Mountain Climber was euthanized at Finger Lakes yesterday for “unresolved laminitis.” He was just two and had been raced twice; in his final race, in September, he finished 34+ lengths back, and was said to have been “fractious loading.” “Fractious,” perhaps, because his pubescent body had already begun to break down?
Vile. Horseracing.
This is not horsemanship. This is abuse of a young, underdeveloped colt that should never have been anywhere near a racetrack.
But this is horseracing, so throw horsemanship out the window and abuse the horses to death.
Horseracing Is Animal Cruelty!
How does a horse get laminitis? Another example of a poor creature at the mercy of a collection of hardcore soul-less abusers. How the animals suffer in silence while their tormentors come in and out with their needles, their chemicals, their additives, their straps, whips…
Sadly, only too easy to get laminitis from the huge amount of grain / sweet feeds that most race horses are fed on a daily basis as well as being kept in a stall 23 hours a day. When we used to work at the track almost every horse was fed 12# to 15# of grains a day with maybe 15# or 20# of hay daily in a hay net or fed in a corner of the stall. Way out of balance between concentrates & forages fed. In our 45+ years of working with & feeding many differing breeds of horses have never had one founder or have laminitis.
Exactly, fredjoan.
And especially the confinement.
I noticed that the winner of the Melbourne Cup the other day showed signs on his hooves of appearing to have had a laminitis event about 4 months ago when he was in the UK. Got here 3 months ago.
I read somewhere that he’d also had an abcess on one of his feet not long ago.
Beautiful horse.
Give me a moment to hurl — the horrific abuse and death inflicted on these Horses by the owners, the trainers, the jockeys — have you NO SHAME — STOP the torture and cruel deaths.