As a follow-up to the grisly list I recently published on Camarero, I’ve decided to highlight some of the more egregious cases, horses who were without question run into the ground – to their graves. Here are four more:
Dattts the One was euthanized for laminitis (two feet) on March 26 of last year. He had been raced 16 times, all at Camarero. His final 10, beginning November 2018:
20 lengths back
11+ lengths back
12+ lengths back
22+ lengths back
9+ lengths back
28+ lengths back
12+ lengths back
41+ lengths back
12+ lengths back
21 lengths back
That last race was in November 2019. During this 10-race stretch, he was owned by three different groups and trained by five different men. A bit over four months after that final race, he was dead (again, of laminitis), at the tender age of four.
On June 15 of last year, Aimer Mieux sustained multiple fractures while training and was euthanized. It was also noted that she suffered from osteoarthritis. Prior to being killed, she was raced 47 times – in Canada (where she was bred), Florida, Ohio, West Virginia, and finally, in Puerto Rico. Her final seven, beginning February 2019:
31+ lengths back
15+ lengths back
8+ lengths back
13 lengths back
18+ lengths back
18+ lengths back
43+ lengths back
That last race – 43+ – was in September 2019. And yet, they still wanted more. She was also (no surprise) trained by three different people over those final seven.
Born in 2015, Prosperada was raced her entire “career” at Camarero, 39 races in all. Her final five races, beginning February of last year:
23 lengths back
17+ lengths back
13+ lengths back
21+ lengths back
28+ lengths back
One week after that final race on June 18, she was euthanized per “doctor’s diagnosis.”
Monmouth Beach was bred in Kentucky in 2015. After brief stops in New Jersey and Delaware, he had an extended stay at Finger Lakes before being shipped to Camarero in January 2019. 16 races there followed. Save for three, it was about as ugly as it gets: He finished 10th or below six times; over 13 races, he finished a combined 299 lengths back, or 23 per race. On July 6, a day after his final race, he was dead of “chronic pleuropneumonia.” That’s one day after finishing last (of 14), 27 back. His owner, Julissa Racing, and trainer, Ricardo Negron, had to have known – “chronic pleuropneumonia” – and yet they still sent him out there. It’s vile. It’s criminal. It’s horseracing.
Criminals need to be put in jail. They need to be punished. Anyone who does these things to horses that you describe above should be punished severely. Horseracing is a form of animal abuse and the gambling/ wagering on horses to win, place, or show is organized animal abuse!!!!! More people need to become aware of the facts!!!!!
All of the connections to the horse named MONMOUTH BEACH should lose their license to do anything with horses!!!!! All of the veterinarians who ever “examined” MONMOUTH BEACH should be arrested for malpractice, etc. They should lose their license to “practice” anything that involves the health and well-being, sicknesses and chronic illnesses of animals, especially horses!!!!! The racetrack that facilitates this horrendous abuse needs to be SHUTDOWN forever!!!!!
Horseracing is evil, unnecessary and involves heinous crimes against horses! People need to wake up and see how the horses suffer in this so-called “Sport of Kings” because it is a diabolical and totally unnecessary non-essential activity.
This is so heartbreaking.
In order to fully grasp just how horrific and torturous these racehorses lives were you have to go way back and look into the people who intentionally rendered them to a life of suffering.
Nick Gonzales bought Aimer Mieux from the sale and was the first exploiter and dumper.
There are hundreds of racehorses that Nick Gonzalez maimed, dumped, abused and killed over the years, but to highlight just a few: BIG RED MIKE. Made over $850,000. TERRA RACING STABLE. RIVER SEVEN. Made over $810,000. TUCCI RACING STABLE. MY LIST. Made over $568,000.
MIDNIGHT ARIA. DISAPPEARED after being flown and sold overseas after making $744,000.
STUCK IN TRAFFIC. Made most of his $600,000+ for owners M.A.D Racing Stables and Martha Gonzalez.
After they used and abused STUCK IN TRAFFIC they sold him to one of the most notorious and evil racehorse owners in Ontario: Bruno Schikendanz.
You can’t possibly care for any racehorse that you sell to Bruno Schikendanz knowing his lengthy record of abuse, dumping, claiming and dying.
Just review the egregious abuse of WAKE AT NOON who was, more or less, sent out to die.
Incidentally, the entire abusive, cruel killer record of owner Bruno Schikendanz has been completely scrubbed from Equibase – wonder why?
Martha Gonzalez was her husband’s Assistant Trainer for years and did most of the hard knocking work in the racing stable while Nick played “Trainer.”
She was in charge of all the crippled racehorses sent from Woodbine to Ft. Erie so that they could suck the rest of the blood and life out of them like true parasites do.
She was involved with various racing stables, like M.A.D, as a co-partner and could obtain licenses that would otherwise not qualify according to some research.
Last year she died from cancer and although I wouldn’t wish that on anybody I wonder who is going to do the “dirty work” now?
Nevertheless she was equally responsible as a direct exploiter or enabler, but no more racehorses will suffer under her custody thank goodness for that.
Unfortunately, there’s so many more that will carry on this brutality and torture of their voiceless victims.
Gina, heartbreaking and infuriating. But even being exposed to the constant racehorse deaths Patrick reports here and the daily social media posts of discarded racehorses with emaciated, broken bodies, only days from being sent to slaughter, I still cannot fully grasp what these poor animals silently endure. And for entertainment purposes?!? Maddening.
Nothing can be more grisley than Eric Mitchell’s account in Bloodhorse magazine of all the horses that suffered on a crappy cargo ship and most died or were kicked to death by other horses right next to them. Latino cargo ship. Puerto Rico veterinarian who purchased poor unwanted fillies in Florida and arranged passage on a cargo ship. Boiling hot with no water or fan. I am beginning to get an attitude toward Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in the horse business. But they just copy another business group whose “culture” I won’t mention. How do you control men with no conscience? Too many horses bred that are not wanted because somebody did not want to get a job at a fast food restaurant or cleaning bathrooms. And too many people born with no jobs for them when they grow up. Animals are always at the mercy of desperate men with no conscience or ethics and have large families that they could not afford to have or feed.
The great equalizer of all nations: animal abuse. One has to wonder why, with the myriad of “animal welfare groups” (I use that that description questioningly since the majority of them seem incapable of seeing the most blatant abuse in their own backyard) and the elevation of animal abuse to a federal crime, the racing industry is able to continue killing hundreds of horses in front of crowds and on live TV.
I don’t care how ignorant you are about the general care of horses, seeing a horse’s front leg, or in some cases, BOTH front legs, snap completely in half should be something of a moral red flag.
Or maybe I’m just assuming more morality on the part of humans than is actually the case.
This abuse of horses must end! The people who are responsible for these atrocities are no longer humans. They are cruel monsters!