The 5th at Gulfstream yesterday, in the cold, terse telling of the chartwriter: “Amor Lejano chased the pace four and five wide, took a bad step midway around the turn, pulled up [and according to other reports, fell] and was euthanized.” And that’s that. Amor was nine – nine – and this was his 43rd time under the whip. His longtime exploiter, Luis Duco, also had him “For Sale” immediately before he was killed. Incidentally, the morally-stunted announcer said not a single word about Amor’s breakdown. Not one.
This is horseracing.
A nine-year-old animal run for the 43rd time for sale days before he’s dead is reduced in the official record to a sterile line about a “bad step.” It’s like a life that ended is a clerical detail. No pause from the announcer. No acknowledgement from the system. Just another disposable body. A sentient, exhausted animal collapses and the only thing that moves is the betting window and the chartwriter’s pen. Amor Lejano wasn’t an entry in the 5th. He was a living being pushed until he broke. The silence around his death says more about this industry than any promotional brochure ever could.
Anyone who can be so cold-hearted and callous to abuse horses to death is not a horseman. These people who call themselves horsemen are criminals guilty of Animal Cruelty and belong in jail. It is not justice for the horses at all that these morally depraved people get away with this abuse and brutality.