To anyone with a working knowledge of horseracing, the following comes as no surprise: Princess Dorian, the mare who “took a bad step” and sustained multiple fractures in the 2nd race at Del Mar last Sunday, is dead – euthanized today, says the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, after developing laminitis in both hind legs.
Here is my opinion, one shared, I’m sure, by the vast majority of the aforementioned in-the-know: This poor animal’s suffering was unnecessarily extended for public relations reasons. In other words, had this not been Del Mar, had not two other horses been killed in subsequent races that day, had this not come eight days after Mongolian Groom’s breakdown-heard-round-the-world in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Princess Dorian would have been rightly euthanized that very day.
So – just a few hours after I reported yesterday’s training kill, the list must be updated again. You’ll note that Princess Dorian is recorded here as a racing kill; according to a U-T article, however, “Princess Dorian’s death would not be counted [by the CHRB] as an official ‘racing’ fatality because she was ultimately euthanized because of post-surgery complications.” And that, folks, is Racing’s version of alternative facts.
The Del Mar 2019 Dead:
Charge a Bunch, killed training Jul 18
Carson Valley, killed training Jul 18
Bowl of Soul, killed training Jul 29
unidentified, died in stall Jul 31-Aug 4
unidentified, died in stall Aug 5-Aug 11
Bri Bri, killed training Aug 12
Princess Dorian, killed racing Nov 10 (euth Nov 18)
Ghost Street, killed racing Nov 10
Prayer Warrior, killed racing Nov 10
Slewgoodtobetrue, killed training Nov 17
Desperation – in plates and screws…
Absolutely disgusting, forcing this poor mare to not only endure the ride off the track but then to fill her legs with hardware and prolong her suffering just to try to avoid further shit on their faces. Anytime a racehorse owner goes ahead with surgery it’s NEVER for the benefit of the horse – they just see an opportunity to live off the horse a bit longer.
And these kind of people are merely victims of circumstance and need our understanding? I understand them perfectly.
I knew what these evil connivers were trying to pull from the word “go” they were trying to use her as….see,we love them,we’re spending some money. They are sooooooooo desperate from bad publicity. Do yourself a treat read tvg personality mike Joyce Twitter timeline. You’ll get what I picked up on INSTANTLY. You’d have to wake up pretty early in the morning to put ANYTHING past me.😂 Rebecca, they are terrified they are going to lose their “jobs”
So agree ladies – this is just another sad day of horse racing. Forget about all the bullshit of what you tried to do as the owner – the bottom line is you did nothing – you let this poor mare suffer and just did some advertising special of your own to show the world you have compassion – but you have nothing – all of us who read this crap daily and have had or have horses and have raced or what-ever know that this is all just bullshit every single day another horse is dead – why – because of all of you involved in this horrific sport to “kill” – you are all losers – each and everyone of you involved. Shame on humans again as always – the animals suffer and die because of your god damn human GREED.
This whole corny-ass bullshit needs to be shut down now. They can’t go one day without DEATH.
I am not a vet, but really, has any horse ever survived this kind of fracture? This amount of metal in their legs? It does not seem possible. Poor baby. Made to suffer more than she already did. Shameful!
Ruffian was put down after life saving attempt (what a horse!). As soon as she came out of surgery or awakened she kicked and basically undid what they tried to do to save her. That race was billed as “The Battle of the Sexes” and was a match race against Foolish Pleasure. A disaster! She is buried in the infield at Belmont surrounded by a giant horseshoe shrub. One of the all-time greats.
They only tried to save her so they could use her for breeding, not because they actually cared about her as a living sentient being.
Very true😢
This country needs to pass an ALL ENCOMPASSING law: NO animals of any kind used for gambling purposes,PERIOD-end of story. You old men out there who are crying and complaining and whining…you’ll get over it. It’s not like there’s not a million other REAL sports to bet on. Bet on humans not animals. Animals are meant to be our lovies,companions,buddies, therapists.
Amen
I’ve seen pleasure horses do the same in a paddock. The racing industry are harder on trainers that don’t do the right thing by the horse and penalize them severely for ill treatment. Funny no one goes on about the pleasure horses owned by everyday people who are removed for neglect or euthanise at the first sign of trouble. Maybe look at the bigger picture and not just what the media wants you to see. Go work in a stable with an open mind and see how well racehorses are cared for. Maybe arc up about the hunting dogs in Spain that suffer worse than most animals, see the injustices done to them and put your effort to something worthwhile.
This is “worthwhile,” and you can be against more than one thing at a time.
Kristey…
1), so because “pleasure horses” shatter their limbs in paddocks we should continue putting horses at an INCREASED RISK of shattering their limbs by racing them? – for the entertainment of fans and betting fixes of gamblers? Is that it?
2), it’s “funny” how often we hear apologists exclaim “I see horses getting injured and dying all the time out in their paddocks” – it’s BS and you know it. I’ve had horses for 30 years – I know of TWO who broke a limb in their paddocks. TWO. And it bears mentioning, both had been used as racehorses.
3), name some owners/trainers who have been “severely penalized” for “ill treatment” of their racehorses. And that should certainly include having their licenses revoked in ALL racing jurisdictions. Again, you claim things that are pure BS. The WVRC and Mountaineer allow Burton Sipp to race his horses even though they were provided with undeniable proof he sold racehorses to a kill buyer. Why’s that, Kristey?
4), since this site is about racehorses being exploited, crippled, killed and sent to slaughter, other equine abuses – including those the “pleasure horses” suffer – are not addressed here. I suggest you find that site since that appears to be YOUR cause – I wonder if you’ll do the same there? – “hey everyone, you should care about what happens to racehorses! – they are being maimed and killed regularly!” And if you cannot find such a site, CREATE one.
5), that said, those of us here who are fortunate enough to be able to rescue equines – have the financial means and farms to bring them home to – do help the “pleasure horses” AND other equines who need it as much as we are able to. So your words meant to accuse us are even more meaningless and actually, downright foolish.
6), funny you mention the media – as if the media puts racing in a negative light, reporting the facts. Surely you cannot be serious? – read just the latest on Princess Dorian’s suffering and death – and how “SURPRISED” the vets were that she developed laminitis! The VETS were surprised that what’s recognized as the biggest risk – laminitis in any or all of the “healthy” limbs – after putting a horse’s leg back together surgically actually happened? Unreal – oh how they spin.
7), go work in a stable, you say? – again, for many of us here, been there and done that. Yet that being said, I don’t need to work at SW to acknowledge the exploitation and suffering of marine mammals there…nor in a circus to recognize the hellish lives of exotic animals enslaved for use in them. No one needs to work or spend time on the backside to understand racehorses are killed – for entertainment purposes, no less.
8), and the poor dogs in Spain – here’s hoping YOU are doing something about that, Kristey! I wish I could help and I’ll certainly share anything about those particular horrors if I see them on my FB page! – but I will admit, keeping up with just the crippling and killing of racehorses in our country has given me even more on my plate than I can handle.
You see, Kristey, ALL animal abuse and exploitation is in need of the spotlight – so we ALL must do our part in whatever cause we choose.
Joy – Thank you for the excellent response to Kristey’s ridiculous attempt to rationalize the maiming and killing of racehorses. I am beyond disgusted with the “horses get injured in the paddock” excuse. As you say, it’s quite rare that a horse is killed as a result of a paddock injury. My ex-racer lived in a boarding facility where a large group of horses, mostly OTTBs, ran wild on 40 acres of hilly pasture complete with mud, rocks, steep ravines, creeks, thorn trees, barbed wire and other hazards. I watched arthritic horses in their late 20s gallop down muddy banks, jump over the creeks, and gallop off bucking and playing like yearlings. There were injuries, but nothing that stall rest, maybe some stitches and TLC couldn’t cure. In fact, the veterinarians who visited the farm were impressed with the health and vigor of the horses. Had a horse died, we would have taken comfort in the fact that he or she died happy, running with the herd as nature intended not being cruelly whipped until the end. There is NO comparison between the two situations. It’s one step removed from a trainer who once justified the horse deaths by saying, “ Everything dies”. Although he was a vile, cruel man, I actually have more respect for him than I do someone like Kristey who pushes pro-racing propaganda.
I also want to call out the ridiculousness of the “bad step” myth. How do “bad steps” happen on carefully groomed race track surfaces that don’t have rocks, ruts, gopher holes, slick clay mud, ice or other hazards? Researchers have shown that the catastrophic breakdowns happen when soft tissues, tendons and ligaments, fail as a result of tearing and scarring from repeated injuries. With the loss of support for the leg, bones shatter causing the “bad step”. In other words, the broken leg causes the bad step, not the other way around. This has been proven by veterinarians studying necropsy results from racing injuries, and has been shared publicly. Anyone putting the “bad step” excuse out there is either ignorant or a liar or both.
Finally, “go work in a stable” is a statement showing the arrogance and delusion rampant in the industry. You assume we are opposed to racing because we’re ignorant. No, we’re opposed because many of us are experienced horse people and have spent plenty of time in the stable and at the track. We speak up because we KNOW the truth. Also, Kristey, you may want to explore alternate careers because our numbers are growing.
Thank-you Joy for once again putting their delusional concepts to rest.
Animals are under siege on our planet due to human greed and there are plenty of causes to go around.
Whether it’s wild horses or soring.
I sign petitions as I can, but my main focus is horse racing and because I have to work for a living I only have time to put my full energy into one cause, and I know the cause from the inside out because I lived it.
Furthermore, with all the dying racehorses it’s keeping me more than busy as I’m sure Patrick is consumed with just trying to collect and disseminate the data.
These apologists and their baseless theories and excuses never focus on themselves.
Do you ever notice that?
They divert and divert, they attack the messenger, they attack PETA, they label us as “extreme terrorists,” but any rational person can see right through this.
It’s this very attitude that has brought them to where they are today – foal crops with compromised skeletal and immune systems, most likely, due to rampant drug abuse.
In other words, it’s in the breed it seems.
Add into the mix the daily abusive business practices and you have a bunch of racehorses one step away from dying.
It’s too late to change their ways, it’s beyond repair, and no amount of reform will stop racehorses from dying.
Racehorses have paid the price for years and it’s time to shut down this killing show.
Yet another person trying to justify the abuse in one industry by pointing to another. It doesn’t work that way. And again with the ” horses get injured in paddocks and fields all the time” bullshit. Do horses get injured? Yes. But you don’t find THOUSANDS of them shattering limbs or having other catastrophic breakdowns in one venue. Logically, Grand Prix show jumpers should be snapping limbs off left and right – seventeen plus hands of horse landing from six to seven plus feet repeatedly. I went to an active Thoroughbred racing farm and it was disgusting. Broodmares walking around with their enlarged fetlocks almost touching the ground, an emaciated stallion still being used for breeding, young horses locked in stalls for days on end becoming so bored they would dig craters in the floor or literally smash through the walls.
The problem is not that we don’t have an open mind. The problem is that we have open eyes. We see the racing industry for what it truly is, beyond the matching halters and blankets and the horses groomed and shiny for the race. We see the catastrophic injuries of horses that are the age equivalent of human toddlers. We see the tongue ties and the stud chains, the needles, the barbaric therapies to deaden pain, the welts from whips, the shocking devices in the gate. We see horses traded like chattel until they end up at the racing industry’s final solution: a bolt to the head, then shackled, hoisted, and bled out while still alive. Horses whose only crime was not being able to give enough to their parasitic owners.
Keep defending horse racing. You’re no better than those dog abusers in Spain.
Relief and help can’t come soon enough for these dear sweet innocents. There are more suffering ones than there are ones who aren’t…THAT is the reason why it must go. The people in horseracing have proven time and time again, they Cannot be trusted.
The lack of empathy for the suffering of the poor mare, Princess Dorian is astounding. Racing uses the horse, regardless of how much suffering is caused, to advance whatever it’s agenda happens to be at any given time.
Nothing will ever compare to the suffering that they put Barbara through.
The post from the Bloodhorse today shows how scared they are of you. Thank you Patrick
Nothing will ever compare to the suffering that they put racehorses through and they have a choice.
Anybody who has directly witnessed a racehorse dying with the common facial expression of horror is permanently scared.
Furthermore, anybody who has worked on the track will see this sooner or later.
It’s not a question of IF, but WHEN – its the inevitable factor.
Nevertheless, thank-you for sharing you are not alone.
If..but when. No more powerful words ….THINK people…the tiniest of percentage ESCAPE. Thank you, Gina.
Here again. What will it take for these cruel humans to stop? It will take them getting a taste of what they are doing to others including animals. Your lust for Greed and inhumane treatment of the helpless will be your own demise. 😢😢😢🐴🐴🐴💝The future has a way of healing those you have fed on for gain and entertainment. I love seeing it too. I pray you are reading every word.
The corruption in this business is rampant as this site has provided a plethora of evidence with facts.
Even the pro-horsing sites acknowledge the corruption including the endless investigations that lead to nowhere and rarely lead to any charges.
In some examples, people who regularly comment on this site have provided direct examples of corruption.
As I always remind people, in the midst of all this corruption are their voiceless victims being tossed around and treated like disposable gambling chips.
Princess Dorian was kept alive for the selfish intentions of keeping her off their racing fatality record and to hide her from public as it seems to be blatantly obvious to most.
With these injuries, she suffered greatly, and she suffered for these vile people.
There’s no doubt that Princess Dorian was a victim of Andrew Lerner, the apologists, and the horse racing business – no doubt.
I also want to tell people that there are racehorses right now on tracks, all over America, that are running with screws in their legs from previous injuries and NOBODY knows about it because there are no vet records following them and there is no transparency when it comes to serious pre-existing conditions.
You don’t have to be a horse person to realize how detrimental and vulnerable this leaves racehorses.
Yet, these people who claim to be horse lovers knowingly and willingly send them out to race.
Then there’s FINDING CANDY (FC).
I single out this example because it’s so corrupt one would think it’s right out of a Godfather movie.
For those of you who are not aware, FC was a 7 year old thoroughbred gelding who died on the track in the first race at Parx (Parx is one big corruption pit while they collect millions in casino profits) on 5/16.
He was run under false ownership.
To those of you who don’t know this is the oldest trick in the book that trainers have been using for years, and still continue to use it and it’s relatively easy to get away with due to the antiquated tattoo model.
A racehorse must get an upper lip tattoo usually done at 6 months old or later, which usually becomes somewhat illegible as they grow, as their lip stretches and many tattoo identifiers know this so if they can read even a few numbers than they pass the horse to race or, in some circumstances, the tattoo ID person is in on the scheme.
So they can enter a low level claimer as a favorite into an upper level allowance race knowing that he doesn’t have a hope in hell in winning, place big bets, and win lots of money.
The scheme can also work conversely.
This is one of the reasons why I was a strong advocate for a microchip because it’s a much better way to deter corruption and this is the first time I’ve said this but this was, I allege, rampant at the Del Mar meet.
I had the authority to check any lip tattoo at any time in the stable area because there were some anonymous tips coming in that this was going on.
There were 3 separate occasions where I caught 3 racehorses entered on the program that didn’t match their lip tattoo and this was big stake races worth lots of money.
The horses were not scratched.
Then I found racehorses whose official workouts were entered and they weren’t even the same horse!
Tattoos are not checked when a racehorse steps out on the track to “breeze” and this goes on all the time to set-up big bet pay-offs because the wagering public relies on official workouts for their betting choices.
I brought this to the attention of several people and I was quickly dismissed and everything was accumulating
They had a person who knew her stuff and they didn’t like that at all and it was around this time that I was banned from Santa Anita, that I was getting death threat notes on my golf cart.
So it didn’t surprise me to read about FINDING CANDY.
The stewards at Parx were notified necessitating a steward scratch, but that never happened.
A total fraud, deception of the public, and completely illegal.
Before I move on I want to remind people that most all Stewards on racing commissions own horses, control the wagering including when they press the wagering buttons in many cases so in my situation the head steward at Del Mar at the time was really upset with me and didn’t scratch the horses that I brought to his attention nor did he scratch Leroideseroux that was given an injection outside the normal Lasix time frame.
Anyways, Finding Candy did not break down according to the charts, rather, “eased, died on the track.”
There was strong evidence that supported the extreme abusive treatment of Finding Candy.
Even when the stewards at PARX were made aware of the situation they brushed it off and permitted her to run.
So 3 questions remain to this day:
1. Why did Finding Candy die?
2.Why was he not scratched?
3. Why was he allowed to run on false pretenses?
People demanded answers and, of course, the proverbial “investigation to follow” either never occurred, or the results were never published and to this day, 3 years later, they’ve not been held accountable for this horrific incident this major integrity issue to the public, and what really is outright fraud to the public.
Of course the death of Finding Candy was under highly suspicious circumstances and true to industry form nobody has been held accountable.
I think that a necropsy wasn’t even conducted under these highly suspicious and fraudulent circumstances.
This is horse racing and these are the people being handed millions in taxpayers/casino money.
FINDING CANDY – this one’s for you, a long forgotten racehorse who died for these parasites and they didn’t even lift their brow to get you justice.
Well we will when we shut this vile business down.
A million thanks to you, Gina, as always. Every time you post, my understanding of this hideously cruel and corrupt business grows. I’ve been perusing trainers’ violations lately, mostly for overuse of “medications,” but I’ve encountered several involving after-the-fact entrant “discrepancies” that I didn’t understand until now.
I shudder to think of all the stories like Finding Candy’s that will forever stay buried because it seems that no one else in horse racing will stand up and do the right thing.
After seeing the short video of Mongolian Groom, I am thinking he should have been taken back to the barn, and a vet called immediately. X rays, a CAT scan, an MRI, some kinds of scans, should have been performed, to see why that horse was puling up its one hind leg with every step. That horse was leary of putting that leg or foot down. It seems the exercise rider should have made and issue of it. The trainer should have been alarmed. I really think, a vet would have seen some kind of problem. Mongolian Groom would have either stayed in his stall, on rest, or would have been receiving physical therapy or even surgery, to fix whatever was causing him pain.
Princess Dorian, fatally injured, was subjected to surgery. WAs probably in agony-if horses are like us, no pain med adequately takes care of the pain from a drastic set of fractures, and no pain med takes care of the subsequent post op pain. So, she had to suffer, because of MG’s life ending injury, until the press had “forgotten” about MG’s murder on the track.