This morning, Tikkun Olam, three, was killed – head-on collision, I have confirmed (CHRB) – while training at Santa Anita. He is the 3rd horse killed there in as many days, 6th since the current meet began, and 613th since July 2007. That’s 613 animals sacrificed for gambling – at just one track. This ends when – and only when – we the people demand it of our representatives.
Governor Newsom
Senator Feinstein
Senator Harris
Find Your Federal Legislators
Find Your State Legislators
This heinous abuse of horses is unacceptable and needs to be stopped! Just because there are thousands of horses that were not killed (yet) does not make it okay to continue the same abuse of horses over and over and over and over and over and over. Stop the abuse! Stop the killing of horses now!
Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does…a head on collision. Just visualize that…if you can stomach it. Three years old and dead in the dirt so that some freaks can bet and be entertained while they prance around with bright blue wristbands promoting the “killing” industry…horseracing. Sick and vile…
Well stated, Mary. I used to be one of the “freaks” but have since stopped. Remember, ‘tho, that many who attend are action junkies who get something from this horse racing game. That is not an excuse but merely an attempt to explain the attraction. Yes, there are now casinos everywhere and sports betting also, but horses are beautiful to watch run. The amount of breakdowns and fatalities are such that change is coming. Pretty sure about that. California will be first and then the floodgates will open.
I had a friend whose mare had once been involved in a head on collision at a track. Physically she was ok from it. Surprisingly, she survived it. Psychologically, she was a wreck. When she was retrained for a second career, if she was in a show ring warming up with other horses, she would become dangerous when a horse came head on with her. She would try to rear, or rear and whirl, or bolt. The poor girl was on egg shells the whole time. When she got in the show ring and was by herself, this horse was fine. No matter how much they tried to work with her, this mare could not overcome this emotional trauma. Sad that some miraculously survive the physical damage, but are mentally ruined for life.
It’s confirmed: they truly are SOULLESS MONSTERS at Santa Anita. If the CHRB does nothing (as expected), Gov. Newsom must take emergency executive action, and force the closure. The whole world is appalled at the non-stop carnage of The Disgrace Race Place.
HEAD ON COLLISION?? How in God’s name is this even possible?? And it’s not an isolated incident either. Horses don’t just randomly run into each other! What was the damn jockey doing?? And while “practicing” too…was he whipping poor Tikkun Olam to the point of total exhaustion causing this “collision”? I honestly cannot fathom how something like this can happen. A 3 year old DEAD… AGAIN…
Politicians!! Get off your asses, know that this is a huge problem, and DO SOMETHING!
BAN HORSE RACING!! NO ONE NEEDS IT.
Andreea- collisions during training hours happen more frequently than they let on. There are pics on the internet of the Santa Anita training hours, and the amount of horses on the track at one time is insane. I saw a video once of them opening the track for training after the harrow break and it was like a cavalry charge. And they usually jog the horses one direction, and gallop and breeze the other direction. So horses are facing each other often. On top of that, most of these horses are hot because they are cooped up in a stall most of the day, so it’s a recipe for disaster. They dump riders, bolt, run off with the riders…
I’ve seen 2 collisions myself and heard of numerous others. I know a few years ago, an acquaintance of mine got thrown off a horse, then that horse ran head on and knocked another horse over the rail. Both horses died and a rider was seriously injured.
Just more of the insanity at the racetracks.
Nothing from you about the breakdown at Los Alamitos yesterday? Or what about Turf Paradise?
Working on it, Carol.
OMG! No! Not another one! Not one day can go by without a death ( or several)??STOP this cruelty already! Enough!!
ABC news contacted the Santa Anita appointed spokesperson to provide an explanation.
Not surprinsingly, they refused to comment.
Really – at this point what in the hell are they going to say – just what????
The track surfface? The unprecedented rain? The drainage?
All of which was confirmed fine and safe by their horse racing guru Petersen and Dr. Bramledge.
So that excuse is out.
Now we turn to their magic pill – “reforms,” which will be brought about by committee after committee. lip service after empty rhetoric, excuse after excuse, oh and the newly branded Horse Racing Integrity Act.
What about all of this?
Isn’t that going to miraculously change things for the better?
Not a chance.
HRW and supporters knew that.
Incidentially, it’s rumored that the PET scan that Santa Anita brought onto their grounds is not being utilitzed on most racehorses because The Stronach Group is charging high fees to use it so most owners/trainers are opting out of it.
Santa Anita regulatory vet, paid for by taxpayers refused to clarify this.
MONGOLIAN GROOM and the last 3 racehorses that died there: TIKKUM OLAM, CONTAINABLE and BUCKSTOPPER KIT were probably not scanned.
This should have been part of the D.A.;s, and Dr. Bramledge’s report and it wasn’t or it wasn’t released to the public.
Like I said there were huge pieces of the puzzle missing from their reports and I think this was intentional.
If these racehorses were scanned than the results of those scanned, including what anatomical structures were scanned, should have been released.
This industry has never changed and will never change.
They want to run their own private killing show while masking it with public deception and that’s no longer going to work because they can’t go back to doing business as usual, but what exactly is business as usual?
It’s tarp after tarp, dead racehorse after dead racehorse either on the track, in their stalls or on the slaughterhouse floor – that’s horse racing and that will never change which is why it nees to shut down.
Anybody should be appalled and repulsed by this massive suffering and carnage.
PLEASE everybody continue to email the people listed above.
Gina, I still have yet to hear an ANSWER…about Mongolian Groom’s obvious hitch in his left hind leg.!!! How the hell can that many vets on duty have missed that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???
Bonnie, MONGOLIAN GROOM was on a “watch list” on October 31, 2019 as you may know. He was a late entry as you may know. The racing Secretary at Santa Anita Park and anyone representing the Breeder’s Cup races should have refused to accept any entry fees and denied entry into any race from the owners and trainer of MONGOLIAN GROOM, in my opinion. I base my judgement on common sense. I think they were all greedy for the money.
In all fairness, they said they were going to install the scanners – they never said that the scanners would actually be used.
Thank you Peggy for your reply. Makes a lot of sense. Unbelievable can’t even begin to describe it. Why is there not a schedule and only a certain number of horses allowed to train at a time? Better yet WHY on earth does racing still exist?? I know… “why”?? We keep asking ourselves these questions but they don’t give a crap. No willingness to make even small changes. Disgusting!!
And this SA’s statement: “”Santa Anita remains committed to transparency. Our safety statistics and incident reports are publicly available on our website at SantaAnita.com/safety. Home to 2,000 horses, Santa Anita Park is one of the largest equine training facilities in the United States. Horses raced or trained at Santa Anita Park more than 420,000 times over the last year with a 99.991% safety rate.”
How on earth will these people be able to back these (fraudulent) statements with facts?? 99.991%??? How “exact”… and what a shameful lie!
Andreea, I don’t know how they arrived at these mathematical conclusions of 99.something something something per cent in any context including the Breeders Cup races in which they say there were 229 horses and one horse, MONGOLIAN GROOM, was catatrosphically injured and euthanized. It is despisable what Dr. Lawrence (Larry) Bramlage says: that it is “hard to fault” the percentage of horses that didn’t get killed. It shows the cold and callous nature of the people involved in horseracing.
Maybe they were looking at the figures upside down?
Head on collisions like this are more common than you think and the industry used to be able to cover this up.
Not anymore.
This business is an antiquated business model with a bunch of white senior men running the establishment.
it doesn’t even remotely reflect our society, our communal demographics, our views on exploiting racehorses for profits and the younger geneartion wants nothing to do with it.
Add into the mix the high cost of keeping a racehorse in training and racing plus the corruption and there are not enough people anymore getting into this business and it will be the economics in the end that will get them.
I would like to think that it would be the obvious moral issues, but that’s not the case because they’ve never cared about the horses just their profits although it won’t deter me from being a voice for the racehorses.
In the morning training hours, back around 2000, an exercise rider had just finished breezing, everything went well, she was walking her horse on the perimeter clockwise facing the horse traffic going counter clockwise.
The horse going counter clockwise spooked kicked his rear leg out and to this day I don’t know how it happened, but the horse kicked her square in the chest, breaking her aorta in half and she bled out right there on the track.
Her parents were devastated, but because they were pinhookers and had lots of racehorses to sell they were advised not to launch a lawsuit against the track for unsafe business practices.
Now out of the horse business and still mourning their only daughter they regret that decision because it wasn’t about the money they feel that they could have saved lives (racehorses and humans) had they forced tracks to look at their unsafe business practices althought the tracks usually use “inherent risk” as an opt out.
This business has been doing the same thing for years and I’m actually surprised that more racehorses or people have not been killed.
I think that a day will come, and I hope it doesn’t happen, that there will be a major spill in the Kentucky Derby or some sort of accident because there are too many racehorses in close quarters, they know it, and true to industry form nothing changes.
Racehorses will continue to die.
Gina, Eight Belles went down after coming in second. They could not hide it.
Particularly gruesome. Named a race after her, nice touch (sarcastic). Ruffian has a race in her honor. Die on the track and if you’re a good one you can get one too. Eight Belles was “in against the boys” in KY Derby and jockey was whipping big time down the stretch. Deserved better.
I remember the trainer in an interview afterwards going on about how empty the barn would be without her. I think he meant to say his wallet.
Patrick, can you give us the location of the billboard in L A area so I can have my relatives point it out to their network of friends. Thanks
You know that your giving them drugs that negativaly effects their health so they shouldnt be racing. You just keep killing these poor horses for greed. Money is the root of all evil. You have no hearts or souls. You people are covering up more then that and we all know it. What comes around goes around so i hope you assholes get yours sooner.
Obviously the only reason these beautiful horses are alive to begin with, is to race and make money. I was thinking today how sad it must be to say goodbye to a perfectly healthy animal, except that they can’t race again
Anyways, if you think these animals would be around if it weren’t for racing, I think you are mistaken. How many horses do you take care of?. It’s a lot of work, and expensive to care for.
If it weren’t for racing, I don’t think most of these horses would have been born. They are bred for that exact reason.I know it’s sad, but wake-up and see the reality
Jen, what was your first clue? It’s a well-known fact that breeders breed Thoroughbred horses primarily for racing and eventually slaughter. Most of the horses that are not able to win are either “mysteriously” [sarcasm] killed on the race track or they die of conditions that are painful for the horse near the track and on the racetrack property. They are not healthy when they have ulcers which most people would be clueless of to just look at a horse. How many people can look at the outside of a horse and see the signs of that horse having ulcers? There are so many other afflictions that horses suffer in silence and these racing people don’t care. The fact that racing people run young horses before they are developed in their bones and dope them and drug them and force them to run and run fast is ABUSE and constitutes morbid cruelty and torture of horses. Some people raise their young horses and don’t expect them to carry much weight until they are four years old but they don’t subject them to flat track racing.
If the racing industry reformed themselves, they would stop riding Yearlings. They would stop racing 2-year-olds. They would stop racing 3-year-olds. They would stop locking the horses up in stalls for 23 hours a day. They would stop doping them. The racing people would stop drugging the horses to mask the pain of injuries to the horses. The breeders would do a lot of things differently.
Everyone involved in racing use horses as a commodity. It’s their attitude towards the horses and towards using them for financial gain and then disposing of the horse as though they were just objects to be exploited that needs to be stopped as much as possible. Whipping and shocking horses is ABUSE and a part of the exploitation of horses used for racing. So, Jen, have you ever thought about how painful racing is for the horses?
Wait! So are you essentially saying that horses either have to race, die or not exist at all?? That racing is the essence of their existence? Are you insinuating that it’s ok to abuse these beautiful animals for human gain?? Is this your reality? Because it’s beyond flawed and people on this platform are advocating AGAINST horse racing not PRO. Did you mistakenly end up on the wrong platform?
Jen, you can rest assured that many people have seen the reality of horseracing and these people are sickened and appalled by the extreme moral depravity of the racing and gambling industries! Why do you think this Horseracing Wrongs blog exists?
Fuck you, you are so wrong they dont have horses for horse racing only. You are probably one of the horse owners yourself
So you’re saying that the sole purpose for the existence of these horses is exploitation? That these living sentient beings need to justify having a life in the human world, and the only way to do that is to earn their human masters money? You’re sick, lady. And what purpose do you serve? What meaningful contributions have you made to society in general that YOU should exist? What gives people like YOU the right to be a little god and create thousands of these horses for disgusting archaic entertainment and exploitation and then have the audacity to think you have the right to decide which ones die based solely on whether they serve YOUR greater purpose: making YOU money. How can you even open your mouth on this blog – where the abuses and deaths of thousands of horses are a daily slap in the face – and make a statement about “how sad it must be to say goodbye to a perfectly healthy animal, except they can’t race again”. SAD? SAD?!! Its VILE! To see 18 month old colts and fillies slaughtered for the unforgivable crime of not being able to give you parasites enough to live on. To watch horses so broken by the age of two years they can’t even walk off a racetrack on their own. To watch you suck whatever life you can out of a gentle sentient being and then throw them away like the carcass you think of them as. YOU need to wake up and see the reality – the reality of severed spines and broken shoulders and necks and shattered legs. The reality of horses with blood running from their noses and horses twisting in their stalls from the agony of colic. The reality YOU create of horses crammed into trailers on their way to slaughter, then shackled, hoisted, and bled out WHILE STILL ALIVE. This is YOUR reality. I hope people like you are justly rewarded.
Rebecca,
Thank you for saying what needed to be said. You have a way with words in describing the despicable horror of horses going to be slaughtered for meat and the reality of racing injuries to horses. The idea that a horse is healthy but can’t race is so ignorant.
Horses are beautiful — they’re smart, sensitive, intelligent, loyal — let’s STOP the IDIOT-ABUSERS from horrific cruelty and exploitation of Horses — let’s SHUT DOWN this horrific, sadistic, barbarically cruel industry — FOREVER — Remember, the history of Mankind is carried on the back of the Horse — Horses deserve life, respect and care — let’s help them with this.