Much is being made of California’s lower kill numbers. One of the things that the industry, led by The Stronach Group, is supposedly doing is more surgical repairs. But history says that the equine post-surgery survival rate is very low (think Barbaro). Problem is, the injured who end up being euthanized, with or without surgery, off-site will not, as a rule, show up in public records. The lost dead.
With the above as backdrop, I present the horses “vanned off” California tracks over the past 2 1/2 years and who have not been heard from since. It falls to the California Horse Racing Board to tell us where these horses are.
Clubhouse Soda, 1/16/20, Golden Gate
Captivating Cartel, 1/24/20, Los Alamitos
Warrens Lil Margie, 2/23/20, Golden Gate (not reported as vanned, but “bled”)
Tizalwaves, 6/5/20, Santa Anita
Spectator’s Dream, 6/7/20, Santa Anita
Nice Blaze, 7/3/20, Pleasanton
Hendavid, 7/25/20, Pleasanton
Girther, 8/8/20, Del Mar
No Name Fred, 8/9/20, Del Mar (not reported as vanned, but “bled”)
Kr Casper, 8/16/20, Los Alamitos
Verifiable, 9/5/20, Los Alamitos
Rick’s Dream, 9/7/20, Del Mar
Rule He Will, 9/19/20, Los Alamitos
El Aracada, 11/13/20, Los Alamitos
Magnolia’s Hope, 11/27/20, Del Mar
Velvet Queen, 11/27/20, Del Mar
Twirling the Gold, 11/27/20, Los Alamitos
Taco Twosday, 11/29/20, Los Alamitos
Princess Noor, 12/5/20, Los Alamitos
Josephin Bono, 12/6/20, Los Alamitos
Colour of Money, 12/11/20, Los Alamitos
Florentine Diamond, 1/16/21, Santa Anita
Gowdy, 1/23/21, Los Alamitos
Warm It Up, 2/26/21, Los Alamitos
Whatdidido, 3/27/21, Santa Anita
Tuxedo Flats, 5/1/21, Los Alamitos
Omph, 5/9/21, Golden Gate
Big Dog Daddy, 5/14/21, Santa Anita
Fashin Icon, 5/22/21, Los Alamitos
Eel Point, 5/28/21, Santa Anita
Street Dancing, 5/31/21, Golden Gate
Lips Like Sugar, 6/19/21, Santa Anita
Contagion, 7/18/21, Del Mar
Listen Linda, 7/18/21, Los Alamitos
Perrys Everlasting, 7/24/21, Los Alamitos
PRESTONS LADY AA, 8/13/21, Golden Gate (not reported as vanned, but “bled”)
Esagerare, 8/19/21, Del Mar
Queen Helene, 8/27/21, Golden Gate
C’Mon Jenna, 9/10/21, Golden Gate
Investment Account, 9/10/21, Los Alamitos
Bathory, 9/11/21, Golden Gate
Great Power, 10/3/21, Los Alamitos
Rocket Song, 10/10/21, Santa Anita
Wild Cat Canyon, 10/16/21, Los Alamitos
Frost Warning, 10/17/21, Fresno
Favorite First Down, 10/23/21, Los Alamitos
Dual Reality, 10/31/21, Santa Anita
Prudent, 11/4/21, Del Mar
Da Kine, 11/13/21, Del Mar
Deputy Bernardini, 11/26/21, Del Mar
Oro Crystal, 1/9/22, Los Alamitos
Malibu Mayhem, 1/23/22, Santa Anita
Equivalence, 2/18/22, Santa Anita (not reported as vanned, but “bled”)
Ed Gatty, 3/6/22, Los Alamitos
Viva La Fiesta, 4/1/22, Golden Gate
Intenses Suspenses, 4/3/22, Los Alamitos
Savvy Gal, 4/10/22, Santa Anita
Union Boy, 4/23/22, Golden Gate (not reported as vanned, but “bled”)
Pray to an Angel, 4/29/22, Golden Gate
Discretionary Day, 4/30/22, Santa Anita
Banjo Queen, 5/15/22, Santa Anita
On Raglan Road, 5/27/22, Golden Gate (not reported as vanned, but “bled”)
Brittany Breeze, 5/28/22, Los Alamitos
Smokinhotredhead, 6/18/22, Pleasanton
I Am Not Uncertain, 7/3/22, Los Alamitos
Malibu Mayhem is alive
Yes, what I read was that the colt (still only two years old at the time of his injury in his third start) suffered a “career ending” injury and underwent surgery. Is he enjoying the life a horse would choose? – roaming pastures with his own herd, nothing expected of him except to stand for the farrier every 6 weeks and lead quietly when necessary? We can hope he isn’t being further exploited in the breeding shed…
If you end racing and stop breeding them the suffering will be over. Greedy bastards that they are
since there is no word slaughterhouse is really ……. i hope y ou hear they are all alive and flourishing. but….
For all its worth Blood Horse says Princess Noor retired after injury and set to be broodmare status.(soft tissue issue)
It shouldn’t surprise anybody that Stronach et al are, most likely, doing whatever they can to cover up racehorse deaths by enacting this “surgery” scheme.
I don’t think for one moment that it’s an altruistic move based on the history of this group.
The sole purpose is to protect the horrible truth about horse racing, to convince the unsuspecting public, yet again, and to generate millions into their wagering coffers at the sole expense of the racehorses.
This has been going on for years and their debacle in Ontario horse racing was shameful.
Most of their company meetings are probably filled with ways to cover-up the truth about horse racing. and their schemes are getting more sophisticated as the public finally starts to understand what’s going on it seems.
This HRW site has been instrumental in providing facts, but the Stronach’s are blocking the ability to find out the truth and inform the public.
This is now the new reality and the only way to combat this total lack of transparency is to find out the fate of the racehorses listed above.
Knowing the Stronach’s for years and their modus operandi in Ontario these racehorses are probably in land fill sites in California or elsewhere because most probably died.
I would be curious to know if the owner signs the rights of their racehorses over to the Stronach’s once they agree to the surgery?
Just a thought.
Well….if they did live they could have easily been sold to a horse trader and might be owned once afterwards, then auctioned off multiple times at livestock auctions and died in slaughter. Just more disregard for life, disposed of like trash and treated even more brutally along the way. Rest in peace beautiful horses. I’m sorry some humans are so evil
We already know that people in horseracing want to make money; they don’t want to spend money on horses that are not going to bring in money. We know that certain types of injuries are permanently disabling and/or fatal for a horse. We know that most people in this industry are in it to make a profit (or at least break even) and if they don’t, they’re going to dump horses that can’t run fast enough for a Return On Investment. Some horses don’t have the “desirable” bloodlines that are known to be in the money at the tracks so they’re not going to make a lot of money as breeding animals.
It’s all about the money and profit so what sense does it make to believe that they’re actually going to spend thousands of dollars in surgery, not to mention recovery after surgery, for lower level horses? What sense does it make that they’re going to breed low level horses so they can run the weanlings and yearlings through an auction and not make the reserve or just let them be sold for $1,000 at auction…?
Racehorses already suffer a lot of pain with ulcers, sore muscles, microfractures in their bones, sore joints, arthritis, Degenerative Joint Disease, the whips and everything like that so it’s a no-brainer that when injured badly enough that they disappear off the race track, that the illustrious owners and trainers will do whatever it takes to get them “off their books” and look for their next meal ticket.
Yes, some of them are injured and dumped if they lived through the injury, and definately easier to euthanize than to dump…don’t want to put too much effort in to disposing of them, lowest way to get rid of them. I was shocked to see yearling thoroughbreds in the dump / last chance auction…7 days to sell or directly to slaughter. Then I remembered how many they breed since it is a game of numbers, and I guess even they realize they over-bred and dump the momma’s and babies. Very cruel
By the way, for those of you that haven’t found these auctions, I am new to finding out this information, there are old Omish horses that are emaciated with underdeveloped hind quarters and front legs full of arthritis, old ranch horses and brood mares of all breeds. It is a slice of reality along with the already over populated dog/cat animal “shelters.”
If Stronach actually pays out any money for surgeries, what would be the criteria for that? He is in this industry to be “king” if you will. He wants to hide the true number of horses killed by racing for his benefit. The same goes for the members of the California Horse Racing Board.
As long as they can get the owner to pay for the surgery, the trainer (I use this word loosely) will collect day money along with “cha-ching” rehab money. The owners are sold a book of cards and many times the horses are just sitting but if the owner doesn’t visit their horse to see, they will be none the wiser. If the horse dies, well then, the story changes and the cover-up continues. IF the horse is injured during their ‘training methods’ (of cruelty) then the owner is told, well, the horse just didn’t have it in him = the horses fault!
I know the big breeders, horse track owners, and big money trainers sit at top but it happens with the very smallest trainer at every facility, oh and also the breeding farms.
Since the racing industry doesn’t care about these horses when they are alive, it should come as no surprise that they are all but ignored and forgotten when they die.
The name of the game in all of U.S. horse racing is “Hide Your Kills.” But in California, they’ve taken this massive deception to a whole new level.
California racing officials were given no choice about whether they’d have to publicly announce their ON TRACK PROPERTY horse deaths, following the SADT “Disaster” Season of 2019. What they were NOT required to do is release any information whatsoever about the methodology used in their Kill Count system. So, we’re left to guess which fatally-injured horses were hustled off track/training center grounds for their “humane” euths — and which ones MIGHT, unlikely though it is, be alive and still living in relative comfort. This is precisely how the (high-integrity, super-transparent) CHRB likes it. Of course, they’d much prefer not having to admit ANY horse deaths. But since that’s no longer an option, they’ve gone and done the next best thing: perfected their system for creating more exclusions than admissions in their State-mandated Equine Fatalities List.
It’s kind of a genius move, really. All hail the CHRB, King of the Dead Horse Hiders.