By now, most of you have heard that the necropsy found no conclusive cause in the sudden death of Medina Spirit. No surprise here, as I see this time and again in necropsy reports from around the country. Nor, of course, was it a surprise that the pubescent Medina just keeled over and died in the first place: By the time I’m done with my FOIAs, I’ll have over a hundred such deaths nationwide last year.
Bottom line, these “sudden deaths,” “cardiac events,” “cardiovascular collapses,” or whatever they want to call them are, like “catastrophic limb fractures,” a function of the system itself. By that I mean, you take horses bred for one purpose (speed), thrust them into intensive training/racing long before their bodies, including internal organs, are fully mature, and force them to do an unnatural thing (run at a breakneck rate) and you are practically inviting calamity.
One more thing. Reacting to the report, Clark Brewster, Bob Baffert’s lawyer, said, “It appears that [Medina’s] tragic death was an act of God and was not preventable.” Just when you think there’s a floor to their depravity…
No sir, no floor. Just sick and delusional animal abusers.
The lab that does the necropsies is under the control of the people who control the race tracks. It certainly was that way in the 1990’s and before that. People have died, one way or another, but it’s all still the same.
Not true.
Alan, are you saying there is no corruption in the California Horse Racing Board, the wonderful clear-thinking, license-suspended Dr. Jeff Blea, and all of the rest of the powers-that-be stakeholders in the State of California? What is not true?
I’m saying that the CHRB doesn’t do necropsies. They contract with the UC-Davis veterinary pathology lab. The necropsies are performed by the same faculty that does all necropsies. This is the faculty of the most respected veterinary school in the US, they aren’t falsifying results (the suggestion made) and risking their careers. I’m not at all surprised that no definitive cause of death was found, it usually isn’t.
So no cause of death can be found in a necropsy when the horse is doped with certain types of drugs and then ran to death?
No. Unless the drug was the immediate cause of death and there are measurable levels in the tissues they won’t find anything. They are looking for a medically conclusive cause of death which is often not found. Trauma, genetic defect, or signs of fatal disease are apparent, a lot of things are not.
Alan, such as a cardiac arrest brought on by a disturbance in myocardial conductivity because of imbalanced electrolytes, correct?
Exactly the kind of thing they can’t find Joy. Unless they did an electrolyte panel before the horse died they won’t find it in a young horse.
Absolutely right, Alan.
Was there a doubt?Really???
Speaking of depravity, I believe the worst-of-the-worst award for Most Disingenuous Reaction, once again, goes to CHRB Executive Director Scott Chaney. He was so weirdly giddy throughout most of the so-called Press Teleconference about the results — results that no one at all expected, ha ha. Such a manically-jolly so-called regulator he was! At one point, when the panel gave the correct (canned, rehearsed) response to his own (canned, rehearsed) question of whether these sudden deaths happen to just racehorses, or to all breeds and disciplines of equines, his reply was actually, “Great!”
Thanks, Kelly. Everyone should know that the California Horse Racing Board consists of a group of Equicidal Experts and Equicidal Maniacs.
If it were up to me, I would give them the Prison Orange Jumpsuit Award and the 23-hour-a-day-lock-up Award to go with it. They deserve it!
I also read somewhere the horse has been cremated so there is no chance of a review. All tidied up.
Clark Brewster owns racehorses, and he’s a lawyer for one of the worst and most high-profile dopers of racehorses that we know of in the whole horse racing industry.
What a mockery of justice! There is no justice here in this depraved gambling racket!
How much money is involved in this scandalous miscarriage of justice?????!!!!!!!
If God had been involved, I think it is safe to say that it would have been the breeder, trainer, and Jockey who went down, not the horse.
So by saying that Medina Spirit’s necropsy was “inconclusive” it still doesn’t exonerate horse racing from what they do best: kill racehorses.
Nowhere during this industry insider investigation does it ever mention an equine insurance policy.
Sadly, Medina Spirit is one of many who are all victims of this vile business.
The only floors in horse racing are the killing floors on their tracks and inside the slaughterhouse hell holes where many racehorses succumb just as Medina Spirit did.
Horse racing will meet its demise because the younger generation wants nothing to do with it and there are simply not enough younger people going into horse racing to replace their aging demographics.
Finally, our elected politicians are starting to acknowledge that the subsidies will end or get greatly reduced and when this happens the majority of tracks will shutter.
Horse racing will meet its demise and it can’t come soon enough for the racehorses.
I still believe allot of these “sudden deaths” are truly related to Lasix and/or lack of water. Whether Lasix can or cannot be used on race day is irrelevant. The horses are routinely given Lasix and water withheld. Dehydration and/or low potassium can kill you, cause heart attacks, muscle cramps, causes limbs to freeze up etc. The causes are starring them right in the face but no one is looking at that. What is wrong with you people? They think it is a wonder drug. Someone needs to test the theory if you don’t believe me. One week with no Lasix and how ever much water they want. Keep an eye on the blood levels/potassium each day. Then do a week with Lasix and withholding water and check out the blood levels/potassium levels. If there is no difference I will shut up and “eat crow”.
They kept inbreeding them and overbreeding them to make their legs skinnier and skinnier with bodies that kept getting bigger and more muscular. The scum in this industry did this.
According to a certain source of information, the breeding farm people give the Thoroughbred foals steroid injections to make them grow larger and more muscular in the United States. Allegedly the breeders in France don’t do that.
More chance than not, using steroids will make them sterile.
“No cigar for CIGAR” because he was sterile after his successful racing career of 16 consecutive wins. The article way back when said that the insurance company paid $25 Million for CIGAR. He was alive.
From the article “N.Y. lab losing battle of doping in horse racing’s ‘cat and mouse game’”…
“The EPO molecule becomes undetectable to current testing in a horse’s body within hours or minutes, depending on the quantity” – Kenneth McKeever, professor of animal science at Rutgers University.
“The New York Equine Drug Testing Lab (widely respected as one of the most advanced in the U.S.) and most similar facilities across the U.S. can only test for three varieties of EPO, while scientific literature cites 82 kinds of EPO worldwide.”
Bob Baffert is a murderer, an abuser and a cheater. I have no doubt in my mind that he killed Medina Spirit. There are ways to kill horses that are undetectable by autopsies. That this sick and greedy individual should still be allowed to care for animals is the biggest indictment of the “sport” or horseracing.
THANK-YOU AND AMEN TO THAT.
Your comment is right on and I think that most people feel the same as you do, but don’t express it as well.
There are lots of racehorses who died under the custody of multiple doping violator Sir Baffert.
Some under circumstances that seem to indicate an equine insurance policy was involved.
For example, WHATASONG the champion baby filly who suffered for HOURS with multiple fractures ion the track and he refused to permit them to humanely euthanize her despite the pleas from the vets.
Instead they vanned her back to her stall where she continued to suffer for almost 4 hours while Baffert was on the phone to the insurance company to make sure they would pay out the reportedly 1.9 million (her 2 y.o in training sales price) and it was confirmed paid out by the late Bob Lewis although he didn’t disclose the sum which could have been more than the purchase price.
Then there are 7 racehorses dead because, it was concluded, he was giving THYROXIN to all the horses without a diagnosis that required such medication which left the only reason: PED use.
I have of countless racehorses that have started for Baffert over the years, didn’t perform or show any kind of stake level talent, and then disappeared off the radar instead of being dumped into claiming which is the usual route they go.
Of course having racehorses represent him in claiming reduces and diminishes his star status as well as stats.
Wonder where they all went?
Gina, you make an interesting point about his “star status.” I know he’s a barbaric buffoon, but a rich one. I read that he and his people had a week-long party after MEDINA SPIRIT “won” the Kentucky Derby. Baffert belongs in prison as far as I am concerned and so do all of his cohorts that support him and enable him.
None of these trainers,owners care about these beautiful animals. The callous,evil,psychotic natures of the type of people in this sick twisted racket is frankly depressing. They have done evil things to animals. How can they look themselves in the eye?
I agree totally with Wanda Diamond. These people who are responsible for all the abuse and cruelty to the horses should be prosecuted by the full extent of the law and put in jail.