Over the past two days at Turf Paradise in Arizona, five – yes, five – horses have been ambulanced off the track: 4-year-old Movin’ On Bye, 6-year-old Bonita Redhead, 8-year-old Quality Line (just seven days after his previous race), 2-year-old Ingeniero (very first race), 7-year-old Tammy’s Window (41st race). It is highly likely that most, if not all, of these poor animals are dead as I write. (I will of course find out definitively.)
Also: This from the 4th at Tampa yesterday, as relayed by the chartwriter: “Elusive Road was fractious in the gate, showed brief speed, raced four-wide through
the first turn, was eased through the lane and vanned off.” I don’t know, but do you suppose he was “fractious in the gate” because he was already injured?
This is horseracing.
Every time I read that a horse was fractious in the gate or doesn’t want to load into the gate, I think of the shocking devices used by jockey, Gary Stevens, and the people he was associated with that were filmed in undercover videos talking and laughing about the buzzers, or whatever other name they use to refer to the small hand-held shocking devices used to torture racehorses. Horseracing is animal abuse and torture and must be defunded in Arizona and Florida and any other state that supports it through corporate welfare to horseracing.
I don’t even like the term “fractious” because it implies the horse is misbehaving for no reason. These horses are simply trying to protect themselves from further hurt by whatever means they feel they have to use. It’s disgusting that these trainers and jockeys are so fixated on scraping any bit of money they can that they willfully force sick and injured horses onto the track, and damn the consequences.
Is “ambulanced off” synonymous with “vanned off”?
Going by the definition of “van” versus ambulance, they are not the same thing.
When horses are “vanned” off the racetrack, they are most likely dead. Horses, living or dead, obviously don’t get the same type of respect that human beings do. If they did, horseracing would have been outlawed hundreds of years ago. Can you imagine two to three human beings or more being injured and killed at any sport that is a real sport, such as hockey or football, every week? They are mainstream sports and people do get hurt in these sports, but they are not killed on a regular basis as horses are in horseracing.
Hi Wanda—
Thank you for explaining the difference.
“Can you imagine two to three human beings or more being injured and killed at any sport that is a real sport, such as hockey or football, every week?”
No I cannot. The closest analogy I can conceive is this: Horseracing is analogous to forcing 5-year-old children into life-or-death cage matches on a weekly basis, until they’re 14-years old. Sooner or later the vast majority will die awful deaths. And if perchance a child survives to puberty, they are then bred with other children to generate a superior fighter, who enters the wicked cycle at age 5. A civilized people would prohibit this and visit severe penalties on anyone who perpetrated such cruelty.
Also, as I read this site (which is not easy), it seems as though these so-called trainers use horses like lab mice. Some of these conditions appear deliberately inflicted on the poor creatures in an experimental capacity. I am at the point where I would be shocked if this is not happening.
I have thought that same thing except I used the word “rats” instead of mice. These horses are treated as cruelly as lab mice, lab rats and any other kind of animal that are used in experiments in so-called scientific experiments and testing products. The racing participants want the horses to run and if any horse has degenerative joint disease, arthritis, and/or anything else that might prevent them from meeting the rigorous demands of being forced to run, drugs are administered. It keeps lame horses on the track.
Horseracing is definitely not cruelty-free.
It’s usually synonymous with dead.
Exactly, Alan. Ambulanced off sounds misleading as if they are actually going to try to save the horse’s life. In reality, probably not. They just need to remove a horse from the track and get on with the program of racing and gambling.
I think Arizona horseracing participants wants to go out of their way to mislead people.
And, of course, not a single peep about Turf Pairo’Deaths’ ongoing horse massacre from ANYBODY in racing. Arizona Racing commissioners MIGHT report the tally of confirmed dead in their monthly “public” meeting (rescheduled for this Monday.) But good luck getting them, or anybody in the racing press(!), to even consider mentioning outcomes or names. This is a wholesale slaughter of horses in the desert.
If even HALF of their van-offs actually survived these last couple weeks — and I think that’s being generous, considering TPD’s history of doubling The Jockey Club’s BS accounting of the national average — we’re still talking four horse deaths in their last ten racing days.
But nobody (outside of this site) will dare breathe one word about it, will they?
Whoops. My deepest apologies to the fine folks at the Paulick Report, who are now (sorta, kinda) covering this bloodbath at Turf Pairo’Deaths. Doesn’t bode well for any of their equine victims, though, when their GM acknowledges (only to the racing press) a “spike” in fatalities. My fear is that ALL the vanned-off are D-E-A-D — along with several others who didn’t even get the “benefit” of that horrific ambulance ride.
But I still have faith that Horseracing Wrongs will be the ONLY news source to provide honest details about this particular mass-slaughter.
Yea, Kelly – I saw that, too. Turf GM Francia mentioned maybe their racehorse injuries and deaths are because they’re “tired and over-raced”. So he’s looking into it – but he continued, saying he “hasn’t had the time” to review his (dump) track’s recent killed horses’ PP’s.
Yes! And, the hbpa is cautioning trainers to enter their horses at their own risk. Do we/ they think for one moment that they WONT enter horses because they might die and the risk is fairly large?
I can guarantee there are people that are barely eeking out a living at that track, and because they feel the need to maintain this lifestyle, they will send those horses out to race. Why feed a horse that isn’t racing or making them a measly living?
That’s really putting the responsibility on the owners and trainers, isn’t it? (Sarcasm)
The racetrack wants horses to “fill” their race card. So, for anyone with any facsimile of authority, in this case the HBPA, to “warn” owners and trainers to be “more cautious” about entering their over-worked racehorses in a race that their horses will probably, most likely breakdown in is a sad and pathetic attempt to make it “look like” they are “doing their job” in some stretch of the imagination. The HBPA are there standing at the money trough no matter what happens to the horses.
“Five ambulanced off in 5 days?” What the HELL is going on in Arizona???? Are they into TORTURING horses to death wholesale? I can’t imagine what kind of CRUEL TORTURE THESE POOR HORSES ARE BEING PUT THROUGH for FUN and PROFIT. What kind of sadists’ live in Arizona? Don’t they know HORSE RACING murders horses? Don’t they care that horses feel pain like we do? Morning like we do? Die like we do when they are treated like disposable?