The 7th at Parx yesterday: “Cattin fell on the turn and was subsequently euthanized.” (Cattin was also “struck” by another horse after going down.) If that sounds familiar, it should, for I posted pretty much the same thing for Parx yesterday. So that would be “athletes” killed on back-to-back days on the same “playing field.” If you still think this is a “sport,” you have a small mind and a cold heart.
Cattin was seven years old. Those complicit in his death: Curtis Mikkelsen, Patricia Horth, Josefina Cadena, Alexis Romero, and Sebastian Orellana. Oh, and he was also “For Sale” (cheap: $5K) just moments before he was killed.
Here is the video. Please note the slop these poor horses were being forced – via a whip – to race in. Also – and once again – the track announcer, one Jessica Paquette, says not a word about the fallen horse. Not a single word. How does she witness kills on consecutive days, and not only utterly ignore them, but then keep showing up for work with what I’m sure is a smile on her face? For shame, Ms. Paquette. For shame.
She`s one of the worst announcers we`ve ever heard! Track conditions were horrible. We have galloped horses at Portland Meadows under conditions like those. Always galloped the poor horses as slow as we could out of site of the trainers. owners if possible. As regards the ridiculous exotic animals at the other track, that was just plain crazy. Emerald Downs actually has pet dog races & even teacher races! Some of the teachers are actually fairly fast! All this to keep racing entertaining enough to keep it going for awhile longer.
Marie, agreed she is a terrible announcer, although the total indifference to the daily routine mistreatment of horses is much worse than the announcer’s lack of skills in calling a race; and her skills are seriously lacking.
The moral depravity of sending your horse out to die on a racetrack is unacceptable.
For an owner or a trainer to send a horse out to the racetrack to die should be the grounds to revoke their license. But the whole racing industry is based on Animal Cruelty so being “a bad actor” is excused with some vomit-inducing lie from the State Racing Stewards.
She’s such a terrible announcer she probably didn’t even notice.
And she claims in her profiles how much she loves horses. Sickening.