Follows is my state-by-state FOIA recap for 2017. Nevada: request filled Colorado: request filled Montana: request filled Wyoming: request filled Iowa: request partially filled – training deaths not included Minnesota: request filled – but with names redacted Michigan: request partially…
Horseracing-as-sport is an obscenity of the highest order. There are, of course, many reasons why, but perhaps the three most obvious are these: First, the athletes in question are utterly unaware of their status as such – worse, they are…
No words necessary… Epsom Downs (England), 1966 Prescott Downs (Arizona), 2000 Pimlico (Barbaro’s eventually-fatal injury), 2006 Churchill Downs (Eight Belles snaps both front ankles), 2008 Aqueduct, 2009 (Private Details killed) Arlington, 2009 (Born to Be killed) Japan, 2010 Galway (Ireland),…
How is it that the state of California can publish this list of horses who died in the San Luis fire but ever refuses my annual FOIA request for the names of their track kills? 2016: “The CHRB has not…
Various direct quotes from those within the racing industry… “It’s hard to justify how many horses we go through. In humans you never see someone snap their leg off running in the Olympics. But you see it in horse racing.”…
We are oft told by the apologists that horses can and do suffer and die from colic wherever horses are kept – that it’s not just a racetrack thing. (A similar argument is frequently posited for the proverbial “bad step,”…
Follows is my FOIA recap for 2016. California: request denied – “The CHRB has not changed its policy and therefore cannot provide a list of racehorses that died or were euthanized on or at California race tracks.” Kentucky: unwilling to…
Various direct quotes from those within the industry… Dr. Rick Arthur, equine medical director, California Horse Racing Board (New York Times, 3/24/12): “It’s hard to justify how many horses we go through. In humans you never see someone snap their…
I have completed my FOIA requests and subsequent reports for 2014. Follows is a state-by-state recap. These states would not (or said they could not) fill my request: Arkansas – After the Commission said it “would not be involved in…
It really is this simple…
Supposedly, the lowest breakdown rates in the world are roughly half the U.S. rate. (I say supposedly because there is no uniform policy for the recording and reporting of breakdowns.) Supposedly, these rates are effected by doing all the things…
Accuracy, here, is paramount. This is why a retraction is in order. The post “Juliebrowneyes and Carol Ann Make It Three Dead From Same Tampa Race” (February 12th) is only partially true: I reported that Juliebrowneyes was one of three…
