The following horses were recent “scratches” from their scheduled starts at the Alameda County Fair:
7/9 MIDNIGHT SUNRISE Sick
7/9 LINFIELD Sick
7/10 SCORCHED Injured
7/10 STRUT TO THE WIRE Unsound
7/11 EMPRESSIVE CAT Sick
7/11 MISTER MOJO Unsound
7/11 TRASH TALKIN CAT Unsound
7/11 MANY ROSES Sick
7/11 AUTISMS WORLD Sick
Added to the 32 previously reported, this makes 41 horses unable to race at this California track due to sickness or injury, over the course of just nine days.
Then there’s this: On both July 9 and July 10, the stewards say, “the temperature hovered around 106 degrees.” 106 degrees. And how did the stewards proceed? Well, for the jockeys, quite magnanimously: “Jockeys Irving Orozco and Assael Espinoza got dehydrated during the day and begged off their last mounts. Both were replaced by Kevin Orozco.” For the other “athletes” (the horses, that is), not so much. For them, it was grin and bear it, boys, there’s money to be made. Vile.
This is an outrage!!!! The record breaking drought, the unbearable triple-digit record-breaking heat, the wildfires, the wildfire smoke at times overwhelming and unbearable, the Air Quality Index in the Unhealthy For Sensitive Groups and Unhealthy range are all real things in so many Western states. The powers-that-be allow this Animal Cruelty to carry on as business as usual. This is outrageously unacceptable and unscrupulous!!!!!
What is wrong with people???!!!!
This is so demented times a thousand. As if this Animal Cruelty wasn’t bad enough in good weather…
What kind of “sick” are the horses that are scratched? Do they have respiratory illness such as pneumonia???
The people who inflict this heinous cruelty on horses are demented and DEGENERATE. They need to be locked up in a small space for a long, long time!!!!
It is shocking to me that horses receive so little in the way of protection from these rackets. The U.S. is now third world.
There are no rules to protect horses and there never will be. As long as there is racing the cruelty and killing will continue with impunity.
Obviously, existing animal cruelty laws do not apply to racing..
In general, cruelty laws are inadequate and poorly enforced , anyway.. Where I live I have witnessed horses starved to death without even a “wrist slap” to the perpetrators and dogfighting is given the blind eye!!!
Further, horses are sold to Puerto Rico and are still being shipped as containerized freight on cargo ships even though 8 thoroughbreds suffocated to death in one such container last yr.. At that time it was reported horses were not shipped during the hot months.
That was a brazen lie because there was a shipment (the one we know of!!) on 27 June.
We know this because Pitufina, a 3 yr. old KY Bred was shipped on 27 June via freight container to PR 2 days after her last race at Gulfstream . The owner, Denise Lammers , sold Pitufina knowing she was being dumped into a freight container….
I guess horses are just freight/cargo to these people!!!
Third world, indeed!!
PS Of course, the reason for shipping via these freight containers is to save money!!
I guess it is up to the buyers in Puerto Rico of Thoroughbred racehorses from the United States whether or not they would like to receive the horses they buy alive or dead. The risk of shipping by air is less inhumane and less time spent in transit than by sea.
“I guess it is up to the buyers in Puerto
Rico . . .whether or not they would like to receive the horses they buy alive or dead”
That sounds a little cavalier and a lot debatable.!!
I was thinking about the article I read. Even though racing itself is horribly abusive and barbaric to horses and therefore unacceptable, I would think that the buyers in Puerto Rico would at least want the horses they buy from the United States owners to be alive upon delivery in Puerto Rico. There was a lawsuit (as you know, Rose). There was a certain man that claimed he would never allow horses bought from the United States to be shipped by sea ever again.
I apologize for sounding cavalier. I feel powerless to stop the INHUMANE treatment of horses. It’s disgusting and depressing what the people who are engaging in the industry of exploiting horses do with and to the horses and, as you always say, with impunity.
The fact that these horses were sent out sick and injured to race is another middle finger to the rhetoric that they are loved like children and treated like royalty. And if even the unscrupulous track gets had to scratch them, they must have been in obvious distress that even the morally blind fans would recognize.
On any given day, the great majority of racehorses are close to dehydration prior to entering the gates.
It is vile indeed that the racing industry forces horses to gallop at breakneck speed in this shocking heat.
And at the same time the horses are being mercilessly whipped.
For far too many times, I’ve been on track and witnessed the terrible distress and pain racehorses suffer from heat stress, most are close to collapsing and dying and some do in fact die.
Pleasanton (Un-)Fair folks think they’re sneaking one by the relevant “authorities” by not submitting weather/temperature data to Equibase for their death track. Same with Arizona Downs, by the way. They’re both conveniently incapable of learning how to operate a thermometer. Yet, they’re also both granted a limited number of race days by the aforementioned “authorities,” who don’t want to hear them bitch about UNFAIRNESS in race day allocations.
So they will abuse these animals to death in sweltering heat, because the worst thing that could happen to racing creeps is to have to cancel the card (not the horror show of collapsing, heat-stressed animals they just HAD to run throughout the summer.)
They also still have listed Portland Meadows which has been redeveloped >2 years ago! Makes you wonder how accurate the rest of their info is!
Del Mar opened Friday, on Sunday Contagion was injured and vanned off, trained by Peter Miller, in a 1 1/2 mile turf race.
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