Through a FOIA request to the Texas Racing Commission, I have confirmed the following kills at that state’s tracks thus far this year.
Fanci Lindor, Jan 14, Sam Houston T – “trauma [from collision]”
Beyound Dreams, Jan 22, Sam Houston R – “[multiple] open, compound fractures”
Silver Warrior, Jan 25, Sam Houston T – “[multiple] open, compound fractures”
G’s Alilcrazy, May 15, Lone Star R – “flipped in gate, fell, fractured femur”
Bob’s Bad Boy, May 30, Lone Star R – “[multiple] fractures”
Sgt. Quincannon, Jun 4, Lone Star R – “multiple compound fractures”
Reception, Jun 7, Lone Star S – “pleuritis, pneumonia”
Whiskey Allround, Jun 10, Sam Houston R (euth Jun 11) – “collapsed at start; paralysis”
Stormin Hank, Jun 18, Lone Star R – “[multiple] comminuted fractures”
Dashin Maxx, Jun 18, Sam Houston R – “fracture past wire”
Magical Jesse, Jun 30, Retama R – “[multiple] fractures”
Bucky Bay, Jun 30, Retama R – “open fracture past wire”
Tragic statistics. So much unnecessary suffering. It makes me sick to read this.
As a Texan, I’m embarrassed that our state is still sanctioning this cruelty. I’d rather see the tracks shuttered and replaced with casino gambling.
Or education.
Twelve horses killed in a gambling racket and twelve horror stories to go with these innocent horses. The government needs to pull the plug on this horrendous CRUELTY to horses.
https://www.wtrf.com/west-virginia/horse-racing-authority-stopped-in-west-virginia/
I don’t know much about this.
What do you call a lawyer who graduated last in his class? Your honor.
Karen, thank you for sharing this link. It would not let me read the rest of the article so I searched and found several other news outlets and/or racing press publications covering this report of legal wrangling.
The best that I can interpret so far is that West Virginia and Louisiana do not want to comply with the new regulations of HISA and are challenging the Constitutionality of the enactment and enforcement of the new rules. There is a lot of double talk in the court on the point of HISA, the Federal Trade Commission, etc., being Constitutional or not; however, the Plaintiffs are accusing the Defendants of violating the Fourth and Seventh Amendment, and tenth of the United States Structure plus the Administrative Procedure Act… So far, it’s working, because these two states, WV and Louisiana, can now fly under the radar, so to speak, while this injunction is in place. There will be more to come because legal wrangling always takes a lot of time.
The states fighting HISA are the ones who don’t want to comply, and who don’t want any type of outside scrutiny however minimal it is.
Texas has been killing racehorses FOR YEARS and wage theft on the tracks are beyond pale and apparently still going on now.
Steve Asmussen was and probably still is one of the biggest wage theft violators.
If you look right now Steve Asmussen has, on average, 15+ racehorses PER DAY EVERY RACE DAY running on tracks in Texas and we estimate about 100+ stable workers are required to operate on this scale.
A Mexican worker described to me the massive human rights violations going on at the Asmussen family compound outside of Laredo, TX. back around 1998.
The name of their operation is El Primero Training center and it was in full scale breeding, training, breaking babies mode that required about 200 workers to keep it going, but most of them were not getting paid according to many inside sources that were all Mexican labor brought across the border.
All of them described child labor, sexual assault on minors, people getting seriously hurt working around the racehorses, but never provided medical care only to be sent back to Mexico and dropped-off.
Most in horse racing are repeat offenders – repeat violators when you look into their past and the only state that seems to FINALLY start holding trainers like Asmussen accountable for wage theft is New York.
Of course, as always, the racehorses are the biggest victims and a group found a bunch of horses dumped at a local kill auction in Round Mountain, TX (July 2012) by the Asmussen family after they were no longer viable.
They victims were: 13 yo. ETHEL IS BEST. 14 y.o KARITSAS PUNCH. 20 y.o VALID OBSESSION. 20 y.o ENDLESS STORM. 15 y.o ADIOS LA CUCARACHA. 8 Y.O SENECA JONES. 7. y.o HRODODENDRON. 12 y.o OUR REVIVAL. 17 y.o. LUXURY OF TIME.
Keith & Steve Asmussen claimed that they “didn’t know it was a kill auction,” but one can only imagine the number of racehorses dumped, over the years, by this trainer and his family.
That lie doesn’t fly! Anyone being in the horse business for several decades and to the extent of the Asmussen family and claiming ignorance of one THE most obvious and well-known FACTS OF THE BUSINESS of selling horses and cattle and other small animals considered as livestock at a livestock auction is embarrassingly stupid to pretend to not know. There is no livestock auction on earth that does not accommodate killbuyers of horses regardless of the origin or history of the horse/s. More horses are sold to killbuyers than any other type of buyer when horses are consigned to any livestock auction anywhere, anytime.