In a mini data dump today, the NY Gaming Commission reported the following deaths:
Gaslight, Monday at Belmont: “horse was euthanized due to cellulitis.” He was four years old and had been raced 13 times, most recently Feb 18 at Aqueduct.
Blue Paynt, Wednesday at Belmont: “sustained fracture while breezing, transported to barn, euthanized.” She also was four years old.
Thousand Island, Wednesday at Belmont: “horse was euthanized after examination” – no other details given. She was three years old and being prepped for her first race.
Oh no! I guess NYRA’s trying to tell us their Sudden Super-Safe Training Safety Streak has come to an end. Which is too bad for them, because they had us all believing they’d completely wiped out the dangers of morning training to their beloved athletes. Okay, not really.
For their next project, maybe they’ll report all the other Training Fatalities they racked up over the last three and a half months. (Figure it’s about a dozen more. Which would almost make it a full-sized data dump.)
Hooray for NY transparency!
Going by the current statistic of three horses killed in three days, can we say with a fairly reasonable degree of accuracy that the New York Racing Association has been facilitating one equine death during training per morning?