And another: Truffalino “collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack near the conclusion of an allowance turf race” at Santa Anita this afternoon, reports the Daily Racing Form. Truffalino was three – “an apparent heart attack.” I’m out of words.
End horseracing. Now.
THIS NEEDS TO GO IN A COURTROOM NOW! CLASS ACTION SUIT AGAINST SAN ANITA TRACK! ASAP! NOT JUST HORSE OWNERS, BUT ANYONE WHO IS SICK OF THIS CARNAGE. IS THIS INSURANCE FRAUD!??? OPEN YOUR EYES!
I was watching the movie Ruffian years ago thinking…Oh they couldn’t possibly recreate the damage done to Ruffian in her race with Seattle Slew. But guess what? To my regret, somehow THEY DID ! I watched the real race and was devastated by what I witnessed and it was the last horse race I ever watched. I will NEVER watch another EVER, nor will I ever bet on a race ever again because of that. While watching the movie Ruffian I cried like never before, for the pain and suffering and trauma that horse went through. So I talked to God through my tears and literally heard His audible voice. His words to me were, “They were never supposed to run like that.” What I also heard in his voice was heartbreaking pain. These kinds of posts keep popping up in my news feeds and it only confirms the words I heard God speak to me. Horseracing is all about greed and money and it is brutally cruel to make a horse run like that!! It should be stopped!! But of course it will continue till the end of time and more horses will suffer and die in pain because some people are callous, greedy, and want to be millionaires!! This is truly heartbreaking!!
Thank you, Susan.
I agree! I was at the race when Barbaro broke his leg. I could see from my seat even though they put a blind up around him. I also will never see another race by choice.🙁
The Ruffian match race was not with Seattle Slew. It was with Foolish Pleasure. I know because I was in the stands that day.
It’s time to outlaw it. Too many horses are dying and it’s not a race anymore, it’s cruelty and unnecessary death to these beautiful animals. Just another game of where the almighty dollar is all that matters.
The race was against Foolish pleasure. Unfortunately mattresses are very grueling, but Rusty and also had some soft phone and her Pedegree. Her reconstruction did not go to waste because in the 90s a horse named root boy Sustained similar injuries And instead of letting him wake up in the stall they put him in a harness and a swimming pool and when he thrashed around the surgery stayed intact. Last I looked he was happy and healthy and living with his owner.
Barbaro……with his back leg hanging, waving wildly, horribly broken……. I cried almost nonstop for about an hour, still brings tears. And they tried to save him, fans cheered him on, cards letters, videos of his courage and progress…til laminitis finally took his spirit and won the battle. Santa Anita needs to be shut down, and MAJOR INSPECTION of the track to find out WTF is WRONG! And it’s all ABOUT THE MONEY for the owners… This sport needs a major overhaul… So fucking sad for the horses, makes me sick…
AGREE!! AGREE!!! AGREE!! AGREE!!
AGREE!!
Dear Animals rights activists and lovers….
I am very saddened and shocked and angry about reports of dying horses at Santa Anita race track and others…
There needs to be new laws, more oversight, independent monitoring, and investigation s, and the skids to abusive horse training, and practices………
Power by the people…
Please unite together, say no to abuse ,yes to transparency, and yes to awareness…
…..no more abuse of horse s….
Demand accountability towards stewards,trainers , veterinarian s, and transportation companies, and racetrack official s;…….
Horseracing cannot be fixed or reformed. It is exploitation; it is cruelty; it is killing – it must end.
Three year old, baby, heart attack. So many reasons this has to end. Total exploitation. All involved are Heartless. There is no compromise. No reform. Everyday horseracing continues is another day of death. Stop breeding. Stop betting.
Animals deserve love and the very best we can give them. They do that for us everyday and ask nothing but love in return. Please stop exploiting these beautiful animals❤️
really? why dont you spend your time helping out the homeless crises!!!!
The homeless crises? People are homeless by choice. Yes, maybe they have had some bad luck, but it is within their power to change the situation they are in, whether to go to shelters, go to work, (even if menial), seek mental health and substance abuse treatment, and get government assistance for housing.
The horses have none of these.
And In fact, most of the grooms and backside laborers I saw at the tracks looked like they were one step from homelessness due to the poor wages they received and their substance abuse and gambling issues!
Peggy, Obviously you have never been Homeless, or close to being homeless. Most times, being homeless is Not a choice. It comes from circumstances. A homeless person typically have No clothes to wear to a job. In this country Mental health care is in a Crisis. With not enough help for people in need. Government assistance for housing ?? Do you even have a clue how Long that wait is ?? You contradict yourself, when you said homeless can get even a “menial” job, to help themselves. When you said track workers were close to homelessness due to low wages. Wake up and quit lookin out your window, with what homeless people can do for themselves and get Involved with Helping others..
Mary Fabian – how do you know that we don’t? How would you have even a CLUE about our lives, our passions, our causes? – including how we serve our communities via our jobs and professions?
That being said, are we to right every wrong? – I can say with certainty that YOU don’t…because no one can.
We can have more than one cause and regarding the commenters that I personally know from this blog, they do. But EVEN IF THEY DID NOT, I commend them for having the compassion and taking the time to be a voice for at least one injustice.
And it’s typically individuals like yourself – those who whine “what about?!?” – that sit on their backsides and do nothing.
Joy
I completely agree with you.
That person discussing homelessness should GOOGLE cost to support homeless and see what she gets.
“Billions of dollars to help California’s homeless population are piling up — and going unspent” etc.
AS You are Completely aware: This website was created by Patrick Battuello to Educate and share what is going on with horses and the horrific ABUSE and EVIL against them at the race track.
Hence the name of the website :
HORSERACING WRONGS.
Until aprox. 5 years ago- I had NO clue that countless horses were being drugged-abused- beaten- shipped off to kill buyers after racing, brutally slaughtered by the thousands each year- being FORCED to Run on heavy duty drugs- kept in their stalls 23 hours a day. etc. etc.
i had NO CLUE. what was going on in horseracing until I found this website.
Thank You Patrick for creating this website and for the countless hours over the years that you spend gathering STATS.
PATRICK:
Please write a Book so the rest of the world will know and then that will accelerate the SHUTTING DOWN of horseracing FOREVER !!! !!!
Actually Tommie- I have been homeless. But you know what? I busted my ass. I worked 4 jobs at one point that paid crap for the hours I put in, (including at the track, where they didn’t even pay holiday pay but expected the workers to put in 14 hours on holidays even though they were racking in millions from
Slots) and put myself through school. And I still bust my ass to this day to make sure I don’t end up back there. And my point about the track workers is that they are working in a billion dollar industry, and yet they are a step away from homelessness, because many are here illegally, and so they are taken advantage of. And others don’t know other trades and don’t bother to want to. Hell, where else can you “work”, while chugging beers and alcohol, and place bets, but when you work at a track?? Would be hard to find other work like that!
And you know what else? I have 3 horses that this industry either abused or threw away, and so I bust my ass to support them too, even though I made no money off them. They had no choice to be put through what they did. I had a choice to be homeless, through some poor decisions on my part, , and I opted to get myself out of that. So peddle your boo hoo crap elsewhere.
Homeless people can actually open their mouth and ask for help, they can actually go look for help, they can reach out and ask for or get intervention….animals cannot.
Mary. – people can help on more than one front at a time. One cause does not negate the other.
Mary Fabian, while you continue to help the homeless, which I presume you do, I will continue to speak out for the horses and all abused animals as well as other causes I believe in..
There is no shortage of injustices..
You pick your cause and I will pick mine..
Let me get this right. You’re suggesting that people can’t be outraged about this because there’s homeless people?! You’re kidding, right?? You think that people should only be outraged at one thing, or only with what you’re upset about?? Get over yourself. This isn’t something to criticize another over being outraged about.
This is just as important. You don’t like it, scroll past!
What the hell does that have to do with this issue? Move along lady. No one wants to hear you.
Why aren’t you out volunteering then instead of reading and posting. Actions speak louder than words. Be the change you want to see.
You must mean the homeless racehorse crisis AKA OTTB crisis.
You know – the racehorses that they dump at kill auctions after they are done maiming them.
The racehorses who, after making money, become disposable.
This multi-billion dollar industry gives little to nothing to their profit slaves when they are done with them.
So perhaps you should be concerned with the “homeless racehorses” since you seem to exploit them.
Something tells me that there is more to this than what meets the eye. I have had been around more than one race horse in my lifetime, as matter of fact I have a retired one grazing freely at my farm. For three of them to drop off just like that is no coincidence. These deaths need to be investigated, there is something seriously wrong and it needs to be discovered and stopped. Very sad and unfortunate :-(
The problem is horseracing – 2,000 killed racing or training across America every year; hundreds more dying in their stalls; multiple thousands brutally and violently bled-out and butchered annually once their so-called careers have come to an end. No investigations, no reforms, no compromises – end horseracing.
What’s wrong with that track?
29 AREN’T ENOUGH TO CLOSE SANTA ANITA?????? STOP!!!
8th race at Mountaineer Sunday night broken down shows up changing from killer Burton Sipp to Shawn Fairman count how many times that jockey Ricardo Barrious hit the horse with the crop i thought the rule was strike 3 times in a only maybe i”m nuts but i counted 10 times continuously?
Scott- that rule is only valid at certain tracks in certain states. Many tracks are a wild free for all as far as how many times a horse can be hit. Most of the jockey colony at mountaineer also ride at mahoning, belterra, Thistledown, and the occasional make it to Presque Isle. If you watch any of these races from those tracks on any given day, you can see jockeys wailing away on the horses, and it’s out of control. Horses can be hopelessly 20 + lengths back, clearly spent, and the jockeys are beating on them. Or they can be in the lead by 5 lengths, and the jockeys are beating on them. I was at a race and after a poor mare crossed the wire, the jockey was still hitting her as she was slowing down!! I looked at my friend, and mentioned it to her. She is an avid race fan, I just happened to be tagging along, and I think this display shocked her. She also gallops horses in the mornings, and I asked her if she beats them like that, her response was “never.” I think it made her think a little and open her eyes.
These poor horses, as the saying goes, can’t win for losing.
Scott, the racehorses have little to no protections from the beaters.
Their penalties are laughable and pretty much condone the whipping/beating of racehorses on most tracks.
For example, Kentucky doesn’t even have a whipping law in place so you can beat the living shit out of a tired/sore racehorse with no repercussions whatsoever – so much for the “horse capital of the world” right?
Racehorses are not protected under our animal cruelty laws they are dealt with through the pro-horse racing commissions and the deck is stacked against them.
These racing commissions, at taxpayers expense, are nothing more than public wallpaper and a management instrument to facilitate the abuse, cruelty, and inhumane treatment of a racehorse.
All positions on the racing commissions are only filled with pro-horse racing people who will go to no lengths to uphold the regular beatings and killings.
In fact, most of the jockeys who sit on the commissions have little education and no qualifications to be in that business, but they put them there for a reason.
It’s time for “neutral” representation, and Frank Stronach of The Stronach Group is well-known for hand picking his racing commissioners.
So who in the hell is protecting these horses – nobody and it’s up to us to be a voice and to shut them down.
Horse racing needs to end. I feel the same way about rodeos. The cruelty needs to stop now.
It needs to stop. It’s truly about money and exploitation of horses.
This is absolutely horrifying!!! Maybe we need to take a closer look at this? Not going cool!!!!
Owners and trainers should be investigated for insurance claims(fraud). Something fishy going on sounds like to me. Too many dying too close together, very suspicious to me. The killing needs to stop. These horses have feelings too, they shouldn’t just be someone’s meal ticket! Myself, as a former co owner of a couple of racehorses (TB) Texas Bob and Runnin for Nuthin. I’m very disappointed in the Horse Racing industry. In the way horses are treated by some owners and trainers, I know not all of them have no feeling about the horses. Some do care. It’s the ones who only care about money and not the welfare of the horses that need to be removed permanently and not allowed at any track ever again.
It’s not the track. They closed it down for what 2 weeks and the horses are still getting killed and maimed. The owners, trainers, jockey, veternarians, etc all are responsible for these horses deaths. These are just babies only 2-3 yrs old, it is a crime and it is a vile, cruel, industry that these beautiful animals have to live like this. Horseracing needs to be abolished now and these horses need to live like all horses that are loved and cared for properly. Santa Anita is a death track it seems for these horses, heart attacks in a 3 yr old horse, it is so so sad. They are whipped to run faster and faster and their hearts and bodies cannot take this abuse. End Horseracing.
This is absolute BULLSH!T!!! The people that continue to race them should all be charged. There has to be a huge payback since all the horses are insured. They are seeing that they are getting huge. CASH amounts when they die and are too greedy and ignorant to stop until they get charged with fraud. People going here to watch are just as much responsible. F###k them all
Bloody hell. Stop this monstrosity.
R.I.P., baby.
This isn’t sportsmanship it’s carnage!!
Money at all costs! How pathetic!
When did we become so cruel and barbaric!! Animals shouldn’t have to pay for the greed of man!
That’s why I dont support horse and racing too much abuse
Close these down. Global warming….its too hot to run in these horses. Please
This is truly disgraceful. Anyone who would do this to a beautiful animal with such a big heart is a total monster. I hope this disgusting sport is stopped before more of these magnificent animals die at the hands of greedy humans.
Look up and find who owns this race track at Santa Anita. I believe it is a corporation out of our country. Could this have anything to do with what is taking place? I don’t know but I do know that what is happening is cruel. No horse should ever have to run like race horses do. And the breeding? I don’t know too much about horses except that they are sweet like big dogs and love to be loved. Greed and money are at the root of all this, I do believe.
stop this evil sport
This is absolutely shocking and disgraceful that these beautiful animals are pushed beyond what they can bear. How dare these greedy heartless bastards be allowed to get away with this cruelty.?
STOP this NOW!!!
“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is…whether its victim is human or animal…we cannot expect things to be much better in this world…We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.” – Rachel Carson
“If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal, with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution – and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity.” – Jane Goodall
Animal Abusers Exposed. If You Hurt an Animal I Will Tell The World About You Here.
“Your intuition suggests something isn’t right but you’re not sure what it is. It is not until the aftermath that you can see clearly and realize that true life can be more terrifying than a horror movie, that monsters are real and evil preys on the innocent.”
– unknown
I am no longer accepting things I cannot change, I am changing things I cannot accept!
We are all born with compassion RECLAIM YOURS!
For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beast; for all is vanity.
– Ecclesiastes 3:19
“Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.”
“We will never know true happiness until we learn compassion for all living things.”
– Dali Lahma
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
“To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime.” (v)
– Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize Literature 1915
“Stand still, close your eyes and listen; in the silence you can hear the cries of pain and low moans of anguish of animals waiting to die… do everything you can even if today it is just one small thing.”
“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.”
– Chief Seattle
“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is…whether its victim is human or animal…we cannot expect things to be much better in this world…We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.”
– Rachel Carson
“If only we can overcome cruelty, to human and animal, with love and compassion we shall stand at the threshold of a new era in human moral and spiritual evolution – and realize, at last, our most unique quality: humanity.”
– Jane Goodall
“The Greatness of a Nation and its Moral Progress can be Judged by the way its Animals are Treated!”
– Mahatma Gandhi
I feel so sad for the living, breathing, feeling animals that have suffered at the hands of men. I feel such anger and even hatred towards those men who would inflict such pain and suffering on an animal that wants only to love and be loved. My mind cannot comprehend such behavior, such lack of compassion. I wonder what goes on in the mind of such sick people who torture, neglect, abuse and fight animals with no sympathy or compassion for what they are doing. I do know that I feel our country has totally inadequate cruelty, abuse and neglect laws to help protect our animals. Even the states with the toughest laws could make tougher ones.
No animal cruelty law should be less than a major felony. No neglect law should be less than a minor felony, at the least. And people caught fighting animals should be locked up for life.