“Last year more than 100,000 people attended the Melbourne Cup, with more than 3 million watching the race on TV in Australia alone. This would have to make whipping in horse-racing the most public form of violence to animals in…
From the Les Bois Park website: Dear Les Bois Park Fans, As you may be aware, we will be closing our Turf Club Bar & Grill and Simulcast Facility, effective end of day on Sunday, March 20th. After being granted…
Last week, The Jockey Club gleefully boasted of progress on the “breakdown” front: “An analysis of data from the Equine Injury Database…has shown a 14 percent decrease in the frequency of fatal injury…from 1.89 per 1,000 starts in 2014 to…
Fact: If not for the corporate welfare it receives in the form of slots revenue, much of American racing would collapse. Particularly hard hit would be the harness end. Currently, there are 14 harness tracks in NY, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.…
Raceday Lasix is one of the more controversial issues in American horseracing. The critics say that the drug is but a performance-enhancer: A diuretic, Lasix helps shed water weight prior to a race – lighter equals faster – and as…
There is, of course, practically zero accountability in the racing world: A horse who shatters his leg while heading for home is said to have “taken a bad step”; a horse who snaps his neck after colliding with another is…
A week ago, I highlighted an abused horse named Shamrock Road. Well, his ordeal continues: Tuesday, Shamrock was put to the whip yet again – 7th of 8, 16+ back. This morning, we turn our attention to 4-year-old Hear Me…
The American public has been seduced. It’s Bob Costas and NBC Sports; it’s Secretariat on ESPN’s Greatest Athletes list (and, on a postage stamp); it’s “Seabiscuit”; it’s Seattle Slew and Affirmed; it’s big hats and mint juleps and radiant millionaires;…
The NYS Gaming Commission recently added Fancy Pancy to its dead-racehorse database. Apparently, the 3-year-old died on May 24 at Finger Lakes. But up until yesterday, no cause was given. Now we know: “collapsed and died on track after workout…
Steve Haskin, whom I’ve written on before, is a well-known Racing writer and a lifelong fan. But he also possesses, at least from what I can gather through his words, a thoughtfulness that sets him apart from many of his…
There is plenty wrong with this video: First, the abject suffering of the horse, 7-year-old Itzhoweeroll: lame, almost all the way around; malnourished, in part due to his teeth being “a mess”; beaten up – cuts, scrapes, ulcers; and criminally…
As a rule, the “Comments” next to the order of finish on the Equibase charts provide the relevant information, with the “Footnotes” section at the bottom of the page typically just a rehash. But not, often, with the Penn National…
