5-year-old Baja Sur going down – a “tragic spill,” said the track announcer – in the 6th at Emerald yesterday. Will update as information becomes available.
5-year-old Baja Sur going down – a “tragic spill,” said the track announcer – in the 6th at Emerald yesterday. Will update as information becomes available.
This is so sad! We are currently reading a paperback by William Jones titled The Black horse is Dying. Very informative about all aspects of the racing business & the corruption in all aspects, breeding, training , medications use, wagering processing and rule violations. Every time we see a horse going down like this makes us glad we no longer participate in racing & allowed our license to expire some years ago.
Watch a video of the horror? Yeah, no thanks. Got enough nightmare material just by reading the account of an actual witness who reported LAUGHTER by those around her as poor WA Horse-of-the-Year Baja Sur crashed and floundered before them.
Great sport you got there, racing creeps.
What?! Do you mean people in the stands are laughing that a racehorse fell on the track during a race?
It’ s true and they also lament if that horse was one they put their measly money on how much they lose. AND also there have been those who start cheering if the poor downed horse was winning over their choice. Sickening but absolutely true
Sorry to say but HorseRacingNation is reporting him deceased
I was there and everyone of us were crying and devastated. We were praying for the horse and jockey. If people were laughing it wasn’t around us. We were in shock. We were right on track level and saw it happen.
Cold, hard truth, Margie: If you were there, you helped make it possible.
I trained horses for over 25 years even rivals respect each other, riders and horses. What you are spreading is lies try going and working on a race track where you work 14 hours a day 7 days a week and where the horses get fed before you do. The one horse I had break her leg was a 3 year old never ran in the pasture so don’t talk crap you know nothing about. You might as well talk about being on the moon
Barbara Bengue: Horses are not rivals to each other in the same way that human beings in HORSERACING make them out to be. If you truly trained horses, you would be using bitless bridles (no tongue ties!!!) and you would not be forcing them to be confined to stalls 23 hours a day for starters. Forcing horses to run at top speed when they are not fully developed and matured is NOT HORSEMANSHIP, IT IS ABUSE!!!! To a person who practices and understands the concept of true horsemanship, forcing immature colts and fillies to run carrying weight is stupid. The possibility of injuries to horses by forcing them to gallop FAST carrying weight is obvious and obviously stupid AF.
Yet another “racing insider” with years on the track who claims they only had one horse in all those years break a leg and it wasn’t on the track. Oh, sure, completely believable. And so your horses eat before you do – you still keep them for hours in forced confinement, still put severe strain on developing young bodies, and are still involved in an industry that is responsible for the maiming and deaths of THOUSANDS of horses. Don’t expect the Owner of the Year Award here.
Feeding horses before you feed yourself has nothing to do with the everyday abuse, brutalization, cruelty and killing that happens every day in HORSERACING. At many racetracks, there is an average of two to three horses killed at the racetrack where the horses are brutalized by licensed trainers. Trainer is a “respectful” term for someone who forces young colts and fillies to gallop FAST carrying weight and all the brutalization and cruelty that goes with it. Everyone in this business/industry is responsible for the brutalization and killings of horses. Is that something to be proud of? If you are a psychopathic, sociopathic, sadistic, money-grubbing, horse-abusing, horse-killing DEGENERATE human that, oh, by the way, feeds your horses before you feed yourself, you are not right in the head. HORSERACING is one of many bloodsports. In sports, there is usually someone who wins a prize and sometimes a trophy. If you want recognition for killing animals, you can get a hunting license and shoot a farm fed deer or pay thousands of dollars to shoot a wild animal in Africa. Go get yourself a Boone and Crockett Trophy and take pictures of yourself with your trophy kill. Or, “train” hot-blooded horses to submit to being abused 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Barbara Benge, what does YOUR working 14 hours/day, 7 days/week and eating your breakfast after feeding your isolated and confined equine slaves have to do with exploiting, crippling and killing sentient beings? So because YOU chose to work your a** off in an industry that forces horses to participate in a high risk activity, having their very lives risked, that gives you and your fellow employees a free pass to exploit them? You made a bad choice, you poor thing…but you’re alive to complain about it.
Hey, BTW, I did work on the backside for nearly 10 LONG years…every weekend for the entire 6-month-long meet – loading crippled racehorses into my trailer to take them for veterinary treatment that those self-sacrificing trainers neglected to do.
Don’t like your long hours and not getting breakfast on time? – then get the hell out. No one is forcing your employment there…unlike the horses.
Regarding Barbara Bengue: This idea that you know all about horses because you have a job working with them; that if somebody else tells you that you’re abusing them, that “they don’t know what they’re talking about because they don’t have their own horses” and the same attitude/mindset with people who own and abuse dogs. It is such a tragedy for the horses (and dogs) to be born into a situation where they have to be owned and “trained” by narcissistic sociopaths.
It’s so ridiculous that these race horse owners assume we’re all ignorant about horses because we call them out on their abuse. I’ve owned horses for over twenty years which I believe more than qualifies me to recognize the blatant cruelty and abuse in the racing industry.
This type of tragic horror might not be happening every race day in Auburn, Washington (Emerald Downs), but it is most likely happening somewhere everyday, and for certain every week in the dark world of horseracing!
Thank you, Margie, for attempting to deny what we all know is racing’s biggest public relations problem: there will ALWAYS be those “fans” who profit and win from breakdowns, and are open about their serendipitous good fortune each time they occur. Always. You may not have heard the laughter that the other witness reported, but I assure you, there was also some outright CELEBRATION of Baja Sur’s tortuous fall.
One horse goes down, a bunch of grizzled old die-hards make money. It’s just the nature of the anti-sport you seem to enjoy so much. And everyone in the biz knows they have to scramble to cover-up and deny that such overt joy takes place at these daily tragedies. But they can’t. Just too darn much glee going on at the window as bettors go and cash in those tickets that paid off BECAUSE a horse crashed to the ground.
So, again: thank you for doing your industry duty and denying the obvious. But I think I’ll stick with believing the true accounts of how events and reactions unfolded.
You may have been “crying and devastated”, but a non-consenting sentient being DIED a horrible death just so you and others like you could be entertained for an afternoon. I hope you got your money’s worth.
I was there too. It happened right in front of us. We both cried and are still upset. We Saw how upset the jockey was too. I doubt we will go back now.
You saw a living sentient being suffer a horrific, agonizing injury in front of you and you “doubt” you will go back?! You people are beyond disgusting! You think a few tears is going to justify your support of an industry that maims and kills THOUSANDS of horses exactly like that every year? You think that you “feeling upset” means anything to that horse writhing in the dirt for your afternoon’s entertainment?
And don’t even talk about the whip wielding creep whose job it was to beat that horse across the finish line. He was only upset that he wouldn’t get his share of the purse.
I make no apologies for the anger in this post. How any person with any sort of conscience or moral compass cannot be completely disgusted and turned off by witnessing what these people just have is beyond my comprehension.
Well said, Rebecca! The jockeys know that they are there to do whatever it takes to get the horse to gallop as fast as he or she possibly can run even when that means the horse could suffer, not only from the pain of the whipping but also, a catastrophic breakdown that translates to certain death for the horse. It is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE to see the logical conclusion of what the abuse the horses are subject to everyday will do to the horses. Money is the god of HORSERACING. Horses are TOOLS used by degenerate human beings unscrupulously exploiting horses for gambling bets.
There wasn’t widespread laughter, just a couple of degenerates joking on the rail.
Please review the video of ArmsRunner and LaSardane falling during their race. Then tell us how sad the jockeys were when ArmsRunner leg was dangling and he was looking for solace. They really lost alot of sleep,didn’t they?
I was there to see Baja Sur fall last Sunday, July 11 at Emerald Downs. It was truly a gruesome and unrecoverable injury. I never heard anyone laughing. It was silent where I was. But having seen horses suffer fatal spills over the years that you never forget (like Kimmy Vee), I’ve come to realize by the comments of surrounding spectators, that many of them don’t actually realize the severity of the accidents. They assume that the horse is vanned off in a “horse ambulance” to be treated by the vet. No one who has frequented race tracks over the years ever forget the tragic accidents they’ve seen. We left after that. Rest in Peace beautfil Baja Sur.
Jan Ahlgren:
1) Will you ever be able to unsee the gruesome and unrecoverable injury and fall?
2) Do you support this UNACCEPTABLE ABUSE of horses like BAJA SUR by placing bets on horses at the races?
You say that no one who frequents race tracks ever forgets the tragic accidents they’ve seen, but somehow their moral compass is so out of whack that they continue to go back. The fact that you can continue to endorse and support with your attendance the very archaic venues killing horses so horrifically every day makes a complete mockery of any hollow words of regret. May I ask how many horses have to die in front of you for an afternoon of “entertainment” before you stop going back?
Weird how everybody there that day seems to be “reporting” what they saw and heard when poor Baja Sur crashed to the ground. But no one’s mentioned the all-important outcome of the race. Did all you racing fans-turned-HW commenters keep cheering on the remaining runners? After all, it was a stakes race for some cash, and most of you probably stood to either lose or win some of that sweet blood money from its outcome. We all know the show must go on, after all. There could be two mangled horses down on the track — and two paralyzed-or-worse riders underneath them. But the survivors MUST finish the race. It’s literally the only “sport” in which there’s no time-out. No taking a knee. No calling for a break out of respect for a KILLED human being.
Doesn’t matter if it’s their brother, father, child or best friend lying dead on the field of play, does it? The surviving jockeys will always finish their ride.
Is it because their “fans” wouldn’t accept them quitting the race, even under life-or-death circumstances? Really. I’d love to hear from some of you about it.
Those jockeys beating the horses with their whips (for “safety” of course) are real “troopers” and as everyone knows, the show must go on. There is too much money involved to stop the ongoing, routine killing of racehorses and the occasional death of a JOCKEY. On one occasion, I read that they delayed racing for one day in order to observe the funeral rites of a fallen “trooper” jockey. It’s barbaric no matter how you look at it.