Wednesday, the TDN published an update on jockey Martin Garcia, who was part of the six-horse “spill” at Churchill last Saturday that left at least one horse – 2-year-old Lutkenhaus – dead. Garcia’s “story of survival,” as the paper called it, began thus:
“The horse in front of me fell down. That horse fell down and then everybody followed him. We just fell down on top of one another. The only thing I remember was that a horse stepped on my back and then stepped on my head and stepped on my face.” Pity, huh? Aside from his new helmet protecting his head (it appears he’s going to be just fine), Garcia credits “divine intervention” with saving him:
“God is the one who saved me. God is everything. Please mention God. God is everything in this world. … I believe in God and I pray before I ride. I pray all the time. So I think that God and my angels, they’re the ones that helped me to be alive.”
Apparently, God and the angels weren’t there for Lutkenhaus – or maybe it’s just because Lutkenhaus didn’t pray before his death race.
And finally: “I can say only one thing, that this is part of the job. I’m glad that no one was seriously hurt.” Apparently (again), the “equine athletes” don’t qualify as someones. Vile.
When is horse racing going to end in America? It’s so disgusting to know every time a horse who is lead onto the track for training or racing can lose its life in an instant. I hope the powers that be in every state realize it needs to end and to stop funding the tracks.
I find this passage infuriating. “God is everything” and “God saved me” while a two-year-old horse lies dead because he was forced into the very race that nearly killed the people around him. Was Lutkenhaus somehow less worthy of divine protection because he couldn’t pray? He didn’t choose this. He didn’t choose the race, the risks, or the people who put him there. The most disturbing part is how easily a horse’s death disappears beneath a human “story of survival.” Lutkenhaus didn’t survive. He was a two-year-old living creature who paid with his life for a spectacle humans chose to create. If there is anything sacred here, it is the life that was lost.
That is just weird how the jockey (Martin Garcia) mentioned God six times and one of his sentences is “Please mention God.”
It’s too bad he didn’t get the part about the fact that GAMBLING is not honest work! It’s too bad that he didn’t get the part about using, abusing, and doping two-year-old Thoroughbreds to be GAMBLING CHIPS is morally depraved. It’s too bad that he doesn’t make the connection in his brain that he is part of a CROOKED industry that fixes races so some billionaires can make more money from the GAMBLING revenue while jockeys like him are being used to whip and otherwise abuse young horses that either should never have been produced as GAMBLING CHIPS in the first place or they should be out grazing and growing to maturity. It’s too bad Mr. Garcia can’t put two and two together based on what it means to treat horses humanely and go out and get honest work that doesn’t blatantly line the pockets of some ultra-rich and greedy mob-type people.