Unlike the Thoroughbred version, harness racing operates under no sport illusion – Bob Costas doesn’t do Batavia; Standardbreds don’t make the cover of SI (or win their own postage stamps). Accordingly, there is scant information to be found on harness…
In a CBS8 news report on a protest on Del Mar’s final day, Joe Harper, club president, said this: “Sometimes I wonder why they’re out there carrying banners when the rest of us are actually doing something about it [the…
“Carnage,” as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, is “large-scale death and destruction.” Those familiar with this site know that I’ve oft used this word to describe what is happening within the American horseracing industry. Critics take umbrage, calling it…
The latest Del Mar Minutes are in. While no dead are specifically identified (because California does not require such transparency), the “deceased” tally for the week comes in at four. This presumably includes Unusualy, Alicanto, and All the Marbles –…
The willfully ignorant excepted, everyone in and around Racing knows that slaughter happens – that is, that “retired” American racehorses (of all breeds) are being shipped to foreign abattoirs to be shackled, hoisted, slashed, bled-out, and butchered for European and…
Last summer – and the summer before that – a spate of deaths had the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club (and California, in general) scrambling. Dead horses are always bad for business, but most especially at such a celebrated, high-profile meet…
I was at Saratoga Race Course yesterday – along with 40 or so other activists. We were there, of course, to protest the systemic abuse and killing of horses for entertainment. On this gorgeous upstate-NY summer day, 30,000 souls merrily…
3-year-old Just Dance With Me died while training at Hoosier Park Tuesday. Nothing unusual there; what is is how this particular kill transpired: The Standardbred “veered off the track,” went through a fence – and drowned in an infield pond.…
From the Golden Gate Stewards Minutes: “Euthanized/Died – The Desert Rat. Horse was gelded Wednesday, May 25 and rolled in the stall. Got up and two-foot section of his intestines fell out of the incision.” “Two-foot section of his intestines…
Although I am loath (and loathe) to give Ray Paulick, one of Racing’s more notorious hacks, “clicks” or “hits” (for I know he counts them), this short clip was too good to pass up. Speaking in the wake of the…
From the “Radnor Hunt Races” (Malvern, PA) website: This year you can watch the racing excitement at Radnor Hunt in Malvern as the 86th Radnor Hunt Races are held on Saturday, May 21. Picture yourself standing in the middle of…
Horseracing kills horses – every day, scores over the course of a year. For an industry whose long-term economic outlook is ominous (see recent Newsweek piece “Horse Racing Fading in Revenue, Popularity”), this simple fact should in time help sound…
