Yesterday, three horses went down during races:
At Delta, 3-year-old Touching Aces, said the chartwriter, “fell around the final turn and was vanned off.” Not only was this fall whitewashed from the replay, but the announcer said nothing about it. Not a word.
At Mountaineer, 4-year-old Undetected “collapsed near the turn…vanned off.”
And at Parx, 4-year-old Southern Runner was initially declared dead by the chartwriter: “broke leg, fell, euthanized.” That has since been edited; now it simply reads, “fell nearing the far turn.” Now, there are two possibilities here. One, the writer was initially mistaken (i.e., the vet didn’t arrive, the tarp didn’t come out). Two, he was ordered to change it. Which of those do you reckon is more likely? Anyway, here’s how it looked:
I personally assume all three horses named above are dead and that this will be the last time we ever hear of them ever being alive in the first place. I don’t expect Horse Racing Nation or any other racing press publication will have anything to say about these three horses or their connections. Lalalalala…
They’re all “walking soundly” back at the farm… Yeah, right!
It would take a miracle in both cases.
Regarding the Parx-Kill-who-Suddenly-Wasn’t, I’m pretty sure they got a call from officials with the laughably-named HISA. Maybe even from CEO Lisa herself:
“Oh, no, no, no you don’t. You’re undermining our “Safety” efforts when you admit horse fatalities in the charts. Now take it back, and I’ll go ahead and remind the public about all the super-safe “Safety” HISA’s brought about. What? They’re asking for actual data? Evidence we’ve saved a single horse’s life? Nah, that’s not the kind of thing we’re willing to share, as it requires “Integrity.” Now pay up, or we’ll cut your signal.”
For all the money that Lisa Lazarus gets paid to “put on a happy face” to the public at large, it would make sense that she did what you said, Kelly.
That’s EXACTLY what I was thinking too- they have been ordered to hide deaths. Obviously- the Saratoga ones couldn’t be hidden, but since then, it’s mostly “fell and vanned off”.
There was one at mahoning the other day, the horse broke down badly, struggled to stay on his feet, even chucked the little ass that didn’t pull him up, and it was just “suffered an injury… vanned off”. I would be amazed if he was “vanned off” alive. Instead of being more transparent, horse racing is working harder than ever to cover their asses.
Right. HISA’s pretending they’re all about “Safety,” but instead they’re forced to focus on creating the ILLUSION of “Safety.” And they’re not very good at it.
I’m not proud of this, but I used to believe HISA would publish a daily list of TB fatalities nationwide — similar to what this site’s done for years, but sans the SB and QH deaths.
Ha! How gullible was I, to think they’d tally up their kill count for the world to see? (I figure that list is about 1500 souls long by now; no way they’re putting anything like that out there.)