The CHRB reports kills on back-to-back days at Los Alamitos: Famous Miss Kitty in the 9th Saturday, In My Heart in the 9th Sunday. The former is LA’s 20th (official) kill of 2022; the latter is #1 on the brand new year – with plenty more to follow.
This is horseracing.
It didn’t take long to ring in the New Year did it??
They break their legs when they run in the mud. In Ireland where they run on the grass they do not break their legs.
When I run in the mud I always slip and fall too.
There is slop in several of the tracks that are running horses today. Major slop. Rain, hail, sleet,snow or slop to the starting gate they go.
Except that Irish racehorse death watch has 173 known racehorse deaths in Ireland since 2021. There are 3 listed just for 12/29/22. Those are the ones they know about, and I’m sure much like the US, there are quite a few that aren’t reported.
There are no geographial immunity areas when it comes to racehorses being killed.
Sure the surface can contribute in some nominal way, but it’s horse racing’s business model that is fundamentally flawed whether in Ireland or the USA.
The fact is racehorses die on both dirt and turf surfaces so this factor can, obviously, be eliminated as the main culprit leaving the inescapable fact that horse racing kills racehorses wherever it’s located.
There’s one true fact that never fails the racehorses and that’s them dying on the slaughterhouse floor, if they make it out alive, and Ireland is no different.
In 2020 there were a minimum of 3000 thoroughbreds slaughtered in Ireland for consumption and 1,549 of them were directly traced back to their Irish “passports” issued by the horse racing authorities in Ireland in order for them to run.
Not surpising to us here in the USA, but perhaps to you in Ireland, is the fact that horse racing, FOR YEARS, refused to publish any such statistics.
It took an Irish non-profit organization to ensure that these figures became public and it all started because they were reviewing where all the Irish tax money was going so you can’t blame it on animal rights activists.
This group found out that, true to industry form, the horse racing business in Ireland is supported by Irish taxpayers.
So aside from being concerned about your turf surface just curious to know if it bothers you that $1.7 BILLION of Irish taxpayers money was handed over to horse racing since 2001?
That wasn’t all though because horse racing is slated to get an additional $70 million this year during the most economically challenged times for people in Ireland.
This report put it succinctly “It seems like the racehorses are being killed simply because they are not fast enough to win and it’s cheaper to kill them.” (Source: Irish Mirror May 16, 2022)
Are you okay with that because I’m not.
Complete nonsense. https://irishhorsedeathwatch.com/
I agree. I was thinking this person has to be very naive (and uninformed) or very delusional.
It sounds like such a fairy tale to imagine that horses only fall because they slip in the mud. It’s also possible to slip on wet grass under certain conditions; but as many people know, the cause of most falls in horse races are due to internal INJURIES such as broken bones or bleeding from the lungs.
What can anyone possibly find to say anymore about Ol’ Doc Allred’s infamous Los Alamitos Horse Hell? He stubbornly refuses to even consider horse (and rider) safety, even after both Stronach Death Tracks cancelled their cards because of the weather.
Now, at least TWO more dead horses later, track officials STILL won’t answer any questions about the LAHH killing situation from those in the L.A.-area news media.
(And we shouldn’t be holding our breath for answers from the highly-journalistic, fact-seeking RACING PRESS, either. They’re busy shuffling their feet and looking down at the floor, until they’re given the next reason to mention Flightline again.)
Appearently these horses committed suicide since you are protecting the names of their owners and trainers. Holding the horse’s human connections accountable is the only way you will make any progress in their behalf. Stop hiding the names of the people responsible for horse fatalities! They are laughing at you and carrying on with impunity.
STOP laughing, Gail, and look up FAMOUS MISS KITTY on Equibase for her vital information, names of connections and Racing Stats. Same with IN MY HEART.
She spews the weirdest shit on this site, doesn’t she?
Hey, Gail: You’re not doing yourself — nor your beloved Los Al Horse Hell — any favors by coming here and blathering in your endless quest for self-promotion, you know.
Yes, indeed she does, Kelly.
MS. RUFFU: Is it possible that the connections of FAMOUS MISS KITTY and IN MY HEART felt that the way to develop the “full potential” of these two fillies was to teach them to pick the lock on the barbiturate cabinet???
Wanda Diamond you do nothing to help alleviate the suffering of horses used for racing when you allow yourself the fun becoming hysterical. Focus. Answer the question: why are the names of the owners and trainers of fatally injured race horses not published here?
Wanda Diamond and Kelly Griffin you do nothing to help alleviate the suffering of horses used for racing when you allow yourself the fun becoming hysterical. Focus. Answer the question: why are the names of the owners and trainers of fatally injured race horses not published here?
Pretty sure Patrick himself would gladly answer the question for you, if you asked him. But, since your agenda here is purely adversarial (well, adversarial and self-promotional), maybe you can just look up the info by yourself. Then, trot right over to these fine gentlemen and tell them that their secrets are out. You’re within shouting distance from them, aren’t you? At LAHH?
I have asked Patrick. He has not answered. Why?
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
How do you suggest I get in touch with Patrick?
Oh, please. You know he’s absolutely earnest, credible, and approachable. Then again, I understand how those are foreign concepts to most of you in horse racing. Especially those of you who practice your “trade” at Los Alamitos;)
You could use your super sleuth skills and Google your questions, could you not, Gail Ruffu?
Again, you fail to answer simple question: how do you suggest I get in touch with Patrick B.? Your failure and evasion discredits and undermines his efforts to help the horses used for racing.
Gail, you know my position on this as I’ve answered you (more than once) before. If you read the site regularly, you’ll see that I do expose individual exploiters when the abuse is more than ordinary. But my mission here is to indict an industry, not villainize individuals. And as Billy has pointed out, these poor horse are ever being traded, so what does it matter who had them last? But in an effort to quell the conspiracy swirling in your brain: Famous Miss Kitty, Jose Flores, Johnny Trotter; In My Heart, Juan Aleman, Gentry Farms.
Thank you. I appreciate your efforts in behalf of our horses used for racing Patrick.
According to your answer Patrick, The Claiming System protects individual owners and trainers from accountability when horses die under their “care”. As long as trainers know that you blame all the dead horse’s previous trainers they can, and do, get away with murder. By not naming names you effectively encourage and support their behavior and promote the “claiming game” which is so destructive to horses. You would provide a greater service to our horses used for racing if you and your followers would focus attention on the destructive effect of the “Claiming Game”. Please.
To simply answer the question, with the way racing operates who would the blame even go to? The connections that ran the horse last? Because with all the shuffling and claiming of horses, i mean hell sometimes the connections listed arent even the real people that own or train the horse. You know the game gail, so i dont have to explain, youre aware of how things go and how things are.
With all that said, reading the horses pps tells a pretty clear story, compare that with necropsy and its pretty telling. Lastly does the connections change what is happening to the horses? Racing has no answer for this, nor little power to handle any of it, and theres more then just a few bad apples around. It doesnt matter to racing how many horses these people go through as long as their investigation shows no wrong doing, its on to the next one so what does showing connections really do?
Instead of repeatedly asking – why don’t you just put them out there?
Only Patrick can answer the question as to his reluctance in making full disclosure re: race horse fatalities. Why not publish the names of fatally injured horses AND their trainers?
Get off your high horse, Gail. You are trying the age-old strategy of deflection, one your beloved racing industry is all too practiced in. Honestly, you support an industry that exploits, maims, and kills horses by the thousands and tries every trick in the book to hide it- why are you suddenly so interested in disclosure?
Exactly, Rebecca. For a CHRB licensed trainer to pretend to be so concerned about the horses, while at the same time participating in this ongoing cesspool of animal cruelty and racketeering known as horseracing, sounds really goofy to me. Horseracing is animal cruelty at all levels of horseracing, as you and I know, Rebecca.
When is Gail Ruffu going to get it that it isn’t just claiming races that abuses horses on a daily routine basis?
Looks like I’ll have to throw in my two cents, here.
Spirited and argumentative discussion, without malice or prejudice, is always healthy. I realize that most all folks who post here are intensely passionate about their views regarding the horses and animals’ mistreatment, and general well-being [or lack of it] throughout this industry.
That being said, less than a year ago, when I was still wagering on horse racing, I considered this site, it’s owners, and followers to be rabid, radical, off-the-wall, unhinged animal activists, and not at all grounded in reality.
But, as Mr. Battuello has said many times, “facts can be stubborn things”.
A little reading, some fact-checking, and an open mind has changed my opinion on the subject of horse racing 180 degrees. I no longer support this industry in any way whatsoever.
I can’t.
To Ms. Ruffu, I say, Mr. Battuello is both forthright, honest, open, intelligent and I’ve never seen him dodge a question without hammering home a direct answer. I do not know him personally, but from all points I can see, he is an honest man, hiding nothing.
From my experience in this sport as a gambler, and my knowledge of the ‘claiming game’, I can tell you that horses change owners and trainers, like you and I change underwear.
No matter who’s ‘care’ the horse was in when he or she went down, you can bet that the cumulative effort by many of these ‘conditioners’ is what eventually led to the poor horse’s demise.
But I, for one, hate hypocrisy, liars, cheaters, thieves and cutthroats. These types of people that abound in the racing industry and are awful; Mr. Battuello is certainly not one of them. Look at his response to you: he is up at six AM in the morning, which I assume, is part of his regular schedule. His passion for the closure of this ‘sport’ runs high. Yes, I wish he were wrong; I wish the sport could be ‘fixed’; I do miss all aspects of it, but sometimes you just gotta face the truth- this industry is ugly, depraved, horrid and it cheats its best customers.
How can anyone, in good conscience, with this knowledge continue to patronize such a hellish endeavor? I certainly can’t. Not anymore, knowing what I know now.
I too, once thought that racing just has to get rid of couple of ‘bad apples’, but sadly, if you dig deep enough, it’s really the whole tree that’s rotten to the core!
-Joe
In case you missed it: Gail Ruffu was on a video with another individual promoting a book she authored titled “Grand Theft Horse” and during this same video expressed her belief that horseracing could be or should be “reformed” by 1) eliminating the racing of 2-year-olds (the industry calls them baby races), and 2) eliminating race-day medications.
Ms. Ruffo’s ideas for eliminating 2 y. o. races & race-day medications would certainly be a start in the right direction for reforming horse racing, but sadly, it would only be the equivalent of, say, placing a band-aid on an open heart shotgun wound.
Horse racing is corrupt from top to bottom, and once I saw how the Kentucky Derby winner, Bob Baffert’s Medina Spirit was eventually disqualified from the biggest race in the world for illegal drug use, it’s perfectly clear that horse racing has no intention of cleaning up it’s game.
Let’s not forget that Mr. Baffert is back in the fold and training horses once again.
There you have it, why the game can’t – or won’t- ever be fixed.
Keep in mind, too, that all the bettors who had win tickets on the 2nd place finisher that day – like I did- were cheated, thanks to Mr. Baffert. No winning tickets were refunded or disqualified because the Derby winner was taken down long after the fact, and long after the pari-mutuel pools had been distributed.
Tough luck, lads, but that’s horse racing.
That was also the final straw on the camel’s back for me, and why I decided to quit betting on horse races for good.
-Joe
Joe, When you say “thanks to Bob Baffert” you can also thank the CHRB. The cheating, doping and manipulating the outcome of the races goes much deeper than one trainer. I know you say “thanks to Bob Baffert” you lost a bunch of money while gambling on that particular race involving MEDINA SPIRIT, but the corruption in the horseracing industry goes much deeper or higher up in “authority” than one person or one trainer. My perception is that California is Bob Baffert’s state of choice. They (meaning the members of the California Horse Racing Board and others that I don’t know their names) allowed (ON PURPOSE) Baffert to get away with violations of the drug and drug testing rules for several weeks or maybe longer. For reference, you can check out the articles online in The New York Times and The Washington Post about the doping scandal of JUSTIFY/ Bob Baffert. The CHRB is definitely responsible for “sitting on” Baffert’s doping violation of JUSTIFY allowing Baffert to run him in the Kentucky Derby, whereas IF THE CHRB was not corrupt, JUSTIFY would have been INELIGIBLE to be raced long enough that JUSTIFY would not have ever had the chance to become known as a TRIPLE CROWN winner.The horse [named JUSTIFY] WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN allowed to run in the Kentucky Derby IF THE “RULES” HAD BEEN FOLLOWED BY THE ALL-POWERFUL CHRB with their DISCRETIONARY POWERS. As far as I am concerned, this whole industry should be shut down for the illegal doping, race-fixing and racketeering that is an inherent part of this horse-abusing INDUSTRY. The abuse of the horses is rampant and widespread. It is not just the doping that is abusive to horses. The discretionary powers of the racing industry Commissions, Associations and/or Boards allow for the ANIMAL WELFARE ethics, code of conduct, rules, laws to be totally violated. This despicable defiance of everything moral and decent is an assault on our intelligence.
“The cheating, doping, and manipulating the outcome of races goes much deeper than one trainer…”. Well, obviously, yes, of course I do know that, but in case I wasn’t clear in my earlier post, I meant to convey that when I saw the Kentucky Derby winner dq’d for a drug violation, it was the one single event that truly opened my eyes to the rampant cheating going on within this industry.
My own personal ‘epiphany”, shall we say?
Yes, indeed, and seeing that the CHRB did little to mete out an equitable punishment for this grievous offence, only opened my eyes further.
Keep in mind that in the past I’d won a lot of money by handicapping the horses and have filled out numerous W2-G forms for the IRS at the racetrack, so I was quite reticent to admit that the system was flawed. Also, since I was not an animal activist, I was also quite unaware of the abuse that is rife within the industry. And, truth be told, when you’re winning money, you DON’T want to know of the horrors; but sometimes, they can’t be hidden well enough, although the race track does its best, to this day, to hide the deaths and abuses that occur daily.
I bring this up, because I would regularly cash 20 to 30 W2G forms every year [BTW: for the uninitiated, W2G forms are required to be submitted to the IRS when you cash a bet with winning odds of $600 to $1. These are usually Pick3s, Pick4s, trifectas, etc.] However, since the racetrack’s income has declined so drastically, and taxpayer subsidies are required to keep the entire business afloat, trainers have resorted to drugs, trickery and many other dishonorable tactics to cheat the public and eke out a win. Each year, I found myself filling out less and less of these forms until I started losing more money than I was winning. Then, there was the ‘Baffert incident’ which swore me off racing forever.
Yes, I know the entire business is a horror show, but sometimes it takes that one straw to break the camel’s back, and that Derby DQ was it for me.
-Joe
I appreciate your knowledge on the subject. I do overstate the obvious. The racing press did a “rags to riches” type of story on MEDINA SPIRIT and I really felt like they were projecting him to be the third triple crown winner. It’s like the Teflon got scratched off the ol’ frying pan and some things started to stick. Then, this $1,000 horse ends up mysteriously dead and made to look like it was an “act of God” instead of going on to win the next two big races. Talk about disposable horses.