help to get more petitions started and more trainers banned. I am grateful to whoever started this petition. I hope more petitions are started to expose and throw out these trainers that have a track record of killing horses from their abusive treatment as well as those trainers and owners sending their race horses to kill buyers and auctions to be killed. The SAFE Act must be passed to stop the transport and killing of these horses out side the US.
Kathleen, first of all, in racing’s eyes, Jacobson hasn’t done anything wrong. The claiming game keeps racing humming along. Is it despicable to me personally? Yes, it is, but it isn’t illegal. Petitions can work in certain areas, but racing is rotten to the core. I find it amusing that a petition, aimed at banning Jacobson, has received so much attention. Does it hurt to sign the petition? Of course not, but is it going to stop Jacobson from continuing to maim and kill horses? No, it isn’t. I am a business woman, first and foremost, and the way to force change within any for profit corporate structure is to hurt that corporation’s bottom line. You can make the racing industry sit up and take notice when you stop supporting the exploitation of its horses. I don’t bet on the horses so the racing industry doesn’t care what I think so it is important to convince others, who do bet, to stop doing so. A decrease in revenue will cause any organization to sit up and take notice.
You also state that more petitions need to be started to expose these abusive trainers. If ALL the abusive trainers would be thrown out of racing, there wouldn’t be enough trainers to run horses. In regards to sending TB’s to slaughter, that is virtually impossible to prove. Most of these horses now go underground and they just disappear off the face of the earth. Danny R. Bird told me, when I spoke to him on the phone in 2011, that Deputy Broad was with a contract kill buyer – Fred Bauer. The WV Racing Commission did nothing to Bird nor did Mountaineer Racetrack. I know you mean well but the majority of people just don’t understand the complexities of the racing industry.
I’m sure many, who post here, have seen Blackfish. Once that documentary aired, the public turned, with a vengeance, against Sea World. Sea World is in BIG trouble and its CEO just stepped down. What caused this decline? Yes, there were petitions that circulated but the real tipping point was LOST REVENUE.
When I hear people say that they want to get the “bad” people out of racing, it sounds as if they want racing to continue but they want the “bad” people to go away. That won’t happen, at least in my lifetime. There are too many “bad” people. Of course, the babblers will now post about how they feed their horses peppermints and run their hands, lovingly, down the horses’ legs on a daily basis, yet those same babblers race their horses with injuries, race them before they are skeletally developed, inject them with drugs and, sometimes, hand them off to the “nice gentleman who lives around the corner” because that nice guy has grandkids who just love 4H! Yeah, right! Those who believe those “stories”, emanating from the mouths of pro-racing folks, are truly ignorant.
There was a time that I would have been open to the possibility of reform within the racing industry. I no longer feel that way. I want it to just go away and I do believe that within five to ten years, many of the smaller tracks will be gone. The gaming companies don’t want racing. They want the slots because the slots are the revenue generators and they are a lot less trouble than the horses and the horsemen. The end of racing can’t come soon enough for me.
Mary,
I want to see horse racing stopped completely. IN the meantime,
I would like to see all horses trainers banned that are killing horses and drugging horses.
I hope and pray that a petition with a list of horses that have died under a specific trainers watch will create more talk and more exposure and more people paying attention.
Steve Assmussen was exposed by PETA and his name was pulled from becoming a hall of fame trainer.
Small steps but steps in the right direction. That is how i see it. The more people that see how many horses these trainers are killing the better.
Kathleen, yes, Steve ASSmussen is truly a monster and he was rejected, at least temporarily, from entering the Hall of Fame. What else happened to him? Absolutely nothing. He still has an entourage of clients and is still considered to be a top notch trainer. He wins BIG for his clients and that is what is important….winning! Remember, racing is all about the money and the glory.
Earlier this year, I had an owner tell me that there were “hundreds” worse than ASSmussen. I guess, in this person’s mind, what ASSmussen and his accomplice, Scott Blasi, did to Nehro wasn’t that bad since there are many others in racing that commit even greater atrocities. Truly a sick way of thinking…
I know you want ALL trainers, who drug their horses, to be banned. You do know that 98% of those in racing drug their horses, don’t you? You must also consider that those who use legal drugs aren’t doing anything illegal. How can you “ban” someone when they aren’t breaking the law? Heck, racing merely gives the monsters a slap on the wrist when illegal drugs are found and overages are documented.
I do agree with you that we must educate the public on the “dirty secrets” in racing, but the bottom line is that we have to hurt racing where it hurts the most – in the wallet. There is no need to “hope and pray” that a petition will create more exposure. Why don’t YOU start a petition and I will be happy to sign it? Your friend, the journalist, could help you start one. Please think about it!
Louise…although I’m not thoroughly convinced these petitions do any good, I did sign it…just in case. I pity the horses that come under Jacobson’s “care”.
Thank you for distributing the petition and let’s keep our fingers crossed that it succeeds in its purpose!
Wow…”stumbled badly”….”hit rail”….”fell heavily”…”returned bleeding”….These are descriptions of what happened to these horses while racing and yet people continue to support this madness. Is the lure of a fun filled day at the track, with an exotic drink in one’s hand, just too much to give up when horses are being exploited this way? It is one thing when you don’t know the horrors that occur daily at tracks throughout the country. I least those people have an excuse – ignorance – but when you know what happens, and still support the industry, that, in my opinion, makes you complicit in the exploitation, and destruction, of these horses.
Thank you everyone who signed the petition. As you have all stated, it may not work, but I feel it can’t hurt. Even if it manages to just embarrass the industry, it is still a tiny little step in the right direction. I feel horse racing cannot survive, but imagine it will hang on for awhile, and, as Kathleen said, in the meantime we need to get rid of as many of the nasty trainers as we can. Jacobson is just the tip of the iceberg.
Louise, I wish it was possible to embarrass the racing industry. I really do. However, absolutely nothing has changed since the PETA expose was aired earlier this year. In fact, there was a poster here, on this blog, who wanted to “out” the girl that went undercover. How sick is that? PETA was bashed and trashed unmercifully after the video was shown nationally yet a PETA representative wasn’t abusing the horse. Blasi was fired for a few months and then, suddenly, he is back in the ASSmussen camp. No surprise there! Signing petitions won’t hurt but I doubt if they will have much effect. I don’t believe many people fully grasp just how evil the industry really is. You are talking about a gambling industry and, in gambling, corruption is rampant.