3-year-old Flyover State “suffered a fatal injury” in the 3rd at Charles Town last night. Follows is what that looked like. As an aside, I challenge anyone connected to this vile industry – Todd Pletcher, Ray Paulick, James Gagliano, Jeff Blea, Patrick McKenna, Barry Irwin, the “horseplayers,” the “prayers and condolences” crowd, anyone at all – to justify/defend just this one kill, let alone the over 2,000 that happen every year.
They can’t, Patrick – unless they want to offer the idiotic and heartless “defense” industry employee Donna Brothers replied to me with (regarding another horse dying while racing); “We will all die one day. Let’s hope we’re all lucky enough to die doing something we love.”
Right, Brothers – such wonderful luck for those horses that are injured and killed while racing…they should ALL be so lucky! Dear God…
Especially an incredibly traumatic and horrific death like this! Sure looked like he loved this happening to him, and he had so much enjoyment from his body twisting, breaking, and being run over huh, Donna?? You creepy hag.
A lot of “moral relativism” in the horse (racing) killing sport.
Not only is there no justification for any racehorse killed on a racetrack, there certainly isn’t any for our politicians to keep giving them hundreds of millions of dollars while their state coffers are bankrupt.
Charlestown Racetrack is no different than any other track in any other state that has been getting millions for at least 15 years to keep them going and these subsidies need to END right now.
They couldn’t justify the money then, by intentionally perpetrating myths and lies to local residents, and they can’t justify them now.
End the subsidies so that this vile morally bankrupt business and unnecessary gambling venue will END.
It is a miracle orange cap didn’t go down also.
This hideous kill of a racehorse is egregious horse abuse! This is a deliberate causing of a catastrophic and life-ending breakdown on a racetrack.
Anyone that believes this is okay IS DEFINITELY NOT OKAY IN THE HEAD!!!!
The people that say this is okay should just go play Russian roulette amongst themselves and leave the horses out of it!!!!
As a former professional rainer of horses, for dressage, for people just wanting to ride through the forest, just for the average crowd in love with horses, I can’t say I have brought any horse, ever, in such danger that it would break its neck while in a jump or just trotting or traversing…….. This sport in the uS, its not a sport its just gambling for money and the horses life hat hasn’t a choice..
The trainer and owners are vile, the betting crowd is vile and those watching are vile…. without all of them these horses would live a normal life, if they would live at all then even breeding them is part of the show…
IIt has to stop. Watching the footage brought tears to my eyes and I am not a pussy, I am a 58 years old male with empathy.
I’m starting to think everybody in this whole business WANTS it to finally be abolished. How else to explain the ghastly headlines, the very-public SIX-times-a-day U.S. horse killings, the ongoing defection of “fans,” who used to claim to LOVE the game?
I mean, what else ya got for us, racing creeps?
This week alone, we got the not-at-all-suspicious sudden death of the freaking DERBY WINNER at the ripe old age of THREE — triple-compounded by his “trainer,” the smarmiest character in an industry positively saturated with smarmy characters; at none other than the world (in)famous Santa Anita Death Track, owned by the embattled Canadian billionaires, the Stronachs, whose Crisis Management “team” spends more time dodging dead-horse-queries than they do putting on actual races; following the SADT’s so-called regulators’ (the highly credible, super-transparent CHRB) grand pronouncement that they’d recently REDUCED racehorse fatalities by 50%(!), with the implementation of all their wildly successful, super-safe, life-saving Safety Measures.
Thus, MOST of the industry’s remaining apologists have divided themselves into one of two camps:
1. “It’s Baffert’s fault, and if we just get rid of him, we’ll have a fun, healthy sport.”
2. “Baffert is a godsend for our game, and if we get rid of him, it’s goodbye to the rest of us.”
Both sides are dead wrong. Because killing horses for sport is wrong. And, by way of evidence, I offer all of this week’s (and next week’s, and the following week’s…) equine fatalities that were NOT connected to SlimeBob. With or without him, the killing machine that is U.S. horse racing will continue to crank out the carnage until we stop them. It’s what they do.
Conversely, we’ll keep doing what WE do: working to shut down their sick, archaic, horse-killing blood sport.
And we will succeed.
Kelly, can not come soon enough.
Absolutely, Kelly. Absolutely.
Yes I believe we will succeed. I am praying it happens soon. The time is now. More and more people are getting the real truth.
Killing animals for GAMBLING is not Acceptable! Abuse and cruelty are not Acceptable!
End HORSERACING NOW.
EXACTLY, Kelly. On all points.
How incredibly pathetic was the caller counting horses by number to see what # was missing from the pack. And then determine it was #6 who was the naughty horse who lost the rider. ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC
Nancy, I didn’t hear that much dialogue from the track announcer. He was still trying to figure out which horse went down and then it cuts off on the second video above. It was unexpected that the track announcer was having so much difficulty trying to figure out the name/number of the horse that went down. Usually they pretend like it didn’t happen though. I noticed the jockey was not moving either, even though the jockey had a choice and the horse did not!
If you ask me, I think that if a horse goes down, the jockey should be put to death right alongside the horse he was on!!!! That will stop this shit real quick!!
I have no words. And tell me how an announcer following the horses all the way around the track automatically forgets the horses name soon as he goes down. Horse did not unseat his rider but was rode to death at breakneck speed while being beat around the track . End this travesty and unfund this abuse of horses.
I have said this before ..but, I absolutely cannot look at the pictures of the newborn thoroughbred foals,because I cry and say to myself ..”you poor dear sap , you don’t know it but, you’re in for a horrific life”.😭😭😭
Horse Racing Must BE BANNED and Race TRACKS CLOSED DOWN !!!!!!
Agreed!!!
I can’t watch these videos – kudos to those who can. It’s always my own baby I see, and I just can’t make myself see the nightmare.
Absolutely horrific but of course, the racing fraternity will say ‘oh we love our horses, our horses LOVE to race’ but never mind, when they’re killed we can still collect our insurance money…..
This needless abuse and carnage needs to stop! There should be tighter restrictions on horse racing to protect these gentle spirits.
I can’t watch it, especially knowing he was run over; I don’t need that staying with me. It hasn’t even made the news anywhere yet, or even social media, that I can tell, which really says a lot about what spectators in this sport find noteworthy. Waiting for an official statement to see what track officials make of this.
“Funny” story: Just had an OTTB get into our barn, and he is Nuts with a capital N. Pretty much lives in a constant state of anxiety, can’t handle stress, flinches at normal movements near his head, the usual. I guessed he was an OTTB just watching him. They’re bred to be high-strung, they’re put into high-pressure, anxiety-inducing work at a very young age, and too often their handlers have no patience with their coping mechanisms. They might enjoy the running part of their “job” (until they start getting whipped for slowing down… trackside, the CRACK-CRACK-CRACK of whips is more pronounced than the sound of them galloping by), but I can guarantee that most of them do NOT love their lives. No horse that loves its life reacts the way most OTTBs behave when put under stress – with profound anxiety or outright fear.
tl;dr – Donna Brothers is full of it.
Lily, I think the trainers that have these horses that are so nervous all of the time give them tranquilizers to calm them down at least temporarily. It’s incredibly sad that anyone would be okay with causing such suffering to horses by SUBJECTING them to racing.
We can only imagine what else they are subjected to behind closed doors.
All of it causing ulcers and pain. It is not a normal life for a horse.
All this misery, just for gambling!
Absolutely heart wrenching. This so called sport needs to end once and for all. It’s cruel to do this to these majestic icons
Multi-billion dollar industry. For as long as people go spend money and bet, this will continue. It’s horrible. None of these horses had a choice, ever how to live or how to die. Slaves. Considering horses can live up to 30 years, dying at 2 or max 7 is horrific. Doping, forcing them to run with injuries, pushing their bodies past what it can do, breaking them then chopping for horse meat at best is just criminal. And yet, so many go, dress up in fancy hats, bet money and party then go home and talk about how terrible other countries are for eating dogs or other animals out of desperation…all white supporting inhuman breeding of cows, pigs and other animals….We should all be ashamed of ourselves.
Do we know how many of these catastrophic deaths are drug related? Are the necropsy reports transparent in documenting the entire medical history of the horses that die in USA? Trainers must be held legally accountable for the deaths of their horses where it can be proven there was negligence. Prof. Chris Whitton from Melbourne University in Australia has done hundreds if not thousands of necropsies and he says all limb fracture deaths are preventable. Every one is a failure.
Drugs in racing is largely a red herring, Sandra. From breeding for speed, to employing pubescent bodies, to the incessant grinding – not to mention commodification – of those bodies, to forcing them to run at an unnatural rate, in an unnatural way, and through unnatural means, horseracing guarantees killing. Guarantees. That’s not to say the industry can’t take steps to prevent some deaths, but as a general principle, killing is built into the system.
I’ve heard some ridiculous statements from the racing industry and supporters but Brothers’ statement is jaw dropping! The woman is a bad joke.
Yes, every horse lying in the dirt is very lucky to be beaten until their bones snap and splinter because they are about to die doing what they love!!