Another Black Eye for Racing

With the death of yet another horse at Santa Anita, making 23 in the last four months, United States Senator Diane Feinstein has asked the California Horse Racing Board to suspend racing at the track and to move its dates to another venue.  Die hard fans of horse racing are beginning to turn away from the carnage.

If the tragedy of Santa Anita weren't enough, add to it the drowning of a trotting horse at Miami Valley Gaming's harness track in Monroe, Ohio.

"The horse was already dead when he got there,"  The "he" is Mike Jameson, Turtlecreek Township Fire Chief, who donned his wet suit and entered the murky, cold water, feeling blindly for the horse, even though it was known where the horse had entered the water.  While a track worker had immediately gone into the water after the horse, it took two rotating 2-man teams an hour to find the animal that was still harnessed to its sulky.

Wrecks like this one in Australia can be deadly to horse and driver.

The race was a 1-mile event with a $12,500 purse.  Driver Kayne Kauffman, a winner of more than 3000 races and $20 million, fell into last place.  As he began to move his horse "He's A Perfect Ten" into contention, the racing was four-wide in front of him.  Another driver, seeing no way around the bottleneck, slowed, causing Kauffman to check-up, and when he did, he was hit from behind and thrown from his bike (sulky).

The track announcer warned the drivers of the driverless rig loose on the track, warning them to use caution.  But the horse "spooked" and ran into a retention pond where it sadly drowned in ten feet of water.

But it is the callousness of race officials who did not suspend racing, but allowed the card's last two races to be run, that boggles the mind.  And it is just this kind decision making, absent of the natural human emotion that attends tragedy, that gives the radical animal rights activists fodder for their cause and causes the fan to turn away from the spectacle of horse racing.

When all goes well.

Of course this incident was a freak accident, but consequences have very little regard for the facts.




Copyright by Loren R. Schumacher April 3, 2019

Photos: Credit belongs to the photographers

Money is Always the Answer

There has always been the stench of impropriety surrounding horse racing.  In the early 20th Century the practice of using drug cocktails containing such things as heroin or cocaine to enhance performance was common.  The standard seems to have been, "Just don't get caught."  While testing today is more sophisticated, there are those willing to buck the system.  Drugs can be used to enhance performance or to mask injuries allowing unfit horses to run without regard to consequences for the animal.  Rick Dutrow, who trained Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown, was suspended several years ago for flagrant and ongoing violations, including improper drug use.  His attempts to overturn his suspension in the court system have failed.  Dutrow's circumstance is the exception rather than the rule however.

Harness racing has not been immune to controversy either.  In the United States, harness racing once rivaled baseball in popularity. The sport is thought to have originated with Assyrian kings more than 3500 years ago and ripened among the Greeks and Romans. By the fourth century, Rome's Circus Maximus, where harness racing took place, seated 200,000 citizens.

Roman harness racing was corporately sponsored, had professional officials; widespread betting; riots among fans and DOPING!

Corruption, immorality and inhumanity can be jarring things when we are exposed to them.  The following is a Facebook conversation that I was involved in recently, which graphically shows the lengths that some will go to in order to win.

First, a disclaimer.  I do not know the person who makes the claims here.  He, and it is a "he", would not allow me to interview him, refusing saying, "No, I am not interested in that at all."  And finally, he claims in writing to be a trainer/racer, but a check of his Facebook profile showed that he is a groom.  To protect him I have deleted his name.  I might add that his typing and spelling is iffy.

The track that I make reference to in the conversation is the old Lebanon Raceway, where my uncle, who is deceased, worked and was part owner of an unruly trotter named Speedy Trip, a gelding foaled in 1961.

Deweycheatumnhow 2007 Photo by Dean Hoffman

" I don't care which trainer is which. Etc. The fact of the matter is we are dopping in this sport. I train and race standardbreds. It is hard to compete and make money when people dope for speed. I see it way to much
I enter a horse in a 5k race
Because of the dope I get 2nd or 3rd. It's ok money but I or the owners can't live off it. What do you do? We have to do something ! I'm no expert. I'm just a half ass trainer trying to figure 
The best our for everyone"

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  Loren Schumacher Brendan, we had a harness track near me that was notorious for various improprieties, among them race fixing etc, I know that is true, because my uncle was an owner/trainer there.. I can't speak to any doping issues at that venue, but I do know that racing in all its forms is killing itself for the lack of uniform and enforceable rules relating to drug use etc. The public perception of racing is that it is: first, corrupt and second, inhumane. The half-assed approach that the Stronachs have taken at Santa Anita has done nothing to improve that image. Sadly, drug use has existed for a long, long time. The best book I have read on MOW speaks of rampant use of cocktails comprised of such things as heroine and cocaine and who knows what else. If you have substantive proof of drugging, you and other owner/trainers should turn the offenders over to the authorities. It would make your life uncomfortable, but in the end all of racing and the horses would be better for it. You and people like you are in a tough spot, trying to make a living in an expensive sport and doing what you love. I think that race fans would stand behind those who try to clean up the sport. While i sympathize with owner/trainers, like Joe Vargas, my concern is for the horse. Without them, there is no racing. None.

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  " it has gotten so bad that race secretaries, judges and the racing commison just say we are building a case which means they just turn there head. We had a case a few years ago where a standardbred w named killean cut kid I think. Was found in a kill pen and rescued. The horse had blisters thay festerd from inside out at his lower joints above the p1. A investigation happened they found that the previous owner had used snake venom in the joints which is a extreme form of a nerve blocker in the joints to reduce pain in a lame horse. The horse recoversd and is at a rescue he's only 6 or 7 years old. The trainers received a slap on the wrist. You can't do anything when know one will do anytjing and just look the other day."

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• Donato Hanover 2007 Photo by Dean Hoffman
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As depraved as those who dope horses are, it is the stomach-turning cowardice of racing's governing bodies in dealing with the issues, which has severely damaged racing's image in the public view. Doping is just one of racing's many concerns.  Consider the increasing number of race and training related deaths, as well as the number of horses being found in kill pens and you easily see why attendance, handles, foal births and ownership are in decline.  

I don't want to close without acknowledging the strides made in equine aftercare.

Trainers and horse lovers are working together to provide new homes and new careers for horses whose racing days are over. There are numerous organizations, such as Old Friends in Georgetown, Kentucky, that provide forever homes for pensioned horses, whether they raced to glory at Churchill Downs, or labored in anonymity.  All are welcome.

Copyright March 25, 2019 by Loren Schumacher
All photos by Dean Hoffman i

The Girls

It has been quite a while since I've mentioned either of my horses, known collectively as The Girls.  They are getting older and it is hard to believe that fifteen years have passed so quickly.

One of them, Callie, my dark bay paint will be seventeen late this year and most likely had a bout of colic last weekend.  While she didn't evidence some of the classic signs: rolling on the ground or nipping at her sides, she was listless and her quiet eyes were dull and hooded.  There was an 11 p.m. call to our vet who prescribed 10cc of Banamine.  She was some better the next morning, but often stood motionless for long periods, her eyes nearly closed or she napped on what little grass there is in a February pasture.

We put her on half-rations which she largely picked at, so with growing concern, a flurry of text messages passed between my vet and me.  On the second night more Banamine was needed, but I had used all I had the night before.  Thankfully the next option was Previcoxx, an anti-inflammatory, that we keep on hand because of Callie's past Navicular problem.  By late the second day she seemed to come around, hassling her sister Stormy and nuzzling me, looking for comfort.

Stormy (Stormy Monday), soon to turn nineteen, a black and white paint horse, has had her issues in the recent past.  Grossly obese at nearly 1100 pounds and standing just 14.3, she began to limp.  Sensitivity and blood tests showed that she is metabolic, unable to absorb glucose and showing the first signs of laminitis.

Life-style changes were made quickly.  Her activity levels were raised significantly (which she hated).  She was started on  a course of Previcoxx and Isoxsuprine, a combination that relieved the pain in her front feet after just a few days.  And her sweet feed became a memory as we transitioned both horses to a Purina Welsolve LS (low starch) feed, which they loved and devoured, always looking for more.

The last box to be checked was getting Stormy fitted for a grazing muzzle.  I'll save the story of how I got her to accept the muzzle for another day.

Today Stormy is a trim 868 pounds and she looks better than at any time since I've owned her.

So now it's time to introduce, or reintroduce them to you as the case may be, but in a most unusual way.

A friend of my wife's, Cris Fee, is an artist, a fiber artist who creates art quilts that are stunning works and have been exhibited in juried shows throughout the country. Some of her work can be viewed on her website: https://crisfee.com/.  This is her latest:

"The Girls" - Stormy on the left and Callie.

Just a few more words about The Girls.  They are friends first and foremost, their likes and dislikes as familiar as my own.  They seek comfort from me when the are scared or uncertain and warn me when things in their world are perceived as a threat.  Sometimes they are lazy and uncooperative and other times playful brats. They give and take on a whim.  Callie, the performance horse, a powerful sweet child, can be guided with just a thought and Stormy, who has tested my leadership for fourteen years and will for another fourteen, I hope.  Her feet barely touch the ground in flight, her tail raised in fluttering salute to her joy in being a horse.

I wouldn't have them any other way.