Tyler’s Tribe is dead, so says a post yesterday from Oaklawn Park, the track at which he died. Apparently (details are scarce), Tyler’s died following a training session Wednesday.
With that out of the way, let me remind who Tyler’s was, and more to the point, what he had suffered. The first time he came to our attention was when he bled (and was “vanned off”), as a 2-year-old, at the Breeders’ Cup in Nov ’22. As I wrote then, owner/trainer Tim Martin labeled the bleed a 5 on a 1-5 scale – “It was bad,” Martin said.
Next time out, a bit over a month later, he bled again, with Martin saying: “He was looking pretty good, and [when] he stopped, I was like, ‘Uh oh, something happened.’ When she pulled him up, he had blood in his nose.”
The following April at Oaklawn, TT’s chart note: “DNF, returned bleeding.” After this one, Martin and co-owner Tom Lepic kept Tyler’s idle for almost a year. But you had to know this was temporary, for Tyler’s was simply too valuable an earner to retire. So, he was back at it in March of this year: “returned bleeding,” again. That would be four (that we know about) separate incidents of pulmonary hemorrhage – and he was still only four years old. Now, less than two months after that fourth bleed, he is dead.
Here is what Lepic said to the Thoroughbred Daily News:
“All I know is that he had just finished his workout and he died on the track. Tim said he had worked great and had a good gallop out. Tim said he was shocked by what happened. All of us, we are completely devastated. This horse meant so much to us.
“There are people who are going to say we never should have run him again. … We followed every guideline and even gave him a year off. We were told that he was fine and that he wouldn’t bleed again. We loved this horse and never would have done anything to hurt him. We are devastated and so is everyone in our family and people who are close to us. I spent part of my day reminiscing and looking at photos of the horse with my daughter.”
You, Mr. Lepic, and your compatriot are awful human beings. What you people did to this poor animal is criminal in both senses of the word; you should be in jail.
As an addendum, another horse, 3-year-old Collins, died at Oaklawn yesterday. No details there either, the track only calling his and TT’s deaths “unfortunate.”
Stop this madness!!
As usual Hisa is no where to be found. #Useless and these animal abusers need to face justice. End of story, enough is enough. XOXO
‘I spent part of my day reminiscing and looking at photos of the horse with my daughter.” Spent ‘part of the day’ and ‘the horse’. If you really loved ‘the horse’ you would spend a lot more than part of the day looking at photos AND you would call ‘the horse’ by name. Tyler deserved that his life not be cut short.
Clueless, greedy, stupid connections should be banned from racing for life. With poor Tyler’s Tribe’s history, how could Oakland Park even allow him on the track????? This is horse racing.
So many horses have died suddenly from running in either four furlong workouts or five furlong workouts.
Each time there is always this air of mystery surrounding the death.
Each time there is always a big pretense of not knowing what the cause of death is/was or why the horses died suddenly.
Each time there is always this claiming innocence of any type of responsibility for abusing a horse to his or her death.
Here we go again.
[MEDINA SPIRIT died suddenly (after a morning workout) as an act of evil committed by Bob Baffert and the other people connected to him. But, of course, his lawyer was paid to lie on behalf of Bob Baffert. The lie that the death of the horse was “an act of God” was accepted by the authority. Bob Baffert was allowed to be in a position to continue his highly paid position of “trainer” of Thoroughbred racehorses.]
Why don’t we all just remain as ignorant as ignorant can be and let these people get away with acting innocent when they are as guilty as sin itself? It’s evil to go along with the lies.
If they cared a major bleed should have caused his retirement not his death at 4! This was preventable . They murdered him.
They are very literally the most hated humans in racing right now. Even pro racing folks are saying they should rot in hell and there’s a special place in hell for them.
Highly mismanaged horse, and failed by his human connections. Such evil, greedy bastards.
Oaklawn is supposedly investigating Martin and these 2 deaths, and have scratched all his horses from racing this weekend. Of course, they will come back and say they found nothing. At least those poor horses will see another day. Maybe. But as we know, Martin will probably just pack up his belongings and go play in another sandbox and it will be allowed.
We were shocked. . . we were devasted. . . we were told . . . Lepic, use your head, which you obviously have lost, and your heart which you obviously don’t have.