Details on two more Kentucky kills:
Parents Pride, at Churchill Apr 29: “This filly pulled up after the 3/16 with severe weakness in the hind limbs and collapsed. The KHRC vets rushed to aid the fallen horse. Before the filly could be evaluated, she became agonal and died.” Then this: “She was loaded onto the ambulance and transported off the course.” But of course, for how else to clear the arena so the rest of the show could go on?
Officially, Parents suffered “exercise-associated sudden death,” but no definitive cause was found. For those new to this, know that this happens all the time in this vile industry. Adolescent horses – Parents was just 4 – simply keeling over and dying. It should also be noted that the necropsy found “no prohibited substances and no therapeutic medication above regulatory threshold concentrations.” So don’t blame drugs. Oh, and of course Parents suffered from “chronic stomach ulceration.”
Take Charge Briana, at Churchill May 2: “This filly fell near the 3/16 pole. [She] was sedated and euthanized due to the severity of her injury. RF fetlock open and disarticulated, [multiple] fractures.” Also: “left forelimb [other leg] cartilage loss and erosion; severe stomach ulceration” – at the age of 3. Finally: In his interview, trainer D. Wayne Lukas described TCB as “royally bred.” Lots of good that did, huh?
For Sudden Death to racehorses, I would much prefer to blame drugs and the trainers and the veterinarians with no sense of moral responsibility who inject illegal and untraceable drugs into the horses in their charge than to blame God as Clark Brewster, attorney, did for Bob Baffert in the case of the Sudden Death of MEDINA SPIRIT at Santa Anita.
So many young healthy horses just dropping dead with no apparent cause.
Sounds like a cardiac arrhythmia. But why so many horses dying because of fatal disruptions in their heart’s conduction systems.
Something is causing their hearts to beat erratically and it is something that looks like it is exclusive to racing – one more risk for the horse in the minefield that racing is.
They drop dead, smash their legs, backs, necks and drown in their own blood while suffering with gastric ulcers and painful deteriorating joints.
People are shocked at the recent cluster of dead horses but know little of the miserable unnatural lives the horses endure before their final day.
“Royally bred” is the problem in a nutshell. Breeders have used the last century to evolve horses into unsound creatures of fragility.