The Carnage Continues: Another Baby Killed at Saratoga

Saratoga, this morning: “Fifth Avenue Red pulled up after breezing, vanned off with LF leg injury – euthanized.” Fifth Avenue was two years old and coming off his first race.

In a June 2020 statement, the New York Racing Association relayed the following: “The safety and welfare of horses…competing at NYRA tracks is our highest priority. That is why NYRA is committed to providing the safest possible environment for racing and training by adopting and implementing the best proven safety practices in consultation with independent experts, veterinarians, horsemen and regulators.”

In November, the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association boasted: “Working together with NYRA and the Gaming Commission, our trainers and NYTHA have created a [safety] standard that we feel should be emulated across the country.”

“Best proven safety practices”? “A standard that should be emulated across the country”? Fifth Avenue is the 62nd racehorse to perish at a NYS track this year (63rd if we include the “pony horse,” and former racehorse, Trucking Baron). Belmont leads with 30; Saratoga, which averages 15 per summer, and still with weeks to go, now stands at seven. They lie, folks, because they have to. Horseracing kills horses. Period.

The Saratoga Carnage (in progress)

Mister Bobby, May 13, training – “collapsed and died”
Strong Moment, Jul 16, racing – “catastrophic injury…euthanized on the course”
Pleasure Luck, Jul 18, racing (euthanized Jul 19) – “took a bad step”
Fattoria, Jul 19, training – “pelvic injury necessitating euthanasia”
Fiya, Jul 31, training – “injury to RH leg…euthanized”
Butter Lou, Aug 5, racing – “injured, vanned off, euthanized”
Fifth Avenue Red, Aug 7, training – “pulled up, vanned off, euthanized”

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11 Comments

  1. The New York Racing Association’s public relations statement about “best proven safety practices in consultation with independent experts, veterinarians, horsemen and regulators” is a legal disclaimer and nothing more. How many attorneys were paid to come up with this swill…??? It is so generic, non-specific and self-serving to the racing and Pari-Mutuel WAGERING HANDLE REVENUE & PROFITS industry. Protecting the horses is obviously secondary to protecting their greedy, money-grubbing, horse-abusing, horse-killing, DEGENERATE business of EXPLOITING horses for a potential HUGE PILE OF MONEY!

  2. I absolutely CANNOT believe those california idiots are forcing those horses to run in that unfit for life air quality. Not to even mention they have run dry of water!!!!!!!!!!

  3. The ONLY thing that New York tracks do that “should be emulated across the country” is publicly report their kills as they happen. Then again, I’m fairly confident that every single racing creep in NY fervently wishes that they COULD revert back to the anonymity all the other racing jurisdictions enjoy: “What’s the point of breaking down babies if the public learns how and why we do it all the time?”

  4. I don’t know about you guys,but I can’t get that pretty face of that baby filly Pleasure Luck out of my mind.What a senseless waste of life. For What?

  5. FIFTH AVENUE RED (FAR) yet another victim of multiple racehorse killer Ken McPeek who was just interviewed on the pro-horse racing site Paulick News espousing the virtues of horse racing.
    Of course we can’t see the vet treatment records of FAR, which probably shows a racehorse in distress long before he died.
    EXTREME HEAT all over North American.
    Yet, these tracks, under horrendous weather conditions that are unfit for any animal to exert extreme physical demands, made a decision to continue the suffering.
    Again, worth a mention is the EXTREME drought in California and many other states where there’s horse racing.
    While millions of households all over America are being asked to LIMIT their water intake (and it’s only going to get worse with Climate Change) horse racing continues to use hundreds of thousands of gallons of precious water resources to moisten their unsafe track surfaces plus shower thousands of racehorses.
    Then there’s the methane gas emissions from thousands of racehorses intensely confined each one crapping about 10 times per day really contributes to our climate crisis.
    In Florida, a study showed that they were storing racehorse manure (at the behest of the former Stronach Group) in stacks because they had to put it somewhere right?
    Well those stacks emitted thousands of pounds of waste into Florida’s water systems resulting in huge algae blooms that have now destroyed much of their water supply with no fines for such deliberate pollution.
    Horse racing is an antiquated business model that has no revere for anything, not even the racehorses who generate billions in profit and it has got to go!

    • The drought in California is in the EXCEPTIONAL category as far as I know; 1) Moderate, 2) Severe, 3) Extreme, 4) Exceptional. There could be different areas of the state that could be in the Extreme category, but this year (2021) is the worst drought in 1,200 years according to the national news reports. The Bureau of Land Management is rounding up Mustangs in Colorado and I think some other states. I have this putrid feeling that the killbuyers won’t have enough trucks to haul all of the so-called unwanted horses. The price of hay will be out of reach for some people that have horses now due to the shortage caused by the drought. One cutting as opposed to three cuttings from a hay field is an obvious shortage. The wildfire season rages on.

  6. Gina, there.s a sales video of FAR on Fasig-Tiptons site, a sale where he sold for $90,000.
    The poor babe looked so depressed, and he had a gum chain on for the showing. He had no bounce in his step, no prancing or rearing or bucking. WHY would a baby need a gum chain?! That’s pathetic. He was already being tortured as a ONE year old.

    • Isn’t it possible that they also injected FIFTH AVENUE RED with whatever drug for the Fasig-Tipton sale, “a drug of choice” in the industry? It could be some tranquilizer or something else disgusting.

  7. Fifth Avenue Red: No chance to live “the good life”, let alone “a” life! Tortured and then killed in his short life. RIP We need to relentlessly contact our elected state legislators.

  8. Outlaw horse racing it kills horses all the time. A bunch of money-grubbing rich people hope they all burn in hell

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