4-year-old Doubly Smart “was humanely euthanzied” after “breaking down badly” in yesterday’s 3rd at Parx. After being put to the whip 22 times by trainer/owner/breeder Elizabeth Merryman, the gelding was sold to trainer Scott Lake/owner Joseph Besecker for $16,000. And then he died. This is horseracing.
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I hate this disgusting, and brutal, industry. The destruction of these horses is so unnecessary, at least to those of us who don’t bet and I continue to applaud racing’s precipitous decline. RIP Doubly Smart…you deserved so much better than to break down “badly” running for your life.
Speaking of death in the racing world.
I just watched the 1987 Breeders Cup that Ferdinand won. THe purse was 3 million dollars.
Ferdinand also won the 1986 Kentucky Derby.
Toshiharu Kaibazawa, a groom who took care of Ferdinand in Japan, told The Blood-Horse that the chestnut thoroughbred was ”the gentlest horse you could imagine.”
”He’d come over when I called to him in the pasture,” Kaibazawa said. ”He was so sweet.”
his reward for all his years of service. the slaughter house.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/23/sports/horse-racing-1986-derby-winner-was-slaughtered-magazine-reports.html
Victories in the 1986 Kentucky Derby and the 1987 Breeders’ Cup Classic figured to have earned Ferdinand a cushy retirement when his racing days were over. Instead, his life apparently ended in a grisly manner, in a Japanese slaughterhouse in 2002, according to the racing industry trade magazine The Blood-Horse, which will report his death in its issue dated July 26. It is believed that his carcass was used to make pet food.
Trained by the Hall of Famer Charlie Whittingham and ridden by Shoemaker, Ferdinand retired in 1988 after winning 8 of 29 career starts and earning $3.7 million. But he was never able to pass on his greatness. From 247 foals, he produced only 8 stakes winners before being sent to Japan, where he continued to struggle as a sire.
Exceller, the only horse to defeat two Triple Crown winners when he won the 1978 Jockey Club Gold Cup over Affirmed and Seattle Slew, met a similar fate. After a failed breeding career, his life ended in 1997 when he was sold for horse meat in Sweden.
Kathleen thank you for posting this article. Ferdinand did not deserve to have his life thrown away neither did Exceller or any other horse. These gentle horses give us everything they have and we just take without regards to their wellbeing. Its time for society to step up and stop horse slaughtering and abuse.
Tracey,
the story of what happened to Exceller still haunts me to this day.
Pagmar details a heart-wrenching story that led to Exceller’s final moments.
“I made an appointment because I wanted to get it over with quick, but they were very busy when we got there and we had to wait. Exceller knew what was going on; he didn’t want to be there. Standing with him like that . . . it made me feel like Judas.”
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Ann Pagmar, who owns Jaboruder, the small farm in central Sweden where Exceller spent the last year of his life, offers a sinister motive behind Exceller’s death, and her story is backed by Bjorn Zachrisson, director of the SRB.
“Shortly after Exceller came to me last year, the owner called and told me to kill the horse because he couldn’t pay for him,” Pagmar told DRF. “He said that since we weren’t breeding Exceller, there was nothing else to do with him. The owner didn’t want to pay for a stallion license and he wasn’t paying me, so I offered to take Exceller, to buy the stallion license and to breed him. “He wouldn’t give him to me, saying the horse shouldn’t keep moving from one owner to another. The stud fees would help me get paid, but the owner was very stubborn. He wanted to kill the horse.
Over the next few months he called several times, asking if I had killed Exceller yet, and I kept telling him I needed written authorization. He finally sent it to me in April. He told me to bring the horse to the slaughterhouse, and that’s what I had to do.” While Zachrisson says he didn’t see the notice himself, he said that Pagmar had been updating him and told him when the notice arrived. “She was very upset by all of this,” Zachrisson said.
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Pagmar details a heart-wrenching story that led to Exceller’s final moments.
“I had him a year,” she said, “and I became very close to him, like I do with all my horses. He was stressed when he first came to me because he had been diagnosed with some sort of infection and he hadn’t been bred in a few years. At the farm he came from, he had been standing next to the stallion who got all the mares. He wasn’t allowed to breed, so he had to watch, and that made him very angry. After some time here he recovered mentally and physically.
“Exceller was very nervous when he arrived here, but in time he became a different horse. My other horses are Shetland ponies, and soon he calmed down to the point where he would walk with them, even play with them. He was in super condition. The owner never visited to see for himself. It didn’t seem to matter. He told me to take Exceller to the slaughterhouse, and I walked him over myself,” Pagmar said.
“I made an appointment because I wanted to get it over with quick, but they were very busy when we got there and we had to wait. Exceller knew what was going on; he didn’t want to be there. Standing with him like that . . . it made me feel like Judas.”
http://www.excellerfund.org/story-of-exceller.html
Exceller’s name was listed on the ballot for election to the Hall of Fame in April. Also that month, if the account of two people close to the horse is to be believed, his name went on the list of equine martyrs.
Best remembered as the only horse to beat two Triple Crown winners, he proved his quality on a global scale by winning graded or Group 1 stakes on both sides of the Atlantic. Upon his retirement in 1979, he was sent to stud at Gainesway Farm in Lexington, Ky., where he sired several stakes winners, but nothing spectacular, then was sold and sent to Sweden in 1991. He was all but forgotten until Daily Racing Form recently began a search for him as part of its “Whatever Happened To” series.
The search was completed three months too late; Exceller was put down April 7. According to both the woman who tended to him-and whose duty it became to kill him-and to the director of the Scandinavian Racing Bureau, he wasn’t destroyed because he was ill or injured, but because he had become a liability to his bankrupt owner, Gote Ostlund, who didn’t care to spend diminishing resources on a horse from whom he couldn’t profit.
How heartless is this horse business and how dehumanizing. What happened to Ferdinand and Exceller highlights the despicable nature of those whose only interest in these exceptional athletes was, obviously, the MONEY.
God help the less high profile horses in this business.
PS Stallions and mares are sold to the highest bidder regardless of how the different cultures regard horses.
I know Running Stag and lion Heart were sold to Turkey and Purge was sold to the Philippines. Of course, this is not to say that horses are treated well here, but at least the high profile winners have a chance of being retired if they stay in this country, simply because it would be bad PR for the game if they were not.
And to think, both Ferdinand and Exceller were owned and raced by Texas Billionaires . Both earning their already obscenely rich owners millions more. ( Billionaire Keck :Ferdinand and Billionaire Hunt Exceller) Because they were poor Studs, they were practically cast aside for what? A few million more that neither owner needed anyway! No love,,no loyalty, no concern is unconscionable . Too bad they are not more like the Classy Janneys, Phipps, DuPonts & Vanderbuilts.and other so called “Dinnies” I look up to them and wish their degenerators had their class. They aren’t breeding for money , They breed for love of horses and racing. They pension their Champions for life and show love and pride of ownership. These “Horse Mills” are no better than our despised puppy mills . Run by for profit breeders only. Ruining the breed by breeding for speed, only, disregarding breeding for durability. They should have to pay a $1000 dollar permit in order to breed any Thorouhbred. That money to go to rescues. At least that’s one way to squeeze money out of the rich who could care less about their racehorses. after the thrill is gone.. No one is more to blame for the deaths of these great horses but their owners and breeders. See what fate you caused these beautiful horses. .
Speaking of terrible horse owners.
Interesting article on pro slaughter race owner . He refers to horses as “meat”
His racehorse is Mine that Bird who went on to clinch an upset victory of the 2009 Kentucky Derby
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Excerpts from article 3/20/2014
“Horse racing is an international sport once thought of as the Sport of Kings. In too many instances in this modern age it is anything but.
There seems to be at least one shining example. Horse racing experts point to Hong Kong as a place where it is still done well. On the other end of the spectrum popular opinion says that US horse racing is a troubled sport full of doping, cheating, abuse and questionable breeding practices.
Sadly there is one issue almost all seem to have in common and that is horse slaughter.
The slaughter of Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand in Japan and Exceller in Sweden put that tragic fact center stage. The report that downed and injured racehorses in England were dragged off the track and sent to slaughter keeps it there.
Now there is another connection between horse racing and horse slaughter.
A movie called 50 to 1 will premiere on March 21 in New Mexico, “where much of it was shot while telling the story of a misfit group of New Mexico cowboys who find themselves on the journey of a lifetime when their crooked-footed racehorse qualifies for the Kentucky Derby,” according to a news release.
That racehorse is Mine that Bird who went on to clinch an upset victory of the 2009 Kentucky Derby on a sloppy track at Churchill Downs in Louisville, driven home by a jubilant Calvin Borel at odds of, you guessed it, 50-1.
Mine that Bird is owned by Dr. Leonard “Doc” Blach DVM and Mark Allen.
While Mark Allen is said to be against it, Doc Blach is notoriously pro horse slaughter who reportedly referred to horses in a New York Post article as “meat”.
At least one Roswell resident has no taste for horse slaughter and the movie 50 to 1.
Arby’s franchise owner Jay Gluck states:
“We do not support horse slaughter and we are not associated with the owners of the movie. We were asked to give away 2 Kentucky Derby Tickets and Free Movie Tickets at no cost to us. We have disassociated ourselves with the movie. If we were aware that this movie was associated with horse slaughter or the owners we would have never agreed to participate in this giveaway. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”
The real-life Mine That Bird will meet up with them at select stops coinciding with race tracks that can host the Derby winner, such as Churchill Downs on April 16 and 17.
Churchill Downs has a no slaughter policy and will not give space to anyone linked to horse slaughter. How are they going to handle this? They have been notified.”
https://tuesdayshorse.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/racing-slaughter-and-the-movie-50-to-1/
Movie (50 to 1) was about true story.
Forgot to mention. the co-owner was trying to Horse slaughter back in America in 2014.
her referred to horses as “meat”
That racehorse is Mine that Bird who went on to clinch an upset victory of the 2009 Kentucky Derby on a sloppy track at Churchill Downs in Louisville, driven home by a jubilant Calvin Borel at odds of, you guessed it, 50-1.
Mine that Bird is owned by Dr. Leonard “Doc” Blach DVM and Mark Allen.
While Mark Allen is said to be against it, Doc Blach is notoriously pro horse slaughter who reportedly referred to horses in a New York Post article as “meat”. [3]
Both Blach and Allen live in walking distance of Valley Meat Company in Roswell, New Mexico.
A hard fought legal battle is waging surrounding the conversion and re-opening of their neighbor as a horse slaughter plant where they expect to kill 121 horses a day for human consumption.
Blach has been an expert witness who testified twice on behalf of Valley Meat slaughtering horses. ‘
horse slaughter was stopped for the next two years til bill comes up again
http://blog.humanesociety.org/wayne/2014/05/horse-slaughter-defunding-vote.html
from article
“Now our job is to get the Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act passed, which would not only permanently bar horse slaughter in the United States, but also prevent the live export of horses to our North American neighbors for the purpose of slaughter. We call on the House and Senate leaders to bring up those bills for a fair vote before the end of the year.
We don’t set up dog and cat slaughterhouses because we have some homeless companion animals, and then ship the meat to some outlier foreign country. We shouldn’t adopt that practice for horses, either. Our economic decisions must always be guided by our values, including our opposition to cruelty and our recognition of the special place that some animals have in our culture.”
The anti Horse vote –
pro farm bureau and bad news for our country and our animals
No votes: Robert Aderholt (R-AL), Mark Amodei (R-NV), John Carter (R-TX), Tom Cole (R-OK), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), John Culberson (R-TX), Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), Kay Granger (R-TX), Sam Graves (R-MO), Jaime Herrera Buetler (R-WA), Jack Kingston (R-GA), Tom Latham (R-IA), Alan Nunnelee (R-MS), Ed Pastor (D-AZ), Martha Roby (R-AL), Hal Rogers (R-KY), Mike Simpson (R-ID), Chris Stewart (R-UT), David Valadao (R-CA), Steve Womack (R-AR), Kevin Yoder (R-KS)
Brutal industry, INDEED, Mary! RIP, Doubly Smart.
Another track in Pennsylvania – Penn National – is in the news…be sure to read this article about trainer David Wells. Just an excerpt; “We have at least 100 incidents where he drugged his horses.” And while I agree with the prosecutor who states that Wells needs to go to jail, just wait until you read HIS comments!…even the guys in the white hats are ridiculous!!
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2015/02/trainer_sent_to_prison_in_penn.html
Joy, you are absolutely correct. Where are all the “good” Penn folks? Probably laying low in their “cesspool” of a track. Speaking of cesspools…good ole Barbara Price, who sold Cactus Café and Canuki for $150 a piece to a kill buyer middleman (Mark Wedig), is, once again, hanging out at another “cesspool” track…Mountaineer. No horse is safe with Price…let me repeat…no horse is safe with Price.
And don’t forget to read the comments to that article! (the link I provided) Where are all of you Penn folks?…what have you got to say about that CESSPOOL you work at? Just when I thought I was fully comprehending the total depravity of this industry…someone comes along with MORE sewage about it…