Lone Star Park Friday…
Race 3, For Two-Year-Olds:
“SASSY DANCER veered in, bumped foe. AJ BRAZILIAN GIFT bumped early. EG CORONAS FOR ME bounced between early. NECTAR stumbled start, bumped, shut off. THRILL OF SWEETNESS bumped, shut off. OPEN ME CHAMPAGNE broke out, bumped foe.”
Race 4, For Two-Year-Olds:
“MAD FIRST CHAMP veered out, bumped foe. GRACE N DASH bumped hard early. CRTEQUILAONTHEROCKS bumped hard both sides. ZK SANTA FE bumped hard both sides.”
Race 5, For Two-Year-Olds:
“TIGER STONE exchanged bumps early. PERKS FAVORITECARTEL exchanged bumps early. RADAR LOVE bumped early. CRIMSON CASH bobbled, bumped start. CORONADOS LEGACY broke in, bumped foe. WHAT A DYNASTY broke in, bumped foe.”
Race 6, For Two-Year-Olds:
“A GAME OF CORONA exchanged bumps early. RUNAWAY DIAMANTE exchanged bumps early. JMG SPECIAL CAPO exchanged bumps early. LV STANLEY WINNER exchanged bumps early.”
Race 7, For Two-Year-Olds:
“CRYPTO stumbled start. FULL THROTTELL stumbled start. AMERICAN METTLE exchanged bumps start.”
Race 9, For Two-Year-Olds:
“PAINT HIM KOPPER bobbled start. JESSIE JONES FLASH bobbled, bumped start. HARD CANDY fractious gate, bumped start. TEMPTING QUATRO fractious gate.”
And yesterday…
Race 3, For Two-Year-Olds:
“COWBOY JESS bumped start. CURVEE bobbled, bumped foe start.”
Race 6, For Two-Year-Olds:
“COOKIN bobbled, bumped start. EAGLE BRAND bumped foe. DOLLARS DOLLY bumped foe start. THE MARFA MEMORIES bumped foe start. BAD CORONA SUMMER stumbled start, bumped both sides early.”
Two-year-old horses – babies – coerced into a big metal contraption by strange men, men who are pushing, shoving, pulling, yanking, goading, prodding, yelling, screaming. Then the gate opens, and other men are driving them to run at full speed now. And all the while, they’re bumping, often hard, into one another. Oh, their fear – dare I say terror. And all so that some men may gamble, others chase pots of gold.
This is not HORSEMANSHIP! The decision to force young, underdeveloped colts and fillies to perform as though they are adults is ABUSE, not horsemanship. There are many different ways that this morally depraved gambling racket using horses as gambling objects is abuse, not horsemanship.
It’s wrong to force young, underdeveloped colts or fillies to perform as gambling objects. Anyone who actually cares about their horses and their own sense of right and wrong would say NO to this horrendous CRUELTY to horses!
Equally responsible are the women who breed, provide and hand over, on a silver platter, racehorses whom they watch get abused, mangled and/or killed.
Of course there are women trainers who are downright abusers and killers such as Keri Brion, Linda Rice, Python Pat (Patricia Farro), Kathleen O’Donnell etc. all documented herein.
It’s both men and women politicians who hand over hundreds of millions of dollars every single year in states who subsidize horse racing that guarantees not only widespread horrific abuse. but also deprives education and communities of casino profits.
Incidentally, just for the record, racetracks refuse to hire women Assistant Starters at the gate which is blatant discrimination.
This has been going on FOR YEARS!
In fact, the starters are one of the better paid with benefits positions on tracks and they keep women out deliberately just like about 90% of Stewards on racing commissions are male and this is not due to lack of female qualifications whatsoever.
I know of at least 6 women who applied for gate crew and they told them that their “menstrual period would upset the horses.” – NO KIDDING NO JOKE!
They told them verbally and bullied and threatened them to stop applying which is why there isn’t one single female starter on one track in the USA or Canada that I’m aware of.
I had a female groomer who has worked on the tracks for years and she was one of the best horse handlers that I’ve ever seen and she was kind.
She could run circles around any male starter and her dream was to work on the gate.
She was a single mother and she wanted the pay and benefits security plus they get unemployment insurance on the off-season in Ontario.
She applied at both Woodbine and Fort Erie Racetrack from 1995-2000 which is when I met and hired her so she had 5 years of applying by the time I met her.
She asked me if I could submit a letter to either track so she could start compiling any rejection letters for a potential challenge since, up to this point, they were all verbal rejections.
Of course I did and I even went so far as to contact both the HBPA and higher ups to give me a reasonable explanation as to why there were no female gate starters on the track.
They told me that males were stronger and could handle the horses better which is complete and total bullshit to cover-up their blatant discrimination against women.
This is a business that receives public subsidies but, yet again, they are immune to even our most basic laws like Animal Cruelty and workplace discrimination specifically targeting women.
They leave the high risk, high stress, low paying jobs with no benefits (Exercise Riders) up to women, but they won’t give them even one inkling of a chance at a decent job on the track.
An Exercise Rider requires physical strength, stamina, mental acuity, patience, etc. etc. that goes beyond what a starter does, but yet that isn’t good enough for them?
Of course people on the track disliked me and bad mouth me to this day because I called their freakin asses out on their animal abuse and female discrimination.
Just for the record, female Ontario HBPA President, Sue Leslie, did NOTHING about this when she was repeatedly told and approached about this issue.
She was too busy getting her big fat salary, taking about 40 stalls at Woodbine and, of course, placating Frank Stronach any chance she could from what I could see.
Most of us females in this business voted her in hoping for some female representation in this male dominated business, but that never happened like most things in horse racing.
After years in power, her claim to fame is providing a spay/neuter program for the abandoned cats on the track that were getting dumped just like the racehorses.
I wonder what Amber Cobb has been doing since her license was revoked. I have not heard anything about her in the last several months.
Unfortunately many of these babies will drop down the ladder and become part of the horrific bush league circuit that PETA did an expose on not too long ago.
I oppose the abuse of baby horses in mistreating them and forcing them to compete in the racing of horses. It is bad enough that adult horses are abused and killed in this cruel sport. It is time to stop the racing of horses.