According to the CHRB, Echosmith was killed while training at Santa Anita yesterday. He was three years old and had been put to the whip 12 times.
Parenthetically, Echo was raced and trained multiple times at Del Mar this summer. Point is, while Del Mar celebrates no racing deaths during its just-concluded meet (though there were four training/stall deaths), it’s worth remembering that the great majority of horses who suffer fatal breakdowns have some sort of lesion or compromise at the breakdown site. So it’s conceivable that Echo was injured at Del Mar prior to dying at Santa Anita. This is why we shouldn’t get in the weeds on track-by-track death totals. Horseracing, because the horses are ever being shuffled around, should be viewed as a single entity. A death at one is a death for all.
Seriously 12 times under the whip as a 3 year old – will this abuse just never stop. What in the hell is wrong with the politicians that this horse racing can never just be shut down – too many people on the take. These horses do not deserve this kind of treatment and then to be dead so young. All of those involved in this pathetic so called sport need to be fined and locked away in prison FOREVER!!!
It’s very strange that the CHRB was willing to give Santa Anita the “credit” for the death of another horse, and a training death at that.
Exactly. Makes me sick to imagine how ghastly poor Echosmith’s injuries must have been that they didn’t even try to hustle him off of “CHRB-licensed property” for his killing. (This fatality reporting loophole has (miraculously!) eliminated nearly all training kills at California death tracks.)
This coming Friday (23rd) the Unadilla Livestock Company LLC will auction off 44 Thoroughbreds with NO reserves.
The horses are part of the 756 Farms dispersal. The farm is located about 40 miles from the revered Saratoga track.
They are mostly broodmares, young and old. Of course the kill buyers will be in attendance. As we know, broodmares are not in demand so it is a given most will be slaughtered.
Some of the mares are by Big Brown, Roman Ruler, Frost Giant and others admired by the fans and the “We Support Racing” group. No one in racing including apologists will donate a dollar or lift a finger to help any of these doomed horses. Any help will come from those outside of this diabolical business.
All those in racing and all the ignorant followers are responsible for untold misery, suffering, and horribly violent deaths because that is what this game does to the horses – nothing more and nothing less.
This is so wrong on so many levels!