The full recap of Montego Bay’s outing in the 7th at Presque Isle yesterday, in the cold, terse telling of the chartwriter: “Montego Bay was racing in contention along the rail into the turn, pulled up when she took a bad step leaving the 3/8 pole, was humanely euthanized and vanned off.” And that’s that, just another intelligent, beautiful life snuffed out for $2 bets. And yes, that’s right, she was “vanned off” after being euthanized. Montego was four, and this was her 12th time under the whip.
RIP
The lifeblood of the horse racing industry is gray areas and exceptions to rules.
Not all trainers dope.
Not all race horses break down.
Not all race horses have ulcers.
Not all race horses end up as food.
If pigs were breaking legs racing at the county fairs I’m pretty sure the pork industry would step in and say we can’t have this, it’s bad press.
Some people (who are delusional) think that “all” racehorses are retired to bucolic pastures in Kentucky.
Not all of the JC registered Thoroughhbred foals produced in any given year are shipped to a slaughterhouse. Some die of other causes in their first months of life and some are killed by their owners and trainers in the racing industry obviously.
Some are rescued and a relatively few end up at Old Friends. SILVER CHARM foaled in 1994 is one of those rare horses that lived to be at least 30 years old. So there are some valid reasons for some people to think that not all “18,000” registered Thoroughhbred foals produced in one year end up at a slaughter plant in Mexico or Canada.
There was one kill buyer in Washington state who was very much against animals having ‘rights’ and this was while he was reselling some of the horses to people who were able to “rescue” them from being tagged and chipped (under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Agriculture) before being shipped to Mexico or Canada.
Here’s a question.
If 18,000 thoroughbreds are produced each year in the U.S, where do people really think they are destined for?
As we all know the truth is that they ultimately end up in the slaughterhouse,
Ironic for a people that is morally against eating horse meat, we sure do produce a lot of it.
Shouldn’t the USDA then have jurisdiction to hold breeders and owners accountable for the lifelong conditions of their commercial livestock operation?
Wanda, sadly we have witnessed many haul offs of horses from the backside that had been dumped in a pile over at the tracks maintaining equipment shed. Many we never found out how they came to be there! A local rendering plant had a contract to haul the bodies away. Will never forget that awful site of beautiful looking horses with still open glazed lifeless eyes.
I witnessed a dead racehorse being hauled off the racetrack in a trailer with her hooves in the air and visible through the sides of the trailer at Centennial in Littleton, Colorado in 1980. She had died a sudden death during a race. They purposely did not show the video replay of that particular race and gave NO EXPLANATION of what caused her death. That was a traumatic and weird experience to witness a horse running in a race and all of a sudden dropping dead on the racetrack.
You never know which horses could be dead before they leave the track when they are listed as vanned or transported off the racetrack. Sweeping the reality under the rug is the modus operandi of this industry. The people who are die-hard horse exploiters will never be totally transparent about their treacherous mistreatment of innocent horses. They should be charged with #Animal Cruelty and put in jail. It’s horrible that abusing animals and neglecting to give proper care to animals is not always taken seriously. There are way too many people getting away with crimes against animals