Reported today by the NYS Gaming Commission:
Dazzle Time “was euthanized last night [Thursday] for inoperable colic.” He was three years old and had been raced six times.
Pepe’s Pride “sustained an injury – humeral fracture – on the Belmont training track” Tuesday, and was euthanized. He was two years old and coming off his first race.
Also: The Commission recently added Cara’s Daydreamer to the dead-list. Cara’s, you might remember, was “injured after the wire and vanned off” in the 1st at Aqueduct way back on January 8. She, too, was just two years old.
This, every day, is horseracing.
So let’s see: we now have two confirmed racing deaths from Aqueduct’s Three-Van-Off Day on Jan.8th — Obsessed and Cara’s Daydreamer. Kinda makes me wonder whether the THIRD injured/vanned victim, a 3-year-old claimer gelding named Mr. Briggs, is, um, still alive. I suppose we could ask his loving connections for an update on his “recovery.” But then again, can we really expect a truthful answer from an ownership group with a name so utterly arrogant and tone-deaf as “America’s Pastime Stables”? I think not.
Oh, and as for the training death of Pepe’s Pride, the NY Gaming Commission should just start abbreviating their notations to something short and sweet like, “Trainer name: Rudy Rodriguez. Cause of death: Rudy Rodriguez.”
Horses get inoperable colic whether or not they race or stand in a paddock munching grass all day. It has nothing to do with racing and everything to do with the species having a long, twisty gut while being herbivores.
I’ve been reading all of the things you folks think are “horseracing wrongs”, and they basically seen to come down to the existence of horses on the planet.
I have known people with pasture pals who were seldom ridden but who developed laminitis (a hoof inflammation mostly caused by overeating), colic, injuries, who slipped on the ice and broke a leg, who like Zenyatta’s foal Princess Z was skipping merrily through a field with her friends, stepped in a hole and tumbled, breaking her back. Yes horses are injured and die while racing, but it is a lot fewer than alleged, because people do own and yes, love these animals, besides spending a fortune on them. None want to see them die.
BTW, if you do gooders want to do some good, do what I did and adopt an OTTB from a kill pen. Stop horse slaughter! If that’s too much work or money, at least call and find out what happened to all those elephants you insisted on removing from the circus.
Two quick replies, because, frankly, you do not deserve more of my time. First, here is our yet unfinished list for 2021 – not “alleged,” confirmed. Scroll through, and then come back and explain how you, a racing apologist, sleep at night. Second, the notion that we, the “do gooders,” should be made responsible for saving the thousands of racing’s castoffs who are bled-out and butchered each year is, in a word, obscene. And finally, that you would rather the majestic and supremely intelligent elephants go back to a life of wicked enslavement in the circus tells us all we need to know about one Jennifer Wilson. Go peddle your garbage on the Paulick Report.
Racing is not an accident. Racing is deliberate. You should know that racing is deliberate by common logic. If you truly cared about horses, you would not think it is okay to exploit them as gambling chips. So, Jennifer A. Wilson, do you think it’s okay to lock horses up in stalls 23 hours a day? Do you really believe that it’s okay to force young, immature two-year-olds to be confined to stalls 23-hours-a-day and forced to carry a whip-wielding rider around a racetrack? Do you really believe that if the horse breaks down, that it’s okay? Is it because that is all you know? Is it because you get a thrill watching horses being tortured for your pleasure? If you truly care about an animal, you don’t subject that animal to callous cruelty. Racing is Animal Cruelty. Racing kills horses. Racing is deliberate. Racing is unnecessary.
Why did a multi- billion dollar horse farm have a pasture for babies, where one of the most famous babies in America was kept, have a hole in it big enough to kill her?! I have 5 pastures for 3 of those OTTB cast offs you think we should save, and even with 3 jobs now, to help support them, I am constantly monitoring my pastures to see if there are holes! What the hell.
Excellent point, Marie. I thought about that also. It doesn’t make any sense at all that they would have holes anywhere on the property deep enough for a very expensive horse to step in and break their leg. In the horse racing industry, breaking legs is reserved for the actual racing or training of usually young, underdeveloped racehorses.
Jennifer what the bottom line is ….. animals should never be USED as gambling chips. Dog fighting, horse racing, all of it is wrong and detrimental to the animals and more than that … just downright EVIL.
Yeah, no. But congrats on “adopting” an OTTB from a kill pen, Jennifer. Now you only need to do it again about 10,000 more times — each and every year — so your buddies can continue to vomit out unwanted, abused animals without a care in the world. Hooray for racing!
Jennifer A. Wilson, you are beyond despicable. I can hardly find words. “Go to hell and take the rest of the apologist scumbags with you” doesn’t begin to express my feelings in response to your stupidity. Read the letters sent in by people who have seen horrendous abused first hand and then come back and apologize for this bullshit some more. I DARE you.
You’re wrong. Colic has everything to do with with racing, specifically high incidence of ulcers, highly concentrated diets, and standing in a stall 23 hours per day. None of this is a secret.
My horse is at a farm where the horses have 24/7 turnout, ple ty of forage and water, and some of them colic every year. Also colic is not the same as an ulcer.
Truth to tell, my horse has begged me to put him in his stall at night, but I am not free to do so.
I’m sorry, I have to believe you’re just pretending to be dumb. People who don’t smoke get lung cancer so everyone should smoke?
Yesterday, Aqueduct Race 5 VEGAS WEEKEND ($190,000+) yet another victim of multiple racehorse killer, supposed to be suspended, claim ’em to run them into the ground or kill ’em – femme fatale LINDA RICE.
Vanned-off, but don’t know the status.
CHRIS AND DAVE. Winner of over $797,321 was claimed by Ms. Rice for yet another round of abuse that still might lead to a kill – wouldn’t want to ruin her killing record right?
Anyways, struggling to get through every race, but even struggling in the morning during training where Ms. Rice is repeatedly working him out and the official times clearly show a horse that is suffering greatly.
That’s no concern for Ms. Rice, but neither is her bogus suspension true to industry form.
Oh, and how can these scoundrels send a racehorse out in these frigid freezing cold temperatures that regularly cause lung infections and pneumonia directly due to the weather?
No horse should be forced out there in these conditions.
Outright abuse and you would have to have a sensitivity chip missing to be this cruel.