From the NYS Gaming Commission:
4-year-old Hot Cajun Sauce “startled,” while training at Finger Lakes yesterday, “reared up…ran off track over embankment – sustained spinal injury [and was] euthanized.” No worries, though, “no injuries to rider reported.”
Meanwhile, at Monticello, 5-year-old Love You Bad “collapsed and died” after the 11th Wednesday. This particular death rather brilliantly illustrates how easily (and brazenly) Racing deceives with its data: The Commission classified this as a “non-racing” fatality, as if by adding “in stall” after “died” somehow exonerates. It doesn’t. This is a racing kill. Period.
Since 1992 I have discovered the following facts which seem to be at the root of the astonishingly high rate of suffering and yearly deaths of horses used for racing:
2 Modern day practices have combined to create the tragic trend
1.) “Breeders…began breeding Thoroughbreds for how the mating looked on paper”. Consequently “…the American thoroughbred is a far more fragile animal now than the raw-boned beasts of yore. With them being inbred we’ve weakened the race” said Shug McGaughey, a prominent East Coast trainer. See Sports Illustrated, William Nack, Nov. 1993.
Exhaustive scientific studies confirm that repeated concussive forces
(maximum-speed workouts and racing) on 2-year-old’s bones add up to
injury and death more frequently than on older horses.
1. See CHRB Post Mortem Examination Program, 1990-2014. 2-year-olds more likely than older horses to suffer broken bones which lead to death. University of California, Davis
2. Fracture injuries accounted for the majority of Thoroughbred fatalities. California Horse Racing Board’s Post Mortem Examination Program 1994 report.
3. Cornell University. Dr. Lennart Crooks’ study of 68,397 starts found: Fracture injuries more common in 2 and 3 year-olds than in older horses. Incidence of fracture injuries continued to decrease with advancing age
2.) Today, in willful ignorance of the proven facts, Race Tracks continue to offer races for 2-year-olds and trainers go on forcing yearlings and 2-year-olds to perform repeated maximum-speed workouts in order to enter those races and/or be sold at 2-year-old in training auctions! Proof of the destructive results of this practice: The number of average yearly starts per horse has plummeted from 12 in 1960 to 6.2 in 2013. See The Jockey Club Fact Book and the Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, 2014.
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In America’s horseracing industry twenty-four racehorses (on average) die every week on racetracks. About 3,600 died inside track “Blue Rooms” after racing or training inside state regulated horseracing
enclosures over just the three years leading up to 2012. See “Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys” by Walt Bogdanich, Joe Draoe, and Rebecca R.Ruiz, New York Times, March 24, 2012
Many more, uncounted, thousands of young racehorses, having suffered painful injuries at the track, are sent to die at slaughterhouses. “The horseracing Industry is a major provider to the slaughter industry”. The Pegasus Foundation
after long, tortuous journeys on cattle trucks to Mexico and Canada. Virtually never are trainers held accountable for the injuries and deaths of the race horses for which they were responsible. Even more alarming, I know of no one in the animal welfare industry, including the ASPCA, PETA, American Humane Association (AHA) or the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) having ever protested, investigated or prosecuted a single one of the thousands of known race horse fatalities. Their silence is construed as approval by the horse racing industry and the general public.
Horse racing is egregious animal abuse, Mob controlled and unconscionable.
Nady – you are 100% correct.
Horse racing is a cesspool of corruption, and the racehorses pay with their lives.
It’s unconscionable that our government is in bed with these people because they continue to divert MILLIONS in casino profits to support horse racing by propping up purse money when the profits should be going to repair infrastructure, assist health care, and education.
It seems reasonable that the politicians skim off some money for themselves which is precisely why they continue to support these hell holes – they financially gain from them.
The racehorses support everybody in this business only to be dumped after they maim them.
The racetracks are nothing more than money laundering hot spots with cartels in quarter-horse racing white washing drug money, and it’s the same with thoroughbred horse racing it seems.
Shut these unsafe, and dangerous hell holes down now, and make our government accountable for supporting them.
I have seen horses that do LOVE to run, but as their care givers , humans are to blame for the untold suffering. NO yearling/ 2yo should be carrying a rider, not in racing, or the cutting and QH futurities. These babies are bred to ”grow faster” much to their detriment. My Arabs and Araloosas are not backed until 4 or 5, even older. They are also trained in harness, at 3 or 4 if I have the time. But even Arabian racing does not allow 2 yo racing. They conducted a poll, and the majority of owners rejected 2yo racing, as they should. Human greed, and a desire to ”cut costs” and eliminate non-performers, is the big reason for the push. It is very very very expensive to let a horse grow up, and maybe start racing at 5? They would go broke, they think. But for the welfare of the animals? 4 is the earliest they should be backed, and 5 is the earliest they should be raced. JMHO.
Correction: not raced at all. You can’t fix wicked.
Lisa says “….for the welfare of the animals?”
NOBODY – NOT ONE PERSON in this business cares about the animals.
They convince themselves that they do, but it’s all a delusion.
It’s impossible to “love” and “care” for a horse when you are subjecting them to ongoing pain, suffering, confinement, abuse, inhumane treatment, doping, running while sore, beating/whipping when tired, and/or dying.
This is NOT caring, this is legitimized animal abuse, and there’s nothing that can save them except for SHUTTING these hell holes down.
They are a total waste of money, time, and lives.
This antiquated business model has got to go!