Through a FOIA request to the California Horse Racing Board, I have obtained the following details on some of that state’s kills this year.
Emma’s Dance, Jan 14, Golden Gate S
“Found dead in stall early this morning. The three previous days was being treated for acute inflammation and infection of tarsus. 102 fever and painful in LH limb.” Additional findings: “severe fibrinonecrotizing colitis; multifocal hemorrhages head, thorax, abdomen, diaphragm, [digestive tract].” Emma’s was four years old. That poor girl.
Lexcellent, Apr 8, Golden Gate S
“Cardiac arrest post-surgery.” Lexcellent was but two years old. No details on what that surgery was for. She had last been raced Feb 24.
Honor Our Fallen, May 21, Santa Anita S
“Found at 1:50 pm with signs of post-operative evisceration – eviscerated small intestine on ground, euthanized.” More detail: “There are 16 meters of small intestine coming out of the abdominal cavity through an orifice on the left inguinal area. From these eviscerated loops, one meter of small intestine is red, friable and has pieces of mesentery softly attached. The exposed intestine is covered by dirt. A section of 50 cm of the mesentery root is torn and detached from the intestine with bruises at the free edges.” Honor was just two years old; he was being prepped for his first race.
I have one nephew and one niece, (siblings), who have Crohn’s Disease —[their maternal great-grandmother died, at the age of 55, from complications after surgery for Crohn’s Disease]— and my nephew’s and my niece’s physical suffering has been, at times, beyond terrible.
Reading the necropsy reports, (Above), and the horrible ~g.a.s.t.r.o.i.n.t.e.s.t.i.n.a.l.~ suffering that Emma’s Dance and, (most particularly), Honor Our Fallen obviously endured —-[i.e., on this Planet of Cruelty on which they were born; then, painfully lived-and-died on]—- well, it’s hard to even find strong-enough words to describe the people who ………… intentionally/blithely/unaffectedly allow this level of cruelty to go on-and-on, you know.
The sooner (all of this *ghastly* cruelty of) horseracing ENDS, the better!!
Rosanna, you are so right about the disease….it’s horrible, my mother in law died from complications, she too had surgery…but, it was bad. It’s a horrible disease to have.
‘So sorry, Bonnie, about your poor mother-in-law…………
There is no real horsemanship involved here with exploiting babies for racing. No yearling, two-year-old, three-year-old, four-year-old or five-year-old should be anywhere near a race track!
Of course, they can talk all day long about breeding horses to be more durable, or improving the breed, and all that stuff. For decades, there has been talk of “improving” the breed but they have been running the breed into the ground, both literally and figuratively speaking, for decades. As long as they have no intention whatsoever of allowing baby horses to grow and develop into mature horses before putting such extreme demands on them, there will be no improvement in the breed.
These horseracing industry people could take ANY solid-boned and fully matured BREED of horse and exploit them to death because they don’t have any regard for the true well-being of the horse, especially baby horses.
And the vets were where???
Counting the money they were paid to do a botched, incompetent surgery???
How do horses so young have such advanced horrific diseases? What do the veterinarians say caused any of these things? Or don’t they dare say? How can veterinarians keep quiet about this blatant abuse? They should lose their licenses to practice.
You asked the same question that I had. At young such a young age, how could they have such horrible intestinal disease? This should be investigated by the licensing people or the racing commission, but of course they won’t.
It all sounds so diabolically bizarre and incompetent. It sounds like a bunch of morons that can’t take care of horses. Or, should I say, “they couldn’t poor urine out of a boot if the directions were stamped on the heel”? The CHRB is as corrupt as any racing commission could get.
I totally agree with Wanda Diamond. They do not know or care about taking proper care of the horses. The racing commission is corrupt. The whole situation is sickening.
Words fail me when I think about the suffering endured by Emma’s Dance. The shameful neglect and disregard for this horse ss she died an agonizing death is disgraceful.
And then you have 2 yr. old Honor Our Fallen with his guts laying in the dirt and the comment is: found with “SIGNS” of postoperative evisceration.
Sounds like Golden Gate has serious issues of neglect and incompetence.
What has the CHRB done about this?
Some heads needed to roll…