If what’s been happening at Churchill – 12 kills in 31 days – has taught us anything, it’s that death in the American horseracing industry doesn’t discriminate – not among the various levels of horses, not among trainers, and most certainly not among the tracks. From the “best” to the worst, horseracing kills.
Saratoga Race Course, perhaps the preeminent track in the country, averages almost 17 deaths per “season,” a season which is not very long to begin with. Friday, the ’23 version recorded its first, with 3-year-old Kaon euthanized for undisclosed reasons. The Chad Brown-trained horse had been raced six times, and had a workout at Saratoga May 6.
Belmont Park, site of the third leg of the Triple Crown, averages 40 kills annually. Yesterday, the Chris Englehart-trained Troubling Moon “suffered a sudden cardiac death event after breezing.” A “sudden cardiac death,” that is, at 8. Curiously, Troubling hadn’t been raced since last July (at Saratoga). For Belmont, this makes 13 kills on the year.
See the events section here on our website under Get Involved for protest dates and times. The first protest at Saratoga is Saturday, July 15th. Join us to be a voice for the horses.
In the case of Troubling Moon, I call that “death by racetrack.” Sadly, you see this all the time. Horse unraced, sometimes for many years, brought back to racing and dies. It breaks my heart. Owners wake up one day and decide they’ve fed that retired horse enough. They don’t want to humanely euthanize the animal because that costs money so they wring every last dollar out of him. It’s despicable. Meanwhile, there are people like myself who have always wanted a horse. I would have been glad to adopt Troubling Moon and let him live out his days in peace in a big grassy pasture at my house. Poor, poor horse.
Chris Engelhart has a bad reputation for killing horses and Chad Brown is right there with him in the morally depraved horse-abusing, horse-doping, horse-killing department. They are vile pseudo-horsemen who kill horses without being subject to harsh punishment. This whole vile horse-killing industry needs to be shut down.
Only the second reported “Training” death for NYRA tracks this year. They were up to 15 of them at this time last year. Why aren’t they celebrating all this sudden safety?
I strongly suspect they’re hiding deaths in NY, Kelly. I have four Standardbreds with broken bones only showing up as “racing incidents” on the database. No way all are still alive.
Ashamed to say I used to believe NY was the absolute height of “transparency” in racehorse death reporting…
Now I see they’re very much like all the other racing states: “Admit the ones that are patently obvious to the public. The others? Let’s keep hiding as many as we possibly can.”
Finally, racing is getting the negative publicity it so richly deserves. Now the business is starting to feel the pressure so we can expect any transparency will become opaque!
I have never seen media coverage of the deaths like is happening now!
Racing is scrambling. The safety officer at Churchill said they are looking at all aspects to find the cause(s) of the breakdowns! Now isn’t that great!!!
They know very well the cause is staring them in the face.
EVERYTHING, starting with breeding, in this gambling business is stacked against the health and survival of the horses. We see the results day after day. It will continue as long as racing exists. It can’t be fixed!
i am so sad to see the horrible picture of the dead horse. You could see how much this horse suffered. When will this horror ever stop? Horseracing must be ended as soon as possible. What kind of thanks and appreciation is this from their owners? These people are monsters who do not care for their precious horses.
Spot on. And monsters won’t stop until they are forced. No ounce of good in them.
I’m ready to stand at Del Mar. Sure wish we could have video screen running with all the breakdowns during the races. But I will hold a sign.