Thursday, during Santa Anita’s 3rd race, Facoltoso “was pulled up into the second turn and vanned off.” Later in the day, Betcee Cash, running in a $5,000 maiden claiming race at Lone Star, “went wrong [and was] vanned off.” The…
Over a two-day span (Oct 8th, 9th), NY lost three more racehorses. Aqueduct, which doesn’t begin its winter campaign until November 1st, reports that four-year-old Unbroken Dream “unseated exercise rider – ran loose in barn area hitting stationary object –…
Illinois horseracing has been in a precipitous decline (hanging by a thread, really) since the first riverboat casinos were christened in 1991. But the horsemen refuse to quietly fade away. Invoking their supposedly rich tradition and incessantly warning of economic…
King Keene, four, has died at Finger Lakes from post-surgery “complications.” This marks the 33rd death at Finger Lakes this year, making it the state leader. It is also the track’s third “non-racing” death in a row. Is anyone at…
Monday at Parx (Pennsylvania), five-year veteran (55 starts) Radio Relay “pulled up in apparent distress…and was vanned off” in the 8th race. Distress. Two races later, Elegant Heart “broke down in her right front.” She had yet to finish puberty.
Last December, The New York Times ran an article (12/8/12) on the EU’s growing reluctance to import tainted American-sourced horse meat. One sentence from the piece, though, is extraordinarily misleading: “Despite the fact that racehorses make up only a fraction…
During Keeneland’s 5th race Friday afternoon, three-year-old Order of Magnitude “went wrong nearing the furlong marker, was pulled up and vanned off.” Racehorse Memorial reports that the colt fractured sesamoids and was euthanized. Saturday at Delaware Park, Paskha, a three-year-old…
“This is what they are reduced to. After the glory, fame, adulation, they end up on a windy plain at a knackery waiting for a bullet in the head. They communicate with each other. They suffer, they quiver, they shake,…
Lavalette Gold imploded after crossing the finish line in Thursday’s 4th race at Belmont, and this time the NYRA cameras couldn’t help but capture the ugliness…around the 1:40 mark (Race Replays, Thursday, Race 4). Dead at three. The video, of…
With the deaths of Standardbred Ideal Joe (“possible heart attack” at Vernon Downs) and Thoroughbred Two Comma Guy (while training at Belmont), New York has tallied 85 racehorse deaths through the first 3 quarters of 2013, a statistic not likely…
Equibase reports that four-year-old Kentucky Hannah, running in yesterday’s 6th race at Penn National, “broke down and fell nearing the turn then was humanely euthanized.” (By the way, to imply that somehow credit is due for ending the misery you…
Tradition. Beauty. Elegance. Billing itself “The Sport of Kings,” racing presents its horses, especially the regal Thoroughbreds, as resplendent, pampered athletes proudly displaying their prowess to admiring fans. The horse, they tell us, is born to run, loves to run,…
