Marfa was killed in the 10th race at Horseshoe Thursday after she “hit the rail” while apparently trying to jump it. The poor girl was just two, and this was her very first race – facts, no doubt, that played a role in her horrific death.
The Paulick Report’s coverage of the kill (Paulick of course would never use that word) perfectly illustrates how morally bankrupt both it and the industry it champions are: “The incident,” Paulick says, “damaged the rail, and the final two races on the card had to be cancelled.” Yes, that’s what it took to cancel the rest of the day’s entertainment – not a dead “athlete.” How vile. The official replay, by the way, is “unavailable” on the Horseshoe website. Says all you need to know.
Racing is about money, ego and the “fans” (mainly gambling addicts)
It is a sick industry responsible for animal abuse and horrendous cruelty at all levels, from the breeding farm to the slaughter trucks heading to Canada and Mexico.
It is packaged, promoted and sold as a sport that treats the athletes like kings, when nothing could be further from the truth.
When confronted with instances of the cruel treatment these horses face throughout their lives, be it short or long, the industry either denies any “knowledge” or remains silent waiting for it to blow over.
This multi billion dollar business takes no responsibility for horses when they are no longer profitable. The window dressing and disingenuous involvement in “after care” for the horses is totally inadequate and ridiculously conditional to the point where the horses most in need are excluded.
Were it not for people outside of the industry like Mary Johnson, there would be little to no “evidence” of how hoses suffer in their abandonment by the industry and many more horses in desperate need would suffer in the slaughter pipeline and die in anonymity.
P.S. I should say apart from taking no responsibility for horses once they are no longer profitable the industry does nothing about cruelty to the horses while they are active. For instance, the standard answer to outrageous overworking is: It is up to the trainer…
I don’t normally read ‘The Paulick Report” so I would not have known about that moral-depravity-filled statement revealing that the rail is put forward as a top priority over the horrendous AND TOTALLY UNNECESSARY killing of a 2-year-old Filly.
This is/was A FILLY that should never have been on a racetrack in the first place if they cared about horses at all.
It enrages me to know the depth of evil in these monsters’ hearts and that no matter how vile, how morally depraved, their actions are, these greedy horse-abusing horse-killing thugs are not arrested for their crimes against horses.
A two-year-old filly is dead after her very first race, and the industry’s response is to lament the damaged rail and the canceled races. Read that again. The concern wasn’t the young life that was lost. It was the interruption to the day’s gambling and entertainment. Calling this an “incident” sanitizes what happened. A frightened, immature horse died in a spectacle she never chose to be part of. Then the replay conveniently becomes “unavailable.” If there’s nothing to hide, why erase the evidence? A dead horse is treated as collateral damage, while the broken rail gets more attention than the broken body. It’s grotesque, it’s indefensible, and it’s cruel. It’s exactly why this industry keeps losing public trust.