As previously relayed, the Finger Lakes chartwriter is loath to report bad tidings. According to his “report” for the 1st Monday, nothing out of the ordinary befell Go Susan Go: “unhurried along the rail…angled wide and lacked a rally.” That’s it. In fact, we’ve learned from the Gaming Commission, the 3-year-old “crossed the wire and showed visible bleeding [and] was vanned off the track for medical evaluation.” Perhaps, though, I’m being too hard on him. Maybe he just missed that “visible bleeding” and subsequent ambulance transport. Disgusting. Speaking of which, in GSG’s three other races, she finished a combined 62 lengths back, “hitting the gate” in one. Chief exploiter: Sal Iorio.
Later in that Finger Lakes day, Mommie’s Jewel “jumped the rail” in the 7th. According to the Commission, “[the] horse refused the van and walked home.” “Refused the van.”
Meanwhile, in a steeplechase at Foxfield in Virginia Oct 1, the stewards report that two horses, Sliabh Aughty and Arrowheart, were pulled up with “heat exhaustion.” A third, Seizing the Dream, “fell at the third fence.” Good, clean family fun.
Finger Lakes has long been the home of people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from and instead of contributing anything useful to society, choose to exploit horses for every single dime they can wring out of them. It’s the bottom of the barrel, and it disgusts me that it’s still operating because of casino money, like so many other tracks that would otherwise have gone under.