Through a FOIA request to the Arkansas Racing Commission, I have confirmed the following deaths at that state’s only track, Oaklawn, this spring. As you will see, details were sorely lacking, so I’ve supplemented with information from Equibase.
Rashomon, Jan 4, T (two years old, being prepped for first race)
Ghostly Appeal, Jan 12, T (two years old, coming off first race)
Hold the Fort, Jan 13, T (two years old, coming off first race)
My Aunt Mims, Jan 15, T
Fracing Fast, Jan 15, T (two years old)
Rockshaw, Feb 25, T – “dropped dead after training”
Daddy’s Angel, Mar 6, T – “collapsed and died while training”
Grand Rocket, Mar 13, T (two years old, being prepped for first race)
Another Hero, Mar 20, T
Len’s Gold, Mar 28, R – “stopped, eased, euthanized off track”
Downtown Boy, Apr 10, R – “pulled up in distress” (two years old, first race)
Fast Recovery, Apr 17, R (euthanized Apr 24) – “carpal fracture”
Louden’s Gray, Apr 24, R – “pulled up in apparent distress”
And one that merits a bit more attention because of the detail that was provided:
In late February, says the Commission, 7-year-old Bm One Rare Rocket began treatment for an “impaction colic.” He suffered from this painful condition for “four to five days before being found dead in its [yes, ‘its,’ not ‘his’] stall on 2/27.” “Death,” the vet says, “was caused by septic shock.” How ugly. How cruel. How horseracing.
These people ought to be arrested for these heinous acts of CRUEL & INHUMANE TREATMENT of horses! There is no excuse for this hideous NEGLECT and ABUSE of any of these victimized horses! This is extreme brutalization of horses for gambling bets and purse money. It must be punished by law. Horseracing ITSELF must be ended.
#HorseracingisAnimalCruelty
Indeed..how ugly and cruel. The callousness of the descriptions are just heartbreaking. Few, horrific words void of any empathy towards these majestic beings. Indeed the horses mean NOTHING to these excrements. They are NOTHING but slaves to them. Horse racing is dirty, it is useless and it must END.
The majority of horse owners would never even contemplate treating their horses like this, but these parasites who constantly claim to “love them like children” inflict the worst horrors imaginable on horses on a daily basis. Did poor One Rare Rocket feel the love while he was lying in his stall dying of impaction colic and subsequent septic shock? Is this just another example of a race horse being “treated like royalty”? C’mon, apologists, speak up.
And all those babies dropping dead during training are nothing more than examples of “that’s just horseracing”. What are a few hundred horses sacrificed for the glory of the Sport of Kings, am I right, apologists?
BM ONE RARE ROCKET, foaled on March 28, 2013, a gelding, and left to die in excruciating pain and agony in a stall (solitary confinement and NEGLECT) was owned by Roy Maupin and trained by Jim Maupin. Both of the Maupin horse-killing, money-grubbing, horse-abusing degenerates are guilty of GROSS NEGLIGENCE in addition to the horrendous demands and acts of ABUSE committed on this gelding. This organized horse-abusing and gambling industry is responsible for this hideous act of criminal ABUSE and NEGLECT. Any veterinarian connected to this heinous criminal act on BM ONE RARE ROCKET (in addition to the other horses) is obviously not working for the best interests of the horses. End all government SUBSIDIZATION of EQUINE BRUTALIZATION!
Wanda, Yes!!! What about the veterinarians who “do no harm”? My God. Such evil. And they know!
Stop racing horses!
Patrick, thank you once again for your daily posts. You are so careful. You put together missing information from various sites and document meticulously. It is impossible for critics to support their reason for their anger at your (and our) opposition to racing of equines. They are all “bags of hot air” and extremely threatened at the thought that one day, they might not be able to use the bodies of enslaved, tortured horses to make a more than comfortable living. I copied the body of your post here and put it onto my page. One race track. The death of Bm One Rare Rocket is both enraging and heartbreaking. These are sadists at work. Tears. May you find peace on another plane, Bm One Rare Rocket. RIP.
We Westerners express hatred and rage at the Chinese and South Koreans,as well as Vietnamese, etc. who torture dogs and cats to death for dog meat. Are we doing any better? Think about it.
Wanda, My dream is for the mainstream media to present what you aptly describe as “extreme brutalization” of raced enslaved horses. I think they need to present it at its “finest”: the degree of suffering and the phenomenal cruelty. The public needs to hear it, not just vaguely how they die on the track. They need to hear and “feel” the shrieking pain these horses feel. To do something and shake themselves out of a complicit trance.
Martha, that’s an awesome dream! The public needs to see how horses are forced to be confined in stalls (23 hours everyday) without outside fenced enclosures and understand that the horses are only allowed to leave the stall when the humans are forcing them to gallop out on the racetrack and whipped, shocked, etc. There are so many ways that racehorses are abused, brutalized, neglected and killed or left to die. The public needs to see how horseracing is not something that can be accurately described as anything that resembles the phrase, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” (until it is).
Horseracing is so broken that it is an absolute TRAINWRECK rampant with the unacceptable ABUSE of horses and the Pari-Mutuel gambling that enables the immorality and the corruption of humanity as well as seals the fate of thousands of horses.
I decided to call Oaklawn to inquire about Louden’s Gray. Their racing office actually answered the call, which is much better than penn, parx, and Arlington, who don’t even answer their phone. When I asked the guy on the phone what the status of the horse was, the response I got was “WHO?!” Guy acted like he’d never heard of the horse or that there was an incident. High quality racing office, there. So when I explained that the horse looked like he broke down, he connected me to the test barn to “talk to the state vet”. The “state vet” answered the phone right away and when I asked about the horse, I got, “WHO?!” When I explained AGAIN that it looked like this beautiful horse broke down, he kind of snickered and said, “I don’t know why they would connect you to me. Arkansas is the only state where the state vet doesn’t deal with the horse incidences. The racing office does.” (WHAT?!) He then asked me what the chart said. I read it to him and his response was, “sure doesn’t sound good, does it?” He told me to try calling the racing office the next day, but by that night I had seen a post on twitter that he was indeed dead. All I can give him credit for was that he was actually a pleasant guy to deal with. But how could a state vet not know about a death on the track?? Mind boggling.
What an ass backwards incompetent clown show.