Live racing at Laurel yesterday was canceled, says The Maryland Jockey Club, “out of an abundance of caution to do a full evaluation of the racing surfaces.” Left unsaid was that apparently (multiple sources), two yet-unidentified horses were injured during morning training – one (at least for now) fatally. Still, considering that 264 horses have been killed at Laurel since 2014 – an average of almost 30 per year – I’m not sure why yesterday should have been any different.
9 Comments
Comments are closed.
Could it be that they did X-rays of all the horses and most of them have Degenerative Joint Disease, but how could that change overnight by “inspecting the track surface” as an excuse to cancel one day of live racing for die-hard horse-abusing, horse-doping, horse-killing racing fans? Any horse that has DJD will always have it and nothing can change that fact.
Could it be that there’s some rich guy that doesn’t want to have his horse(s) busted up before a special race that he’s “playing” up to or whatever?
Could it be that since the Triple Crown season is quickly approaching that they want to “make a big fuss” to give as many people as possible the ILLUSION that they “care” about what happens to the horses? Or, more likely, are they doing damage control to their greedy, bloodsucking, horse-killing IMAGE early so that, later on, if and/or when a horse or two breaks down catastrophically closer to the time of The Preakness race that the Maryland Racing Commissioners can say something like, “oh, well…, we did this and we did that, so we know the racetracks are so safe in Maryland that it has to be some wild, mysterious shot in the dark that is just absolutely, totally unexplainable and therefore, it is not our fault or responsibility when some high profile horse in a high profile race goes down…?
All of the above
Love how neither the racing press nor Laurel Park officials will whisper even one word about the (likely) two training kills yesterday. They’re afraid their customer base — largely grizzled old die-hard addicts looking for their fix — will leave them (“Oh, no!”) for a different horse-killing track.
(*Fear not, racing execs: you could admit to killing off a DOZEN of these beloved athletes every damned DAY, and it still would have no effect whatsoever on their “level of play.”)
It is NOT the track. No matter how much the industry says that, it is a lie. Racing horses kills horses.
true for sure, Ellen.no safe tracks.
Yes, correct Ellen – my paddocks and pastures are not “evaluated” nor addressed like racetracks are…yet I have NEVER, in over 3 decades, had a horse “break down” in them.
In 46 years at five different properties we have never had any horse break down either. Wide variety of soil types and ground mostly with thoroughbreds and Arabians.
Exploiting horses for profit is animal cruelty. Horse racing needs to be banned. PERIOD! STOP ABUSING ANIMALS FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT
Forcing horses to race is cruelty to animals. And should be banned by all civilized societies.
Unfortunately greed rules in too many countries.