In the 4th at Canterbury last Sunday, House Wrecker, said the chart, “fell and was transported off via ambulance.” It was later confirmed – no surprise, especially as the replay was scrubbed – that House was euthanized. She was seven years old.
A few days later, I received the following email:
“We went to Canterbury Park on Father’s Day. My first and last time at horse races. In the 4th race, House Wrecker fell. We learned that [she] was killed shortly after the race. Not sure if it was before or after removal from the track. We left after the race; we were all shaken and my 22-year-old daughter was in tears. Certainly not my best Father’s Day memory, but one I will never be able to forget. And my wife felt horrible for taking us.
“The lack of post-incident information in this day and age of social media feels like a dirty-secret cover-up. The stats on your website are horrifying. I had no idea horse racing was so deadly. Thank you for exposing [it] for what it is. I only wish my wife or I saw your website before we went to Canterbury Park; if we had, we would not have gone.”
Michael L. (the writer asked that I only use his first name)
Minnesota
Sorry, Tracy, but your sympathies are woefully misplaced. “Part of the family”? “Grieve with them“? Please. The owners, trainers, and jockeys are exploiting these poor animals for financial gain; they – along with the public that supports it – are wholly responsible for the killing. And besides, it’s not just about death: https://horseracingwrongs.org/the-wrongs/. Finally, there most certainly is a “sustainable option” – end this evil once and for all (something that is happening as we speak).
I too witnessed this as my husband, father, and brother were celebrating and also all never had been to horse races prior. It was a disheartening time for all involved and witnessing, but think of the owners, jockey, and trainers. They become part of the family and loved by fans. Let’s grieve with them and not against false social media. Research horse front leg injuries, there isn’t a sustainable option. People, we are human first and nobody should blame the park or those involved. My family also left after that race, but it’s due to the heartfelt right reasons. Sorry Fathers that had been a similar experience.
I would think that you could file class action lawsuits since the promoters fail to warn attendees that there is a real possibility that they could witness disturbing images of animals being beaten and killed.
At Los Alamitos on June 20th it was promoted with the phrase ‘Los Angeles County Fair’.
However there were no carnival games or ferris wheels.
Instead when families arrived they saw a 3 year old maiden filly named Queen of Jazz exhausted and being beaten so severely that she tried to jump the rails and died.
Wanda we have witnessed a mare who we had galloped in the am break both legs entering the stretch on the last day of racing in the 2nd race of 2004! Will never forget the sound & sight of that poor mare breaking down. That`s when we 1st started thinking about our continued participation in the racing business. Thank you Michael for relating what you saw with your family. So sad. Canterbury used to advertise in the Portland Meadows race office for the horse people to come to their track at the end of the meet. They advertised the great outdoors environment & activities available in the area as if anyone really working in the business would have the time or $$ to extra things. Those of us who really did the work day in & day out were glad just to have a day or rest.
Thank you for sharing your experience here, Michael. Your thought that it’s a dirty-secret cover-up given the fact that social media offers an easy way to share information (not to mention misinformation) impressed me. It’s the Modus Operandi of the horseracing public relations groups to sweep catastrophic and fatal injuries and sudden deaths of race horses under the rug, regardless of how any type of factual information could be shared with the public or not.
I witnessed a filly drop dead all of a sudden during a race at Centennial racetrack in Littleton, Colorado in November of 1980. They didn’t show the replay between races of that particular race and they offered no explanation of why that happened at all. They showed the replays of all of the other races that day so it was obvious that they wanted to keep everyone in the dark about the filly dropping dead on the racetrack before the finish. They got her lifeless body on a trailer with solid sides up to a certain height but an opening at a level where you could see her hooves. All four hooves were in the air so she was obviously on her back in the trailer.
The horseracing industry people want the general population to be ignorant fools that think this almost never happens and that when racehorses die suddenly it is some sort of a mystery that just happens for some “unknown” reason.
Thanks again for sharing your experience.
There have been an atrocious amount of “falls” on tracks around the US the last 2-3 weeks. If racing was transparent, and Patrick got videos of them, I think the general public would be shocked at what horses go through when these happen. I can’t imagine that most of the horses are still alive, but of course we probably will never know the fate of most of them.