Recent harness rulings…
Hastings, Sep 9: “While driving Eleanor’s Knight, Kim Pluta did hard whip his horse.” Fined $100.
Harrington, Sep 16: “While driving Sheas Blustone, Mark King did cause welts. King is issued a $300 fine.”
Running Aces, Sep 18: “It was noted by State Vet that Overtheedgeofhonor did have welts after the race.” For this, Nick Roland was fined $500 and suspended three days. As I wrote back in Aug, Roland is a serial abuser who should have at some point landed in jail.
And updates on previously reported cruelty:
For leaving multiple welts on Tjb Secreharriet at Running Aces Sep 3, Luke Plano was fined $500 and suspended three days. But, as you’ll surely recall, this was the second time that day that Plano left multiple welts on a horse. More Plano here.
For leaving “numerous welts” on Flickadawrist at Running Aces Sep 6, Casey Leonard was fined $500 and suspended three days. More Leonard here.
Yes, Renee, contact your legislators – state and federal. Letters to the Editor are also great. If you live near a track, join or organize one of our protests. You can email Nicole, our executive director, at Nicole@horseracingwrongs.com for protest info/support. Progress is slow, but we are winning: https://horseracingwrongs.org/shuttered-u-s-tracks-since-2000/.
Spot-on, Steve.
When the harness racing drivers are fined, the money goes right back into perpetuating the whole horse-abusing shit show. Nothing changes except maybe public perception and lower Pari-mutuel gambling handle.
These people are adults and they should be put in jail like adults in my opinion. They deserve real punishment for real Animal Cruelty!
So what can we do about this? I don’t bet, I don’t go to races. Do we mail our legistlators or are you doing a march or something that we can participate in?
Steve, love the idea of a “Time out” in the in field! Make sure its a real cold , windy day for a few hours or a real hot, humid day with no shade.
Suspensions are of course a joke, and solve nothing. Maybe perpetrators need to sit in a “time out” chair on the infield for a few days? The industry attempts to delude the public into thinking it is taking corrective action when in fact it would never do anything to jeopardize its actors at any level. To do so would bring about its own demise.
Maybe if those drivers weren’t drunk all the time they could control themselves better. On second thought, probably not.
It’s getting difficult to keep reading about constant, never ending abuse of innocent animals. Dumped dogs, wild horses in the way of humans and their money, urban sprawl displacing the wildlife. Don’t see an end in sight (except AI maybe killing us off)
It is so disturbing and morally depraved that the State racing commissioners and the United States Trotting Association allow these known offenders/horse abusers to continue to mistreat the horses with a simple fine and maybe a very short suspension.
The horses need to be rescued from this blatant abuse!