Two horses are dead (so far) at Pimlico this afternoon – Preakness Day.
In the 1st race, 9-year-old Homeboykris, under the whip for the 64th time, “collapsed and died,” says Fox News, “after winning and having his picture taken in the winner’s circle” – “cardiovascular collapse,” perhaps. By the way, the chartwriter notes that the soon-to-be-dead gelding “rallied under [a] right handed rousing” to win. Imagine that.
In the 4th race, 4-year-old Pramedya “broke down leaving the far turn” (Equibase) – euthanized where she lay. Unsurprisingly, this is the only one of the day’s replays that cannot be found on the MarylandRacing YouTube channel.
More to come…
Just saw this on MSN. Another sickening day in horseracing (surprise, surprise). If you love the horses, you simply can’t love the industry that kills them. Please let racing die in the dirt just like Pramedya did today. Stop betting on the horses!
So heartbreaking. I’m not too familiar with racing terms but what does it mean to be rallied under a right handed rousing? Would appreciate it because this sad story has really piqued my attention.
Whipped by the right hand.
On the Blood-horse website a few days ago Steve Haskin berated a person for sharing a dream she had about a major breakdown during the Preakness day. Apparently her premonition was accurate. We feel the sharing of one`s ideas/ dreams should not be a problem with open mined people. We love horses and live with a herd of them and do everything we can to place them into the hands of people who will enjoy them as family horses outside of racing. We no longer care to read Mr. Haskin`s articles much as most seem to ignore the really big problems that need to be solved. We feel for those horses who were doing there best only to die after winning, how sad!
Thank you.
Here, a quote from the trainer of Homeboykris: “Campitelli added, ‘The horse was in really good health for a 9-year-old horse. When we claimed him, I was really amazed at how good of health. He had no infirmities in his legs. He was just in such good health, you know?'”
1), why so AMAZED that a horse of only 9 years old is in such good health? Oh yes that’s right…this is a 9 y/o RACEhorse…where a typical 9-year-old is just entering a horse’s prime age, a racehorse is EXPECTED to have “infirmities”. Especially of their legs, right Mr. Campitelli?
2), one more “amazing” fact…that a horse with a congenitally-compromised heart could run 64 races. More lies…if Homeboykris died of a cardiovascular event – which it certainly appears he did – his heart was just fine when he was born. The drugs administered (LASIX, for one!) and all of their side effects that racehorses endure are the reasons racehorses suffer cardiovascular failure. RACING killed Homeboykris.
Joy horses just like humans have cardio vascular events. We haven’t been able to predict or prevent them in humans what makes you think that an athlete such as a horse is different?
Horses have cardiac events , racing and otherwise.
Heather Louise…the etiologies of human cardiovascular events are not comparable with those of equines. And we absolutely HAVE been able to identify humans at risk!…and because risk factors have been identified, prevention is possible in humans without congenital anomalies. Racehorses collapsing? Sudden death? Look to the drugs – legal and otherwise.
Heather, horses do not suffer from coronary artery disease and therefore do not have heart attacks as humans do. However, they may die from an arrhythmia especially when it involves the left ventricle and disrupts the pumping of blood through the aorta, the main artery that supplies the brain and the rest of the body. In other words, the normal beating of the heart is taken over by beats that originate outside the normal pathway and are not effective at pumping the blood. Saying he died of a cardio vascular event is non specific.
Drugs can cause a disruption of the heart rhythm. Lasix causes a depletion of potassium and a low level can lead to heart rhythm disruption and especially when coupled with stress. And as Joy pointed out, it is highly unlikely and most improbable that a horse with a congenitally compromised heart could have raced 64 times. What a deceitful business this is…just throw out any excuse and hope it sticks..
RIP Homeboykris. You deserved better than what racing did to you. ,
Like I’ve always maintained on most of my comments here: horse racing is a cruelty circus, and a death camp.
HOMEBOYKRIS and PRAMEDYA (Roy and Gretchen Jackson Barbaro Owners) will be sent to New Bolton for a necropsy, but tissue samples for residual dope usually have to be specifically ordered, and many times are not. How convenient is that?
The New Bolton center received millions in donations from Roy and Gretchen Jackson when Barbaro broke down so do you think they will be neutral?
How in the heck can you possibly expect the Maryland Jockey Club, in conjunction with the Maryland Racing Commission, to disclose the accurate results if dope was found?
Now we get to the top of the game. Frank Stronach whose company Magna International is the majority owner of racetracks in Maryland including Pimlico.
An Owner, and prolific breeder (approximately 200+ per year) whose other racetrack Gulfstream deliberately eliminates video replays of racehorses dying on the track there will, more than likely, ensure that no negative results or publicity will be released.
It’s all window dressing at every level of the game. They must present racehorses dying as perfectly “alright” because they will make sure that a necropsy is performed, BUT we will control the process from start to finish just like we control the horses. We are, after all, the slave masters.
There is no doubt in my mind that the “Gretchen’s” are using dope to win. What dope? How much? Illegal? It’s just stinks that 2 of their horses die on stake days. It’s not kosher.
DRUGS = DEATH so the fact that Doug O’Neill, a multiple drug violating Trainer is still allowed to train, and race says it all.
We will probably never find out the truth because the system is rigged from the bottom up to ensure that racehorses die to fill races, and increase wagering revenue.
Anybody who participates in this cruelty circus, and death camp at ALL levels are accessories to murder.
There are no “good” folks in horse racing – just participants in a death camp.
sudden hear issues can happen in horses. I was talking about this event with my fil today and he told me about something that happened to a friends horse when they were out hanging wood duck houses. They WALKED maybe 2 miles total and tied the horses to the trailer while they had a beer afterwards. The horses were fine and then they just looked over and one of the horses collapsed. They tried to help him but that horse was dead before it hit the ground. That horse was a normal trail and farm horse and was not old, overworked or on drugs.
This is horrible I read the article on MSN. Rest in peace Homeboykris and Pramedya. I hope that everyone who watched it happen will finally see that racing is cruel and inhumane. I hope they realize that racehorses are dying for 2 dollar bets just so people can make extra cash.
Between the soaring and abuse of the ten c walking horses , race horses and many other breeds, when is it going to stop??? A sport for man?? Money? When our we going to quit a blind eye to the way animals are treated!!!!!
Gina Powell are you really so bored with life that you have nothing better to do than post this drivel. The Jacksons have spent fortunes for the betterment of this sport and even if you don’t believe that, Arnaud Delacour is a fine young trainer with the most outstanding integrity of any trainer in the industry. To suggest he would drug a horse is just dispicable and you should take a long look in the mirror because you have no scruples and are a person of no class whatsoever. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to Arnaud and to you Gina I just hope you find some peace in your life obviously you are so unhappy to be so hateful.
And YOU, Jane Cibelli, are accusing someone of having no class?…laughable.
https://horseracingwrongs.com/2013/09/26/cibelli-suspended-2-months-for-deadening-a-horses-leg/
Jane, Jane, better not to say anything !!!
JOY:Thank you over and over for this link https://horseracingwrongs.com/2013/09/26/cibelli-suspended-2-months-for-deadening-a-horses-leg/ To Jane: I have injuries that will never heal, because of corrupt greedy horsemen like YOU! Horses that have snapped their legs off, and had to be destroyed because of CORRUPT GREEDY people like you. You should be put in prison, never allowed on a track or anything to do with horses again. You were blocking/nerving horses on the day of the race. And you have the NERVE to accuse Joy of posting drivel. No, it is you Lady, that needs to look in the mirror…because you have no scruples and are a person of no class whatsoever. (Your own words, describe you so well)
Wow Jane. So typical of you pro-horse racing people to perform character assassination on any person that exposes this cruelty circus, and death camp.
I don’t need your sympathy Jane, but spare that sympathy for all the racehorses who have the most unfortunate fate of being trained by you.
I agree with 20+ Insider that Trainers like you need to be charged with criminal acts of egregious cruelty to animals, and be put in jail – all of you.
As for all pro-horse racing people from top to bottom – you are all living a deliberate delusion.
If any of you ever decide to burst your delusion and speak the truth about what’s really going on, we are waiting for you with open arms.
Finally, anybody who finds peace in justifying the ongoing cruelty, abuse, doping, maiming, dying, dumping at kill auctions, and subsequently slaughterhouses is demented, and heartless.
The only peace I can give is that to the racehorses who are dying for $2 bets, and the only way to do this is to be a voice for them.
A HUGE shout out to Joy who exposed you for who and what you are. Thank-you Joy.
I would also like to thank the posters here (Joy, Mary, Rose, 20+insider) who speak the truth.
To all you posters who refer to horse racing as a sport? It doesn’t qualify as a sport. It does, however, qualify as a cruelty circus, and a death camp.
https://horseracingwrongs.com/2013/09/26/cibelli-suspended-2-months-for-deadening-a-horses-leg/
What a piece of trash you are! Are you so delusional and self absorbed that you would think that anyone would have any respect of your opinion? Perhaps in your circle someone actually gives a shit what you have to say but not here lady.
Any so called sport that involves using and abusing animals should be outlawed.
AMEN!!
Homeboykris, earner of over half a million dollars, competed in the 2010 Kentucky Derby, and won stakes races, including a grade 1 was reduced to running for his life in $5,000 claimers at 9 yrs. of age. How sporting is that ?
Pretty amazing that a trainer, who has no room to talk, has the nerve to take the moral high ground and lambaste someone who poses legitimate questions and justly criticizes racing for what it does to the horse.
Racing is littered with stories just like Homeboykris’ and even worse…
The Baltimore Sun has quoted Roy Jackson..” We haven’t fully digested the whole thing, But life goes on ” Roy also said ,” Pramedya’s death would not dampen their love for racing.”
Living a deliberate delusion in order to justify their racehorses dying for $2 bets.
So typical of most racehorse owners, and trainers.
Although this entire scenario is played out on racetracks on an almost daily basis, the industry holds an ace card.
The ace card? The fact that the Gretchen’s can refuse to release their PRIVATE vet records prior to, and leading up to their racehorses dying. Let me be clear: the PRIVATE vet records are completely different than the vets who are hired to administer the Lasix. Once again, another delusion.
How convenient is that?
The industry ensures that this ace card continues to be played, and to this day, continues to fight any changes proposed to expose the drugs given to racehorses prior to dying on tracks.
The only racing jurisdiction, that I’m aware of, that enforces the medical records to be released prior to a high profile stake race ONLY is the New York Racing Commission.
That said, once again it’s the industry managing itself. One would have to consider whether those records, if shown to be negligent or drug positive, is actually released.
Since there is zero accountability there is no way for anybody to really know.
So we have a legitimized cruelty circus going on that involves the deaths of many racehorses, and also maims the jockeys while it collects billions of dollars in wagering income PLUS has most state governments on board to provide them with any tax breaks and/or forces casinos to hand over their money to them.
How can this be going on in the 21st century?
Our moment of truth came on May10th,2004 at 8;50 am while riding our own”clearly saddle broke” thoroughbred horse at our local track. That comment about our horse was spoken to us by one of the most prominent bloodstock agents in the country after we sent him out of state to prove a point that he was trained to ride. We came to realize how very FEW people in the racing industry really loved horses.Most of them were strictly interested in the power, control or marketing hype associated with winning or standing stakes winning horses. On that day we had a very DEVASTATING experience. While riding our own well trained horse from our own farm who we had ridden on our own local roads and in company of our local horse owning neighbors we saw for the first time the true nature of our local track without the pressure or stress of other owners rushing or pushing you to do things the way they wanted. We saw what a dirty, filthy, facility it was and still is.We also discovered why so many perfectly good horses legs go to swelling up and the horses become so sore! Our local track is harder than newly paved asphalt! We know! We have landed on both surfaces! Later after that experience and being threatened by other race horse people about what we knew and being told we would have the same experience again we WALKED away and began to send our horses out of state to give them a decent chance of becoming performance horses.Now we realize being a horse lover and being involved with racing as it is now constituted are completely incompatible. Until ALL medications are eliminated and no more than three GENTLE taps of a whip are part of the rules of racing were going to market our farms horses for family oriented riding horses with excellent temperaments, which thanks to our first farm stallions daughters being crossed to our present stallion is happening.We were told by a prominent breeder in our state to sell, geld or even send to meat our first stallion which of course we DID NOT DO. That kind, gentle stallion brought us back from the devastating experience like no person ever could have! One day he looked us in the eyes and said TRUST ME, I have never hut you and never will. We had not ridden a horse for a very long time after our nasty experience at the track.We climbed aboard him and began riding again. Slowly, but surely he restored our confidence to our own knowledge of what really occurred that fateful day.Sadly a few years later he died and our present good, honest vet to this day does not know why our first farm stallion died at the way to young age of 12.
The sad truth of it is when you mix horses and money- the horses lose, when Arabians were bringing top dollar years back, they were often put on a rubber mat that was wet then they were shocked before entering the ring- it made them “animated”, then there are the “halter” horses, they are usually spent by the age of 5, steroids to death and often bred FOR the hypp gene, usually are never ridden. While watching a horse run is a beautiful thing to see, many folks who later get an OTT horse are not privy to the steroid and drug abuse the horse endured since it was weaned, since their knees don’t knit until they are around 5 they are running on soft bone that have often been made brittle from the growth steroids to make them grow faster and make them rank to work with…it is not usually normal for a 2 yr old to hit 16hh. Then there are breeders that breed only looking at the wins, do they even track mortality rates and causes on jockey club registries?? Might make you look twice at that stallion who while the foals are stakes winners, 35% of them are euthanized for this reason or 15% for that reason, that there are fast but have really weak ankles/hocks ect – there are horse people and horse owners
Only sick people can do and watch this!
And, because this is racing, it does get worse. San Onofre was euthanized on Preakness Day after suffering “catastrophic sesamoid injuries” in the Kona Gold Stakes.
To the racing supporters….I’m sure you will dismiss this death by babbling that TB’s are bred to race, they are born to race and they love to race, and on and on and on. I wish we could ask San Onorfre if he loved racing so much that he was happy to die in the dirt so that a racing supporter could be entertained or place a bet. I think I know what his answer would be.
RIP to ALL the horses that lost their lives yesterday, and every single day, so that humans can be entertained. What a sick, sick industry racing is.
Babble they do Mary.
This antiquated business model of whipping/beating, doping, maiming, dying, dumping has got to go.
It has no place in a civilized society.
Pimlico death again raises question: why do bettors favor beaten horses?
May 21, 2016 by Merritt Clifton
Did “a right-handed rousing” contribute to winning horse’s apparent cardiovascular collapse?
Top jockeys will often say, usually in private but sometimes on the record, that whipping does not improve horse performance, that they try not to actually touch their mounts with their whips (a claim belied by video analysis showing that from 75% to 83% of blows land with visible impact), and don’t believe whipping beyond a tap to tell a horse to sprint or correct misbehavior should even be practiced.
Whipping is flat-out not necessary, many jockeys will say if unafraid of being quoted––and, they add, if they did flog a mount who was not accustomed to the beating, the horse might swerve away, causing a potentially lethal pile-up.
Even those jockeys make a show of whipping, however, because bettors demand it.
http://www.animals24-7.org/2016/05/21/why-do-bettors-favor-beaten-horses/
From ESPN/ABC sportscaster Jeannine Edwards on ABC this morning: “It’s so unfortunate that two horses lost their lives while the world was watching.” Spoken like a true racing supporter…it’s “unfortunate” the world was watching.
Jeannine Edwards is a paid mouthpiece for the horse racing industry. She’s also a (allegedly) addicted, compulsive gambler spending lots of her salary betting on racehorses. She’s a staunch ally of Bob Baffert, and the other Trainers who have racehorses die in their barn.
Well, the pro-horse racing people have submitted their comments on the Paulick Report – the one where most critics of horse racing have been banned.
It’s the usual stuff: “these things happen,” “unfortunate,” “they really loved, and cared for their horse.”
Here’s a comment from Ida Lee owner (I believe) of “Homeboy” as she calls him. After saying the usual stuff she ended her comment with this: “It could have been even a more tragic day.”
So in other words, 4 racehorses dying a horrific, and suffering death is not enough?! It could have been a more tragic day? Meaning more racehorses could have died?! Are you kidding me?
Oh, but they had good intentions though. This comment from a former owner who claimed him because she loved him: “This nice lady here in Ft. Lauderdale was also very worried about Kris’s future and she claimed him in December so he would be well taken care of. She had planned to retire him but Kris sit seemed to enjoy racing so that’s why he was kept in training.” Right. He LOVED to run so much that she decided not to retire him, and instead squeezed the lemon dry. How nice of her? Such a nice lady really?
A responder to this comment said: “But he could have been retired in a paddock and have this heart attack happen.” Are these people for real? Yes, they are very real, and they are the people working with or supporting this cruelty circus, and death camp.
Like I’ve always maintained in my comments, these people are living a deliberate or ignorant delusional psychosis.
Oh by the way, I loved my horse so much that I killed him by either doping over his chronic physical issues or forcing him to run beyond his natural capacity, or ensuring that he gets whipped when sore and/or tired. In fact, I love this industry so much that I’m part of the killing.
These people and this entire death camp sickens me.
Gina, your words are so true…did you see the PR article from today about Homeboykris? The statements are outrageous – “He went out doing what he loved”…well then, that makes it OK that he was used his entire, short life!
And from the comments! – “As I and my friends and family grow older, this is what everyone says they want, a quick death with no long suffering and pain. It is a bonus to go doing what you love. It is a shock for our loved ones, a kick in the gut, but preferable to a long agonizing period of disability and suffering. Homeboykris had a good life and death.” AS THEY GROW OLDER?…yea, OK, so Homeboykris in “human years” was approximately 32-years-old!
And THIS comment…”Tell me about it Always…this coming week I’m buying an advanced burial plan for my mom and now the wait. It really is horrible. You are so right…sometimes it is better just to go suddenly, loved, happy and still doing what you were born to do.” I can’t believe what incredibly insensitive and blatantly STUPID things some of these pro-racing folks say! Leaves me (nearly) speechless…
http://www.paulickreport.com/news/ray-s-paddock/homeboykris-hearts-forever/