Veterinary care has been improving, but it remains difficult to rehabilitate horses from fractures because they cannot be immobilized. It has been a nightmare for one of America’s oldest sports that has grown into a multibillion-dollar agribusiness. 27, a 2-year-old filly named Bye Bye Beautiful became the 36th horse to die at Santa Anita after breaking her leg. The deaths of Mongolian Groom and the 36 other horses this year highlight both the dangerous and haphazard nature of horse racing and, in some cases, the recklessness and callousness of some of the humans who own, train and make a living off the horses. In the coming days, Fravel will leave his post at the Breeders’ Cup to become head of racing operations at the Stronach Group. In fact, the Jockey Club and other prominent owners and breeders have endorsed a bipartisan bill in Congress called the Horseracing Integrity Act of 2019, which would create a private, independent authority to develop and administer a nationwide antidoping and medication control program for horse racing. The American death toll is anywhere from two and a half to five times greater than the fatality rate in Europe and Asia, where rules against performance-enhancing drugs are enforced more stringently. “Our equine and human athletes’ safety is the Breeders’ Cup’s top priority.”Ībout 10 thoroughbred horses die a week at American racetracks, according to the Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database, and the scourge of drugs - painkillers and performance enhancers - has been acknowledged by industry leaders. “The death of Mongolian Groom is a loss to the entire horse racing community,” the Breeders’ Cup organizers said in a statement. The prescription was all too familiar: Mongolian Groom was euthanized and became the 37th and most high-profile dead horse at Santa Anita. The diagnosis was dire - a serious fracture of the horse’s left hind limb. Unnoticed by most of the announced crowd of 67,811, however, was that a horse named Mongolian Groom had taken that dreaded bad step and was suddenly pulled up in the stretch by his jockey, Abel Cedillo, after establishing himself in third place and looking every bit like a contender to win North America’s most prestigious race. So, when the New York-based horse Vino Rosso crossed the finish line here on Saturday to win the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, the event’s marquee race and the final one on the card, the collective exhale of relief was nearly audible.
#IRAD ORTIZ INJURY FULL#
Through the 14 races run and nationally televised over the weekend as part of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships here at Santa Anita Park, anyone who loved this picturesque racetrack - or the beauty of thoroughbreds in full flight - held their breaths as one multimillion-dollar race after another concluded without a horse taking a bad step.Īfter all, 36 horses had died here since Dec.
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