Horse Racing Exposed: Drugs and Death

The failure of racing commissions to protect horses from this level of abuse has been noted elsewhere.

Attendance at Horse Races is declining and this explains part of the reason. Who wants to witness cruelty?





Published on Mar 19, 2014

A PETA undercover investigation of leading thoroughbred trainer Steve Asmussen reveals chronic misuse of drugs, reportedly to enhance horses' performance and mask their injuries.

PETA Accuses Top Horse Trainer Of Animal Cruelty Following Undercover Investigation

Posted: 03/21/2014

After a four-month undercover investigation, an animal rights group has accused a prominent horse trainer of giving his horses unnecessary amounts of performance-enhancing drugs and using illegal electric shock devices to make them run faster.

The investigation, conducted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), used hidden cameras and microphones to document the staff of Steve Asmussen, a top thoroughbred racehorse trainer who holds multiple horse racing records and has won millions of dollars in horse race purses.

The probe took place at both Churchill Downs in Kentucky and Saratoga Race Track in New York from April through August of last year.

Released on Thursday, the video appears to show Asmussen's workers discussing a top-performing horse's feet being worn down to "nubs." One says they had to use superglue to keep its hooves together.

That horse, who was named Nehro, died of colic -- "a term used to describe a symptom of abdominal (belly) pain" -- in the back of a van on the day of the 2013 Kentucky Derby.

The man can also be heard discussing how he had a jockey use an illegal shocking tool on a horse. ("I'd tell [jockey Ricardo Santana Jr.], 'You got the máquina?'" he says.) He's also heard talking about employing undocumented workers and having them lie to the IRS.

PETA's video also purports to show prominent veterinarian Dr. James Hunt Jr. saying all of Asmussen's horses are given Lasix, or furosemide, a controversial drug that's banned in many countries but legal in the United States.

"They basically all run on it. It makes them lighter," the man PETA identifies as Hunt says in the clip.

Hunt did not immediately respond to request for comment from The Huffington Post.
Asmussen's lawyer, Clark Brewster, told HuffPost that electric shock devices were

After a four-month undercover investigation, an animal rights group has accused a prominent horse trainer of giving his horses unnecessary amounts of performance-enhancing drugs and using illegal electric shock devices to make them run faster.

The investigation, conducted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), used hidden cameras and microphones to document the staff of Steve Asmussen, a top thoroughbred racehorse trainer who holds multiple horse racing records and has won millions of dollars in horse race purses.

The probe took place at both Churchill Downs in Kentucky and Saratoga Race Track in New York from April through August of last year.

Released on Thursday, the video appears to show Asmussen's workers discussing a top-performing horse's feet being worn down to "nubs." One says they had to use superglue to keep its hooves together.

That horse, who was named Nehro, died of colic -- "a term used to describe a symptom of abdominal (belly) pain" -- in the back of a van on the day of the 2013 Kentucky Derby.

The man can also be heard discussing how he had a jockey use an illegal shocking tool on a horse. ("I'd tell [jockey Ricardo Santana Jr.], 'You got the máquina?'" he says.) He's also heard talking about employing undocumented workers and having them lie to the IRS.

PETA's video also purports to show prominent veterinarian Dr. James Hunt Jr. saying all of Asmussen's horses are given Lasix, or furosemide, a controversial drug that's banned in many countries but legal in the United States.

"They basically all run on it. It makes them lighter," the man PETA identifies as Hunt says in the clip.

Hunt did not immediately respond to request for comment from The Huffington Post.
Asmussen's lawyer, Clark Brewster, told HuffPost that electric shock devices were never used. He said the recorded dialogue in the video was just table talk about the use of buzzers "historically" and not specifically on his client's horses.

"We are reserving comment until we get specific allegations from PETA," Brewster said. "At this point it's just been a media blitz by PETA rather than any substance or information for us to respond to. I think ultimately people will see what this is, an effort by this organization to grandstand because they disapprove of horse racing."

Brewster said he's spent the past two days trying to get PETA to send him complaints but that PETA has declined to do so. PETA, however, says it had offered to provide Brewster with the complaints.

The animal rights group filed complaints with federal and state officials in Kentucky and New York after completing its investigation. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, a state agency that regulates horse racing in Kentucky, confirmed to HuffPost that it had received documents from PETA alleging animal cruelty "by two trainers working at Churchill Downs."

The Commission said it has not reviewed the information yet but that it plans to conduct a thorough investigation.

Churchill Downs could not be reached for comment. The Saratoga Race Track did not immediately respond to a request for comment from HuffPost.





http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/peta-steve-asmussen-animal-cruelty-investigation_n_5001756.html



 

Wild horses are shownn at the Pryor Mountain National Wild Horse Range in south-central Montana. (photo: AP/Bureau of Land Management/Ann Boucher)

Horse Slaughter Blocked by Federal Law (For Now)

By Barry Massey, Associated Press

19 January 14

he resumption of commercial horse slaughter in the U.S. was blocked Friday as President Barack Obama signed a budget measure that withholds money for required federal inspections of the slaughtering process.

Although the measure provides temporary funding for the federal government, it stops the Agriculture Department from spending money for inspections necessary for slaughterhouses to ship horse meat interstate and eventually export it to overseas consumers.

 

"This clear message from Washington echoes the opinions of an overwhelming number of Americans from coast to coast: horse slaughter is abhorrent and unacceptable," said Matt Bershadker, president and CEO of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

 

The president's action came as a New Mexico judge granted a preliminary injunction against a Roswell company from moving forward with its plans to start slaughtering horses.

 

The ruling by state District Judge Matthew Wilson will keep alive a lawsuit by Attorney General Gary King, who's seeking to permanently block horse slaughter in New Mexico. The lawsuit could serve as a possible insurance plan in case the federal government provides inspection funding in the future.

 

Blair Dunn, a lawyer for Valley Meat, said the company will continue to wage a legal fight to convert its cattle processing plant to the slaughtering of horses. He contended that the federal move to withhold money for meat inspections could cause U.S. trade violations.

 

"I don't see them opening now. No matter what, they are not going to violate the law," said Dunn, who also represents a plant in Missouri that wants to produce horse meat.

 

The last domestic horse slaughterhouses closed in 2007, a year after Congress initially withheld inspection funding. After federal money was restored in 2011, plants in New Mexico, Missouri and Iowa began trying to start horse slaughtering.

 

King's lawsuit contends that the Roswell company's operations would violate New Mexico's environmental and food safety laws.

 

Valley Meat is trying to disqualify the judge who's handling the case because of comments posted by horse slaughter opponents on a Facebook page for the judge's election campaign. Wilson issued an order Friday saying he would consider setting a hearing on the company's request.

The Slaughter of Race Horses

NoPlainvilleRacino

So, you think harness and horse racing is all about people who love horses? Think again. Is this an industry that deserves bailing out?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/sports/rescuing-racehorses-from-slaughter-as-industry-bides-its-time.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

More information about race horse slaughter:
http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cruelty/equine-cruelty/horse-slaughter

 

 

 

Rescuing Horses as Industry Bides Its Time

By JOE DRAPE

Ann Johansson for The New York Times

Deborah Jones, a thoroughbred advocate, said, “They run for big purses, but then you see how easily they are discarded.”

Published: November 1, 2012

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — Deborah Jones has a ticket to the Breeders’ Cup, and as a lifelong horse lover, she would cherish a weekend amid the best thoroughbreds in the world and some of the most prominent owners in racing. But she will not make the drive 41 miles north to Santa Anita Park on Friday to watch the horses of sheiks and titans of industry compete for more than $25 million in purses.

 

 

Instead, Jones will make and take dozens of phone calls from like-minded thoroughbred advocates on the lookout for former racehorses that have landed at auctions and are en route to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. When they are found, she will call their breeders or former owners in the hope they will send a trailer or some money to help find the horses a safe home.

 

Some have been horrified to learn of their horses’ fate and have helped immediately. But many more, Jones said, have declined to help at all.

 

Just two weeks ago, eight horses were discovered in a kill pen in Ohio. One of them had raced 12 days earlier at nearby Thistledown, and another had earned more than $217,000 in his career. Jones mobilized a rescue through her Facebook page.

 

Within hours, $6,200 was raised, and the horses — all in poor shape — were removed, quarantined and under veterinarian care. Over the past four years, Jones and her informal network have raised tens of thousands of dollars to save hundreds of horses.

 

“It is frustrating to know that these thoroughbreds are bred to make money for people,” Jones said.

 

“There are values assigned to their pedigrees, they run for big purses, but then you see how easily they are discarded.”

 

In the past three years, nearly 86,000 thoroughbreds have been registered as foals, but only about half of them will actually make it to the races, according to Jockey Club statistics.

      

Slow or injured horses do not stay on an owner’s balance sheet for long, and only a handful of horses possess the rare combination of regal bloodlines and proven talent to assure a career after racing. In 2011, for example, 1,861 stallions covered 35,391 mares in North America.

So where do the other former racehorses go?

 

Hard numbers are elusive, but 138,000 horses were sent to Canada or Mexico in 2010 to be turned into meat for Europe and other parts of the world, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

 

Advocacy groups say up to 10 percent may be thoroughbreds.

 

“We know the problem is massive: half the foal crop doesn’t make it to the races year after year, and it becomes exponential,” said Mike Ziegler, executive director of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, an organization of breeders, owners, sales companies and racetracks recently formed to accredit and raise money for facilities for retired thoroughbreds.

 

Some owners treat their horses as members of the family and retire them to their farms or find them a home at retraining centers. Other owners treat them as commodities. Their horses are the ones that Jones and dozens of rescue groups come across.

 

Mindy Lovell has stopped hundreds of horses from reaching a slaughterhouse in Quebec, and she cares for more than 40 of them herself on her farm in Ottawa. They include expensive sons and daughters of stars like the Kentucky Derby winner Silver Charm and the Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Skip Away. It costs her $7,000 a month to keep them fed and cared for, money that comes out of her own pocket.

 

“In all the years I’ve done this, only one breeder has ever taken back his horse and cared for it the rest of its life,” Lovell said.“So many involved in the racing industry just sit there silently while we pull them out of the kill pens.”

 

John Murrell is a longtime horse owner and a friend of Jones’s. Like many who save horses, he has a hard time squaring his passion for what he believes is a beautiful sport and the greed that encourages cruelty and abuse off the track.

 

He provided half the money to rescue Grunwald, a 5-year-old gelding who had won 11 times, and the seven other horses that went from the racetrack to the kill pen in Ohio in October. He knows he cannot save every horse, but he has spent countless hours and thousands of dollars saving scores of them.

 

“I’m part of the industry, and I know many, many fine people who take care of their horses,” said Murrell, a Dallas-based oilman. “But we’re breeding too many, and we’re dumping them like yesterday’s trash when they become economically useless. It has to stop.”

 

Over the years, there have been substantial donations by individual owners and groups to umbrella organizations and aftercare programs.

 

In the past three years, for example, the Jockey Club has given $750,000 to Thoroughbred Charities of America and the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. For the fourth straight year, trainers and owners of Breeders’ Cup contenders have pledged a percentage of their earnings to New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program. So far, more than $150,000 has gone to the organization, which finds homes for horses coming off 40 tracks.

 

Broader efforts have not fared as well. Since 2009, the Jockey Club has given owners an opportunity to donate $25 to $100 toward thoroughbred retirement when they register their foals. Participation has been poor, and although 86,000 foals have been registered, only a little more than $156,000 has been raised.

 

Next year, the Jockey Club will add a $25 transaction fee for registering a foal and give the money to the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance.

 

Auction companies like Keeneland have pledged a percentage of their gross sales receipts, and horseman groups have agreed to set aside a portion of purse money to take care of retired racehorses.

 

Ziegler said the alliance had promises for $4 million for 2013, an admittedly modest start.

      

“There are a lot of transactions surrounding a horse, and if we take a small percentage of them, it’s a lot of money,” Ziegler said.

 

Less eager to participate, however, have been the commercial breeders who are responsible for the glut of racehorses. While 13 farms have pledged a portion of their stallion fees to the initiative, hundreds more, including some mainstays of the industry, have chosen a wait-and-see approach.

 

For Jones, the constant ringing of her phone, the often heartbreaking photos of missing horses that appear on her Facebook page and the 17 hours a day she says she spends identifying racehorses in distress and setting the wheels of rescue in motion are evidence enough that there is no time left to wait and see. Too often, her efforts are too late, and the horses are sent to their death.

 

As much as she would like to spend a day at the Breeders’ Cup, Jones knows her time is better spent standing up for those thoroughbreds that have long been forgotten, she said.

      

“I’m not antiracing,” she said. “I work with, and need to work with, people in the industry. I’m just looking for more responsibility and accountability.”

A version of this article appeared in print on November 2, 2012, on page B9 of the New York edition with the headline: Rescuing Horses as Industry Bides Its Time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/sports/rescuing-racehorses-from-slaughter-as-industry-bides-its-time.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

 

 

 

New Mexico horse slaughterhouse likely to get permit soon

Proposed New Mexico horse slaughterhouse likely to get permit soon

Valley Meat Co. owner Rick De Los Santos stands in a corral area outside the former cattle slaughterhouse he has converted to a horse slaughter facility in Roswell, N.M.. The plant has been waiting more than a year for federal approval to begin operations. (Jeri Clausing / Associated Press / April 15, 2013)

By John M. Glionna

May 3, 2013, 12:43 p.m.

The battle over the opening of the nation’s first domestic horse slaughterhouse since a government ban six years ago has ramped up as a company in Roswell, N.M., moves closer to reinstituting the practice.

 

Activists throughout the West say they are preparing for a public-relations battle if the owners of Valley Meat Co. receive a federal permit to begin killing horses.

 

“This is going to happen and we need to stop it for so many reasons -- moral, healthwise, economic, the whole ball of wax,” animal advocate Yvette Dobbie told the Los Angeles Times. “If they move ahead and open this plant, there will be a huge protest presence at that facility.”

 

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack this week warned that the Roswell plant, which has been fighting for more than a year for permission to slaughter horses, will open soon, unless Congress acts.

 

“We are going to do this, and I would imagine that it would be done relatively soon,” he told the Associated Press. “It will open unless Congress restores the ban on horse slaughter that they had in place. If that doesn't happen, then we are duty-bound to do what needs to be done to allow that plant to begin processing.”

 

Rick De Los Santos, the owner of the New Mexico facility, sued the Department of Agriculture last year, claiming the agency was stalling in its review of the application due to public pressure. The lawsuit charged that the delays had cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. The USDA reinspected the plant last week.

 

De Los Santos has has not returned repeated calls from The Times for comment.

 

The horse slaughter issue has also played out in Washington, where President Obama is at odds with Congress over the issue. The administration’s recent budget proposal eliminates funding for inspections of horse slaughterhouses, which would effectively reinstate a ban on the practice.

 

Congress eliminated such funding in 2006, which forced a shutdown of domestic slaughter facilities, but restored the funding in 2011. That move prompted several companies nationwide, including Valley Meat, to seek permission to open plants.

 

This week, the battle to prevent the opening got personal when New Mexico Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, sent a letter to Vilsack, saying “it saddens me that thousands of horses, a majestic fixture of the American West, could be methodically and inhumanely put to death in my home state.”

 

Grisham’s letter, reviewed by The Times, also cited a series of past violations at the plant, which previously slaughtered cattle, including a USDA notice of inspection last year “for violating requirements for the humane handling of animals.” Grisham also said that De Los Santos has failed to disclose in two of three applications with the Department of Agriculture that he has felony convictions, as the law requires.

 

In granting inspection for the first horse slaughter plant in years, she warned, the USDA must ensure a high standard for quality sand safety.

 

“Unfortunately,” Grisham wrote, “Valley Meat’s past behavior suggests that it does not adhere to such a standard.”

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-horse-slaughterhouse-20130503,0,7195228.story