Dead Athletes: Commander Seul at Delta, Little Love at Aqueduct

The complete Equibase line for Commander Seul’s run in the 10th last night at Delta: “Commander Seul was pulled up into the first turn and euthanized.” How’s that for an obituary? But then again, what more to expect for a 4-year-old (maiden) claimer who had averaged 24 1/2 lengths back in his four previous races.

Also – 3-year-old Little Love, a “faltered, vanned off after the finish” in Aqueduct’s 5th Thursday, is dead – broken leg, euthanized, says the Gaming Commission. Little Love was coming off a nine-month hiatus, reason unknown.

This is horseracing.

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4 Comments

  1. Hello again– two horses died in Aqueduct 1 today: Blooper and Successful Sweep. That is one-third of horses in field. Also Turf 8 had apparent death of Red Phone.

    • Yes I see he got the sad facts on the two girls at Aqueduct…. as for Turf Paradise 8 (an average seedy $4000 claiming event I believe), the track’s head-on stretch-run replay revealed something usually unseen, (as the cameras move away from jockey and horse who have fallen): the sad sight of Red Phone struggling to rise again onto broken foreleg(s)….

  2. LITTLE LOVE (foaling date March 8, 2012)
    This horse, who appears to have been the hot favourite, came home 9th/9 by 28 ¾ lengths, was vanned off and then euthanased having suffered a broken leg. I wonder at what stage of the race he suffered this catastrophic injury. So much for transparency and disclosure.
    According to equibase.com, it was the first time he was up for Claiming ($25,000).
    This 3 year old colt had already earned $40,732 for his previous 3 starts. He won his last start on March 15, 2015 and then had nine (9) months off which is an incredibly long time given he’d been racing very successfully. It tells me that this young colt highly likely had suffered an injury/adverse health condition. He had 2 workouts in November – 6th and 16th – the last about one month prior to his final race. Except for the 2 workouts in the last 60 days, I do not know what sort of training regime he was having but he was high risk coming back into high speed exercise after such a lengthy lay-off. It is puzzling that he was up for Claiming when he was averaging over $10,000 per start. Why would you part with what appeared to be a valuable young racehorse and a colt at that with the prospect of earning lucrative dollars in the breeding barn?

    Just 4 race starts and now he’s dead – poor little boy!

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