The chart note for Lewis the Robber in the 2nd race at Penn last night: “Lewis the Robber faltered leaving the far turn, lost his rider while sustaining a catastrophic injury then was euthanized on the course.” And that’s that. Dead, at three. His final exploiters: Wagon Wheel Farm (also the breeder), Erin McClellan, and Inoel Beato.
Also, here is video of Sergeant Sinatra going down at Parx Wednesday. Although Sergeant bounced up, he was eventually “sent off in [the] ambulance.” The outcome of that will have to wait till our FOIA. This fall, by the way, illustrates one of the inherent dangers of horse races – the tightly-packed, anxious, stressed (remember horses are prey animals), artificial herd being compelled to run at a breakneck speed. A recipe for disaster.
Well, I am going go out on a limb and make a judgement that the clipping heels followed by the fall was the jockey’s fault, error, poor judgement, poor riding skills, and/or deliberately aggressive riding. Also, it would be the trainer’s fault, error, poor horsemanship skills to put all of that crap on the horse’s head, which would basically serve as a substitute for actual spending time with the horse from the ground and allowing the horse to develop more social skills and physical strength.
But then again, that is what horse racing is all about; depriving horses and shortcutting everything in order to get them “ready” to race.
The jockey either was not able to, or just didn’t care to, keep his mount in a separate lane from the other horse/horses.
I noticed that the jockey didn’t bounce back up off the ground. I don’t know if he was genuinely injured or taking advantage of the situation in some way, if you will. You get what you get when you make stupid choices.