AP Photo/Julio Cortez, FileĪs equine vet Dr. What kind of society would allow that, let alone venerate it? Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit had just completed five furlongs in his second workout since finishing second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic a month ago at Del Mar. Kulikowski testified, “is equivalent to a four foot-by-four foot closet for a one hundred pound child.” “A 12-by-12 stall for a thousand-pound horse,” Dr. No doubt about it: we are sanctioning torture. Yet we allow these horses to be pushed beyond their biological limits, to be drugged, whipped, kept corralled in tiny 12-by-12 stalls for 23 hours a day when they’re not spending 30 or so minutes in training they’re too young to handle.
Medina Spirit crosses the finish line to win the 147th running of the Kentucky Derby on in Louisville, Kentucky. Horses, like dogs, have evolved for human companionship and, yes, protection. Perhaps no other animal is as emblematic of the American DNA as the horse - not the bald eagle, not the wild turkey or the bison, but the animal responsible for westward expansion. They have fought and died in wars with us. Horses have built civilizations and defended empires. 6 at the Santa Anita racetrack in California after collapsing during a workout. Kentucky Derby-winning racehorse Medina Spirit died on Monday, Dec. Three years ago, after multiple deaths at California’s Santa Anita racetrack, I wrote a column wondering where our humanity has gone - the human-equine bond being second in strength and sacredness only to the human-canine one. Or one in which aged-out players weren’t retired but sent to the slaughterhouse, as about 13,000 thoroughbreds are annually? Think about the frequency of death, how often racehorses collapse on the track, only to be hauled off and euthanized or put down on the track itself - yet races continue, the Winner’s Circle celebrates, and the media swiftly casts aside the carnage.Ĭan you imagine any sport in which human athletes routinely died on the field, in competition, and we simply removed the bodies and kept going? Jockey John Velazquez #3 riding Medina Spirit leads the field in the first pass during the 146th Running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course on in Baltimore, Maryland. The reason these horses are breaking down and dying is the constant grinding of these immature bodies.” “While that might sound good to the average person, that is not the problem. “The HRI is almost entirely focused on drugs,” Battuello says. Exercise rider Humberto Gomez takes Medina Spirit over the track during a training session. The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, signed into federal law last year, is little more than window dressing for a multibillion industry where death has become normalized, he says. Battuello’s research, informed by Freedom of Information requests, has found that over 2,000 racehorses die every year, more than six per day. He spoke of trainers with zero medical experience overruling racetrack veterinarians in all matters of equine health care - and that’s industry standard. the question is never, ‘What is the right thing to do?’ but ‘What can we get away with?’ ” Kraig Kulikowski said, “The racetrack healthcare environment is one of lawlessness on multiple levels. In testifying before the New York State Senate in 2019, equine veterinarian Dr. But at 18 months old, they are put into intense training, then launched at two, when they still have their baby teeth.” “The bones in their neck and spine are the last to finish. “Horses are fully mature at age six,” Battuello says. Medina Spirit was only three years old, equivalent to nine in human years. “But pubescent horses collapsing and dying - this is just business as usual.” in horse racing currently,” Patrick Battuello, founder and president of Horseracing Wrongs, tells the Post. Horse racing is cruel, mercenary, abusive and lethal.
It’s long past time for this so-called sport to disappear. Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit’s death is shocking in just one regard: we never learn our lesson. In 2021, piggish male celebs got what they deservedīen Affleck's cruelty knows no limits after terrible Jennifer Garner insult
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