This from the Gaming Commission for the 4-year-old Escape: “collapsed while breezing on Belmont training track 1/1, ambulanced to Ruffian and stabilized; complications and deteriorating condition necessitated euthanasia 1/3.” We are exactly three days into the new year and the New York Racing Association (Aqueduct, Belmont, Saratoga) has already notched two kills (following 84 last year). That would be the same NYRA that last June told USA Today: “The safety and welfare of horses…competing at NYRA tracks is our highest priority. That is why NYRA is committed to providing the safest possible environment for racing and training by adopting and implementing the best proven safety practices in consultation with independent experts, veterinarians, horsemen and regulators.” You can’t make this stuff up.
Thank you, New York Gaming Commission. They’re the only racing regulators in the nation who would have gone public with basic information about Escape’s training death. Yes, in doing so, they again make the NYRA liars look ridiculous as ever with their BS Horse Safety claims. But more importantly, they show the world how many dead racehorses all the other racing jurisdictions COVER-UP and HIDE and REFUSE TO REPORT to the public.
All the other states’ racing commissioners must hate New York’s, since their transparency undermines all that horse-killing secrecy for the rest of them.
Those words about safety for the horses sound like they were written by paid “professionals” and those words are only meant to keep their “jobs” safe. But, as more and more people know the truth about horseracing, which is synonymous with horse killing, fewer people will waste their money on gambling on horse races. I read part of an article about the wagering handle for 2018, 2019 and 2020. It, the wagering handle and government subsidies, is all that really matters to these people paid to spread falsehoods about the health and safety of horses exploited by racing. If horses aren’t killed from being trained or raced to death, they will be killed in the slaughterhouse or on the truck from getting trampled to death on the long haul to the slaughterhouse. They could also be given away to someone who could possibly starve the horse(s) to death. There are no solid protections for horses brought into the world by the racing industry.
Spoken like a true horse person. These horses often go from the frying pan into the fire. Thoroughbreds haven’t been bred for soundness for two hundred years. Of course they are going to break down. And, even if they survive their racing “careers” there aren’t many people willing to purchase or even adopt horses with soundness and mental issues. The whole damn thing is a racket.
The pubic relations machinery and lip service have been going on for years.
Horse racing has been self-regulated and controlling the message.
Lack of transparency is their cornerstone until HRW came along.
So although the CHRB and their pro-horse racing entities whom they protect, instead of the racehorses, plan to stop reporting some deaths it won’t go unnoticed.
In fact, it will only heighten the need to publish racehorses snapping their bones-off and crumbling to the dirt on California tracks.
ESCAPE was under the control of racehorse abuser and killer “trainer” George Weaver.
Remember VERMONT BILLY?
He was #52 who broke down at Belmont during training:
https://horseracingwrongs.org/2020/12/29/cover-this-cnn-ny-times-belmont-park-at-52-dead-horses-on-year/#comments
VERMONT BILLY was bought for $475,000 by George Weaver’s connections and was sent to him to train and race where he made his first 2 starts.
In his first start he was repeatedly beaten and was obviously in distress, but made it through. (watch replay if you can get through it).
He was claimed in his second start by multiple racehorse killer “Trainer” Mike Maker.
He dies during training hours only 4 weeks afterwards.
It seems obvious that these racehorses are stripped of all their autonomy from the get-go and these killer trainers start breaking them down even before they die.
VB was severely beaten right out of the gate, only a baby, and you can bet that the jockey got those instructions from George Weaver condoned by the owner Schwartz et al.
Both George Weaver and Mike Maker are sub-human monsters, but aren’t they all?
Gina, would you be able to share a link to the video replay of the first race of VERMONT BILLY being beaten?