Through a FOIA request to the California Horse Racing Board, I have obtained the following details on some of that state’s kills thus far this year.
Adventuresome, Feb 4, San Luis Rey T
“Multiple open [broke the skin] fractures; multiple [at least five] ligaments completely torn; fetlock joint capsule completely torn; extensive hemorrhages and edema on all sides of the leg.” Also: “osteochondral disease [both front limbs]; multifocal gastric ulceration.” Adventuresome was three years old.
Big Switch, Feb 18, Santa Anita T
“[Multiple] complete, displaced catastrophic fractures; severe ligament trauma [with] multiple [five] ligaments completely torn; deep digital flexor tendon and fetlock joint capsule completely torn; extensive hemorrhages and edema on all sides of the leg.” Then this: “Horse had medical history including LF fetlock surgery [that’s the same leg that broke] and RF shoulder injury.” Criminal. Big Switch had just turned five two days prior.
Practically Broke, Apr 29, Santa Anita S
“Ran [raced] Apr 7. Had been treated for a thrombosis since Apr 10. Showed signs of colic Apr 29, died during transit. Cause: septicemia/toxemia with acute hemorrhagic pneumonia.” Practically would have turned three two days later.
Practically Broke, is one of so many physically and mentally immature horses subjected to overwhelming physical and mental stress.
They are much too young to be forced to endure the demands of this brutal business. And as is evident here, their immune systems are all too often overwhelmed by stress
All the necropsy findings add up to glaring evidence of out of control cruelty perpetrated by a relatively small group of callous individuals and ignored by society.
Having looked to find info on Secretariat’s offspring, lo and behold HRW from 2015 came up on the screen. It was the list of casualties from that whole year. We are now looking at 2025 in a couple of months. Things have not changed in ten years. The lists grow week by week. Just a travesty for civilized countries.
Has anyone tried contacting the top investigative reporters in America, recently or if ever?
John Roberts is a likely candidate to contact as is Geraldo Rivera’s brother, Craig. We are at a crisis point in the effort to save horses…no progress is being made when only a 1 comment or a few comments are left in the opinions of reader’s of Patrick’s posts. Horse racing wrongs is doing their utmost, but the public needs to participate in the outrage. I am stymied as to why the average North American is so indifferent to the issue of horses being drugged and murdered with impunity by criminal trainers, and are allowed to continue their careers in horse racing! If the children of America and Canada were fed drugs by their teachers and the kids were collapsing in the classrooms would they still be in a permanent coma concerning compassion and kindness?
This is Animal Cruelty. It never gets the attention of the racing press because they don’t care about horses as horses. The racing press only cares about the horses as gambling objects and breeding slaves. It’s all about the money for these greedy people.
There would be no racing industry if the people actually cared about horses. They are not horsemen. True horsemanship looks out for the welfare of the horses. This industry only cares about getting horses to the winner’s circle, the horse be damned by these greedy people.