While I typically do not cover Canadian tracks, the reporting on a kill at Assiniboia Monday is so vile, and the video so horrific, I must share. Here is how an article yesterday from one of the more contemptible racing rags, Horse Racing Nation, opens:
“Stringin Me On won her career debut, died and was disqualified and placed fourth.”
And more:
“There were three separate objections against three different horses in a race already marred by the thrown rider and loose horse. Only Stringin Me On was disqualified, however. Her demotion from first to fourth reduced her earnings from $9,050 to $754.”
Upon further review, vile is too kind. What do you suppose was going through this man’s (Ed DeRosa) mind when he typed those words? More to the point, how does he sleep at night? As for what happened, I’ll let the track explain:
“A very unfortunate situation occurred at ASD on Monday night when a loose horse was gathered by the outrider and his horse and then they collided with another horse after the race had concluded. We can advise that the initial loose horse and the horse belonging to the outrider were unharmed, however, the single horse returning after the race suffered injuries and did not survive.”
One of their hashtags on that tweet – on that “unfortunate situation” – is “love.” I truly disdain these people. The one who “did not survive” was two years old, and this was her very first race. That poor, poor girl. As for how it looked, about as ugly as it gets…
Fred and Joan, how is it possible that a rider can be allowed to ride legally if he doesn’t even know what lane he is supposed to be in while galloping a horse on a racetrack?
If a guy didn’t know what lane he was supposed to drive a motor vehicle in on a public road, you know the Department of Licensing would not issue a legal driver’s license to that person to drive or operate a motor vehicle.
Can you imagine hiring a driver to drive a commercial vehicle and he didn’t even know which lane to drive in? That’s basically what happened here. Some trainer hired a “jockey” to guide a horse and the “jockey” doesn’t even know what lane he is supposed to keep the horse in.
This ugly mess is a totally unbelievable level of incompetence and the collision was totally avoidable!
If that video is indicative of the lighting conditions of that track, They have VERY poor night lights! Our old Portland Meadows had better night lighting than that. You are correct Wanda whenever a rider is going in the opposite of normal galloping flow a rider is supposed to be on the outside. Sometimes one has to use common sense! We have been on track with a loose horse. We turned the horse we were galloping into the same direction as the loose horse to avoid a wreck such as this! The rider of the loose horse at Portland Meadows ended up with a broken ankle. He tried to gallop his horses later in a cast!! The outrider caught him & gave him a good talking to.
The post race period isn’t the low risk period people imagine.The competitive event ended, but there were still multiple horses, an outrider, and a loose horse at speed. The same characteristics that make a horse good at racing like speed, responsiveness, competitive drive, acceleration can increase the energy when something goes wrong. Racing creates conditions in which a very short lived deviation from normal behavior can have disproportionately large consequences. At racing speed, several seconds represents a very small number of opportunities for humans and horses to react. Absolutely terrifying!
It looks like the jockey was pulling his horse to the right to maybe avoid the collision but at the same time also looks like he may have made it worse by pulling to the right. From what I understand, all jockeys are supposed to keep their horses to the outside rail when they are going in the opposite direction towards horses that are closer to the inside rail. Nothing changes the fact that people have to be extremely sadistic to be involved in horseracing as a whole. I can only hope that some people will be turned away from racing by this horrific example of Animal Cruelty.
Horrifying level of incompetence.
Had someone on Twitter not brought this to light- the track would have tried to hide it.
That poor, poor filly. I read she had multiple rib fractures and a punctured lungs
Quoting what I said yesterday this is a worldwide horror.