Cross-posted from Horse Racing Wrongs
BY PATRICK BATTUELLO
As with Saratoga in New York, a single California track dominates the summer scene, garnering, along the way, (mostly) fawning coverage from mainstream media and racing press alike – Del Mar, of course. And yet, just like NY, other tracks are running – and killing. From the Stewards Minutes:
August 7, Santa Rosa: 4-year-old McCann’s Half Full snapped a leg training. Dead. She was last raced nine days prior – last of 8.
August 12, Santa Rosa: 3-year-old Miss Special Regard suffered “multiple fractures” in the 2nd. Dead. She was coming off a last-of-10 in early July.
August 13, Santa Rosa: 3-year-old Foxie Gotham “bled outwardly post workout – collapsed on walking machine.” Dead.
August 13, Los Alamitos: 3-year-old Kr Crusin Cartel fell after crossing the finish line in the 9th. “She appeared to have broken both knees…euthanized on the track.”
In addition, there is this note in the Santa Rosa minutes: “Jockey PEDRO TERRERO who rode THE WAY TO WIN in the third race on August 12 is hereby fined the sum of $500 for causing welts or breaks in the skin.” It’s called animal cruelty, folks.
This is horseracing.
Tuesday's Horse 
It’s going to take a WHOLE lot more people to cry out for stopping this horrendous “sport” for it to finally be called, once and for all, “inhumane and illegal – over and done with!”
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Amen. It is as you say illegal to abuse and kill an animal in just about any jurisdiction you care to look at. Just because it takes place in the horse racing industry does not make them exempt from the law. Plus they are being torture and killed in order for people to gamble on it. That links it to federal level criminality. But how do you get law enforcement to do something about it. We have a legal team working on that right now.
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So why does the abuse just keep happening? Shelters and kill buyers end up with an embarrassing amount of these poor horses. These horses are started way to young before their growth is finished. But the owners, trainers, race tracks are allowed to just keep abusing these poor animals…why???
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It’s called greed. Sad but true. Oh, and ego.
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Thanks for sharing Patrick’s blog. I hope all your readers will follow him and help support the fight against horse racing.
“To those who trade in equines in the pursuit of cash and fleeting glory, we say: Find a commodity that doesn’t bleed; take up a hobby that can’t cry out in pain. Enough.” – Patrick Battuello
US Attorney William C. Killiam: “As human beings, we have been given dominion over the earth and its creatures, and we must exercise that privilege by being good stewards of this gift. Maiming and mutilating horses for sport and profit betrays that charge of stewardship.”
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Thank you Faith. Patrick is doing an incredible job and his work is an integral part of the whole. Tragically there is a lot more.
There are so many abuses literally from cradle to grave. Jane Allin, a leading expert on this issue, has a group of reports you may also find interesting. See http://horsefund.org/horse-racing-resources.php/.
Oh, and you may also want to read “Saving Baby — How One Woman’s Love for a Racehorse Led to Her Redemption” by JoAnne Normile. Everyone who loves horses, not just racehorses, should read her book. One of the best ever! http://amzn.to/1jxNNjq
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Time to put an end to the “sport” of horse racing forever!!
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Horses not fit; probably started racing way too young and bones not developed correctly and sound. Who cares? They are just disposable horses, aren’t they?
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Why are we not surprised? How many racehorses across this country have suffered injuries when CA racing already admitted years ago there is no justification for what they do to these horses? The following quote is from the NY Times back in 2012: “It’s hard to justify how many horses we go through,” said Dr. Rick Arthur, the equine medical director for the California Racing Board. “In humans you never see someone snap their leg off running in the Olympics. But you see it in horse racing.”
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