I have already described the killing of Tyler’s Tribe as criminal. Now, as we learn more about his death and hear more from his trainer (and co-owner), Tim Martin, I feel that word is too generous. In a Thoroughbred Daily News article, Martin says the 4-year-old died from a collapsed trachea. A collapsed trachea. Martin also believes this would explain the multiple (at least four) incidents of bleeding that preceded TT’s death. Martin: “He had a weak trachea…his oxygen was getting shut off and that made him bleed.”
But Martin wasn’t done (you’d think someone in his life would tell him to just shut up): “I did everything I could with that horse. I gave him almost a year off. He is an athlete. If he wanted to run, I was going to go ahead and run him. But we talked about if he couldn’t make it back I wasn’t going to keep pushing him.” And yet you did exactly that, Mr. Martin, and now he’s dead. How do you sleep at night?
How is this trainer any different from the rest of them? High profile horse? Hypocrisy abounds. The same people raking this guy over the coals couldn’t care less about the thousands of other horses dying excruciating deaths at the track or in the slaughterhouse.
**Please pursue studying this behavior. This is a very significant area that needs to be documented and shared with everyone to show the mental abuse these horses are feeling and enduring. This is critical to the fight to help them. Thank you!
Did this guy ever hear what to do if you find yourself in a hole ?!!!
I agree , Marie, the horse could never have raced with that trachea problem. Also, I fail to see how a collapsing trachea would cause bleeding in the lungs. However, even if it did , how on earth does it in anyway absolve how this poor horse was abused and finally killed by his “loving” connections!
PS I had a dog with intermittent paralysis of his vocal chord. He lost consciousness each time the chord closed off his trachea. He had tie-back surgery which took care of the problem . His symptom from lack of O2 was loss of consciousness, not bleeding from his lungs !
You know, Tami, I think maybe they don’t kick their stalls apart is because, tragically, they’ve given up, emotionally. They remind me of enslaved people, and that awful resignation that can set in because you have no choice but to comply or be in worse trouble. The emotional toll that extreme stress places on horses is an area that really interests me. It’s understudied. The behavior of horses at and off the track is often misunderstood, I think.
I agree that his lame excuse doesn’t hold up to common logic or common sense. It is not only the trainer’s fault; the abuse is definitely the trainer’s fault but the fact that he was allowed to race him was someone else’s responsibility. I can only assume that it was business as usual on behalf of the racetrack owners and operators because they needed one more 4-legged gambling object to fill the racing card.
The responsibility for allowing MONGOLIAN GROOM to be raced with a known and X-rayed hairline fracture in his hind fetlock in the 2019 Breeders’ Cup was quickly and easily passed off from the racetrack owners and operators to the trainer. It’s so convenient, isn’t it? When guilty as sin, lie like crazy and pass the buck This is so typical of the racing industry people.
Have just read the BH article of Tyler`s Tribe death. If you look at the earlier workout times anyone with a modicum of knowledge would understand that the poor horse should not have racing at all or even worked out! His times were 1mph slower than horses I have worked out that were barefooted behind. These incidents are some of the reasons why I walked away from racing 20 years ago on May 10th, 2004. never to return.
Horrible to make a bleeding horse keep running :( these poor horses suffer , get no free time / play time or affection. I can’t believe they aren’t all kicking their stalls apart
Sometimes a horse will tell you they want to gallop a little if they are feeling good. I however would never allow a horse to gallop if I knew that the horse had a life threatening condition that the horse could be inured fatally with. It`s our responsibility to protect the horses well being for the long run. He did not do all he could! He should have never raced that horse at all!
I call BS on this explanation. If this was happening, this horse would not have been able to run at speed for any distance as often as he did, and to even last this long.
He continues to be the most hated man in racing currently, because many other folks weren’t satisfied with his whiny explanation. He went out of his way to kill this poor horse.
“I did everything I could for that horse. I gave him almost a year off.” Wow. That’s doing everything you could? What a prince. “If he wanted to run, I was going to go ahead and run him.” If he wanted to run?? Did the horse tell him he wanted to run?
“Who knew?” Wow! If anybody should know, that stupid person should know!
With all of the veterinarians that he could have taken TYLER’S TRIBE to, he never had a clue that the horse had a “weak trachea” even though it appears to me that this is more of a very lame excuse than anything.
Just the fact that he forced the horse to run with Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhage or bleeding from the lungs at all proves that he didn’t care about the horse’s well-being aside from the fact that horse racing demands that Thoroughbreds be started under saddle and doing hard gallops before they are even 24 months old and being confined in prison cells a.k.a. box stalls for 23 hours a day while being exploited as racing slaves.
This is the disgusting mentality and moral depravity of the people in horse racing. The people in this industry should be confined to very small spaces for 23 hours a day. Let the horses go to sanctuaries and let them live.