I have confirmed the following racing kills in Ohio:
I’m the Devil, Thistledown, Jul 29. She was three; this was her first time under the whip. The responsible: Raimonde Farms, Elias Del Val, Richard Genovese, McKenna Anderson.
Celestial Harmony, Belterra, Aug 5. She also was three; this was her 15th time under the whip. The responsible: James Chapman, Twin Oaks, Erick Torres, Oscar Villarreal.
Cross Power, Belterra, Sep 5. He was two; this was his 11th time under the whip. The responsible: Jamie Lea Van Linn, Rilardo Carpio, Eddie Jurado.
Also, this for Todd Pletcher-trained Freeze at Belmont Tuesday (Gaming Commission): “treated for a fever and pneumonia; began treatment for laminitis; euthanized due to a poor prognosis.” This poor girl was just two and was being prepped for her debut.
And finally, a trusted source tells me Xtrafine Xtina is dead after a “went wrong, pulled up, vanned off” in the 1st at Grants Pass Sunday. She was nine – nine – years old.
We saw that race on U-Tube at Grant`s Pass. We thought the horse had suffered a catastrophic incident. We have 23 year old horses that can still run freely in our field & are sound! A poor 9 year old raced horse has the = of 30 years of free ranging runs & not forced to do it. We have just read an article where Emerald Downs wants to have more 1/4 horse races due to their increasing the tracks handle from the few they tried out this year. More injuries will occur there next year that were sure of.
It would be interesting to have access to the details on all of the veterinarians who had anything to do with these horses. The degree of unethical behavior and actions of the participating “licensed” veterinarians who have a hand in the brutal exploitation and doping/drugging of horses should be under more scrutiny and made known to the public more so than has already been done, in my opinion.
In past years, I have read about the practice of the “management of a racetrack” hiring a small animal (cat & dog) veterinarian to be the “track vet” paid to pass horses to race that were unfit to race. For example, horses with microfractures could be passed to race by the “track vet” and, of course, it’s a no-brainer that said horses will logically break down catastrophically during whatever race they are entered in and passed to race. Filling the card is the higher priority than “Animal Welfare” in this immoral industry.
Todd Pletcher is a monster and should not be allowed to have a hand in killing anymore horses, but this industry will put him on a pedestal. This is the cold, dark reality of the “equine industry” because there is a money to be made by the Pari-mutuel gambling and the huge tax breaks and tax write-offs to so many greedy people in this industry.
The killing will go on and nobody goes to jail because horses are chattel and injustice reigns supreme. This is immoral.
2 years old and already 11 races.
Greedy bastards.