Shortly after coming “under urging,” 5-year-old Sage Valley died from an “apparent cardiac arrest” in the 8th yesterday at Aqueduct. To remind, 5-year-old equines – the rough equivalents of human teenagers – should not be dropping dead of heart failure.
Rudy Rodriguez was Sage Valley’s handler for all but two of his 17 races, including the final one. This comes but five days after Rodriguez, a $23 million trainer, lost Quick Money on that same track.
The NYRA announcer (and cameraman), of course, utterly ignores the dying/dead horse in the official call (“Race Replays,” Wed, race 8).
Horse Racing is a business full of dying and dead horses. There are horses dying everyday in tracks throughout North America just to fill races for that $2 bet. Outrageous. There are thousands of racehorses per week being dumped at Kill Auctions, and most end up at the slaughterhouse. Outrageous. The industry supports doping, cheating Trainers who use needles to run, and jockeys to beat/whip them invited stretch when their probably sore and tired. Any knowledgable horse person knows that s horse protects itself. When a horse is sore or feels sick it will slow down to prevent z catastrophe, but the whip is relentless, and won’t allow the horse to slow down. The beating of a horse, via the whip, is blatant animal abuse, and cruelty. The word “urging,” used by the industry is nothing more than beating. It’s antiquated, outrageous, and needs to end. These jockeys are horse abusers and should bs tried in a court of law that would charge them then get a ruling where they can’t be around horses if multiple violations. Mike Smith is hailed by the industry as one of the top jockeys. Yet, more often then not, I’ve observed him beating the crap out of a racehorse coming down the stretch. The industry supports this abuse, and the Racing Commissions do little except for Fone them, but when s jockey is picking up a $10,000 check, and getting fined $50 what kind of justice is that for the defenceless shave they call a racehorse?
It is not at all surprising to see this. “Apparent cardiac arrest” as cause of death is a ridiculous statement. It means they don’t know why the horse died and, more importantly, don’t want to know, otherwise there would be an necropsy and testing for drugs. Same names of trainers and owners crop up with both horses, Quick Money and Sage Valley. As I said before, racing loves the winning ways of these trainers and dead horses do not matter.
Mr. Rudy must feel bad losing two horses in just five days !
Rudy Rodriguez doesn’t appear feel bad about anything except his image — like David Jacobson and Drawing Away donating to Old Friends (publicly of course) in a feeble attempt at rebranding. *** Here’s some information about what Bob Baffert called “sudden death syndrome” when seven of his dropped dead for no apparent reason — and what Rick Arthur, head vet for the CHRB, referred to as a “not uncommon” occurrence in his report on those deaths — a report in which Arthur ascribed 4-12% of all racehorse deaths to sudden death: Arthur’s “4-12%” figure includes genuine accidents such as a horse flipping in the washrack and suffering a skull fracture, a horse falling over another horse and dying instantly from a broken neck, a horse getting lose and impaling itself on the rail and bleeding out — meaning that dropping dead for no reason is EXTREMELY RARE EVERYWHERE ELSE EXCEPT THE RACETRACK. Extremely rare… yet growing increasingly common. Why? Why the upsurge in horses dropping dead, almost invariably after the wire, after a work, or in the stall subsequent to a work or a race? I’ll tell you why: apoptosis or “cell suicide” which is a process by which, due to weakened cell walls, the cells in a horse’s heart or lungs or arteries or brains (or in the same of any mammal) send out signals indicating that the body should destroy them, that’s why. What causes apoptosis? Any disruption of the metabolic pathways… clenbuterol, bute, most other common training meds which target certain receptor cells plus electrolyte imbalance and calcium imbalance (a full explanation would take forever) can and do lead to apoptosis WITH CELL DEATH OCCURRING AFTER THE CESSATION OF PEAK EXERCISE. This isn’t my theory; it’s been proven by scientists better able to explain it; the short form does, I think, explain why these sudden deaths (the genuine sudden deaths where our equine athletes simply drop dead) almost invariably happen after the wire, after a work, on the way back to the barn or in the stall. *IT’S NOT A MYSTERY… but, as always, the authorities ignore the elephant in the living room: training meds which destroy equine bone and tissue. F**king as*****s.