Last week on U.S. tracks (not including harness and training):
Dark N Cloudy “suffer[ed] a fatal injury…euthanized” at Aqueduct
Turbo Street “vanned off” at Fair Grounds
Wonder Blondy “vanned off” (after getting a “minor share”) at Gulfstream
Under a Spell “pulled up lame, vanned off” at Laurel
Jess a Cajun “vanned off” at Louisiana
Giant Watch “vanned off” at Turf
Just for Rose “pulled up lame, vanned off” at Penn
Big Dude “was fractious…vanned off” at Turf
Spectre Bond “vanned off” at Aqueduct
Ohmymy Ohmyyes “struck fallen foe, DNF” at Fair Grounds
Jacobs Flyer “collided hard with fallen foe, vanned off” at Fair Grounds
Miss You Jo “fell, struck by two foes, vanned off” at Fair Grounds
Strong Performance “fell while in distress…euthanized” at Gulfstream
Captivating Cartel “vanned off” at Los Alamitos
Forman the Foreman “returned bleeding” at Penn
Sly Wildcat “took a bad step, vanned off” at Penn
Quizzical Cajun “suffer[ed] catastrophic injury…euthanized on track” at Aqueduct
Beta “struck gate, DNF” at Aqueduct
Derek’s Aim “vanned off” at Charles Town
Celtic Warrior “vanned off” at Turf
Fifty Eight O G “bled, vanned off” at Aqueduct
Esterina “pulled up lame…euthanized” at Laurel
(source: Equibase)
Did I understand this correctly: 22 horses killed in one week? Anyway you can look at it, this is UNACCEPTABLE!
No, Wanda, thus far four confirmed killed. There will be more, however, once I receive FOIA documents.
And it looks like a three horse pile up there at Fair Grounds. “Fallen foe”. Disgusting. Not scared and overwhelmed horses catastrophically injured for human entertainment. I hope none of them end up forced to linger in a stall with plates and bolts in their limbs just to keep shit off the racing industry’s face.
Just for comparison, 24 is the AVERAGE weekly ‘number’, so we should be thankful that this particular week was below average. Yes, the sport of kings…
First, not all these horses died; some were merely injured/”vanned off.” Second, the 24 figure is too low. Our research indicates that it’s more like 40 horses killed racing or training across America every week.
Thanks for the correction, Patrick. It looks like that grisly figure has increased since the last time I researched it…
Why are ANY of these things even permissible?! Horses BLEEDING FROM THEIR NOSE, vanned off the track because they couldn’t even make it under their own power, falling over each other in tangles of broken limbs……name ANY human sport that would allow their participants to be subjected to this, even when said participants are consenting and (over) paid. How are people not disgusted, appalled, horrified, infuriated, or even empathetic to living beings tortured and killed by the THOUSANDS? Extinction is the only solution to the cesspool of abuse and misery that hides behind fancy hats and manicured scenery and is endorsed by A-listers too ignorant to care about the death machine they’re posing in.
Rebecca, I agree with you that this kind of activity that makes money by abusing horses is totally unacceptable! Even in football, where the players on the field have some say so in whether they choose to participate or not, there have been cheating scandals that revealed certain teams were injuring players of opposing teams to the point of causing major injuries to players and huge delays in the game and giving the cheating team an unfair advantage in order to win football games. That was exposed. The major injuries being caused continually by one team to win was exposed and something was done to bring it under more control. I honestly don’t care for football but it is right up there on a level of popularity with horseracing. One major exception is that they don’t actually kill their football players and act like it’s no big deal and just keep playing the game as they do with racehorses.
If the morally depraved people that gamble on racehorses and lose and then complain that the jockey didn’t whip the horse enough (as Gina testified to on this blog) were not catered to, that would be something; but it still would not be enough to stop all of the abuses that humans inflict upon horses. The whole mentality of forcing young underdeveloped horses to perform at a level that should only be expected of a fully matured horse is FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG. It is moral turpitude and the worst of the worst kind of abuse, neglect, cruelty and torture to horses. Also, I am including what those twisted dirtbags do to Tennessee Walking Horses for the competition they call “the big lick” which is completely abnormal and tortuous to those poor horses. That kind of abuse to horses is also FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG!