In the 5th at Aqueduct Sunday, The Hero Code, said the chartwriter, “was hard to load then had an equipment adjustment behind the gate….” Here’s what “hard to load” and “equipment adjustment” looks like:
Two days earlier at Tampa Bay, this note for 2-year-old Turbo Fire: “…held clear to the finish and left the track in an equine ambulance following the winner’s circle presentation.” That’s right, can’t mar the photo op; the ambulance can wait. By the way, the injured (dead?) Turbo “earned” $14K for his exploiters.
It is surprising that the FS2 broadcast showed the entire ordeal and didn’t cut away.
The Hero Code is 0 for 15 and his trainer has only raced 3 horses since February 2025, with 1 win in 28 starts. Perhaps a higher profile trainer would have communicated to the starter that he/she would like to scratch the horse from the race, if that’s possible.
Teresa, I believe the announcers are frustrated because they don’t know what to say about several grown men manhandling a distressed horse which looks incredibly unprofessional and not classy at all.
This is evidently not the mint julep crowd. Who knows if there is anyone in the bleachers watching this despicable display of brute force on a horse? Who bothers to throw their money down at the betting window for this second rate performance of men pretending to be horsemen?
I love how the commentator says how “frustrating this is for everybody,” when Hero won’t go into the starting gate. Obviously, he means how frustrating for the humans who want to get on with the race, not how upset, frustrated, and frightened poor Hero is. Poor horse. No one is listening to him. Breaks my heart.
My baby was an off-the-track Arabian, and when I got him not only was he terrified of having his ears handled, but of having his tail touched, too – which made sense, since I’ve seen videos of horses having their tails wrenched over their backs in an abusive attempt to get them into the gate.
I don’t believe there’s a single miserable excuse for a human being that actually knows how to intelligently handle and work with a horse across the entire racing industry in North America.
Karen, I agree with you that the horse named THE HERO CODE should have been scratched mostly for the well-being of the horse.
At the same time, that seems a lot like straining a gnat and swallowing a camel, because racing itself should be shut down. Cancel the race card. Cancel racing period!
When a horse acts like this, does it occur to anyone, there’s a reason it doesn’t want to race? How many times have we seen horses “acting badly” like this, forced into a gate, only to break down or have to be pulled up during the race? I’d have scratched this horse at once.
Do the gate workers belong to a union? This horse put their lives in danger. What if it had kicked one into the next county? Left someone disabled, or do united they couldn’t work for weeks, or longer? Or, dead? If a horse acts like this, I think the gate workers should have the power to back away, and tell the starter, they want this horse scratched. Either its injured, or do poorly schooled it’s a danger. My vet would be, the horse is in pain.
Grabbing the horse’s ear definitely screams “MANHANDLING!” and definitely not horsemanship!
It is a shame that government subsidies are supporting this cruelty to horses.
Every time I think I have seen it all. This is some crazy crap. It again makes me wonder why anyone would even bother to bet on horse racing. This beautiful horse, trying to tell them, and no one listened. And as always, the ear pulling thing, I hate it when they do that!