The excruciating episode of deaths at the Hollywood Park

Just because we do not want to let go off the thrill and excitement that we experience due to horse racing, is it justified that the horses die on the race tracks or endure such brutal injuries that they need to be euthanized? They are not even considered
as living beings while they are being ridden rather they are treated as machines that just need to speed up in order to win the race and earn for their connections. Not that the jockeys riding them and the trainers conditioning them have no idea about the
risks that are undertaken once the horses break through their stalls, any race at any time can turn out to be the last one for them.

When the horses are forced to pace up, their heart beats rise to an extent that the heart often bursts due to the sheer exertion, the muscles and tissues tear apart because of the effort that they have to put in, their bones are broken at innumerable times
and places thus it would not be wrong to state that they are raced to death.

Many people claim that such weaknesses and unhealthy traits build in the horses due to excessive breeding and selected breeding too is one of the major causes. A very recent instance is the Hollywood Park ‘massacres’ of three horses that lost their lives.
I really wonder that how would have the crowd felt about something so inhumane and how were they actually able to applaud at the winners in different races once they knew that it is the same race course on which three horses had said the final goodbye.   

Most of the times the poor dead souls’ death is not even mentioned in the news, it is just when more than one of them die at a single meeting or if the event itself is significant enough that all the aspects are considered, from prize money to victories
to tragic deaths.

The charm and glory of the Hollywood Park meeting did fade to some extent due to the horses passing away. Firstly, Waltzing With Blue who had claimed around $25,000 died and could make news because it was after a little more than an hour that a multiple
stakes-class sprinter Irrefutable also left the industry forever. Waltzing With Blue had to be euthanized because of a severe leg injury that failed to present any other alternative at all, the damage done was irreparable.

Irrefutable collapsed after being positioned second in the Vernon O. Underwood Handicap due to a probable heart attack.

“He was already acting a little funny,” Smith said. “I thought he was suffering from heat stroke. They went to put some water on him, but by then he was going into cardiac arrest and he just fell over. That was it”.

Another one who had to be euthanized was Cloud Man, his right front leg’s pastern got fractured and the injury was so impeding that Cloud Man was eventually injected to silence forever in his stall later that evening.

Some consider this sport so very ruthless that according to them it should be banned but then again it is not only the horses that run the risk of their lives, the jockeys too. It is just that the nature of command and control is different under the two
aspects.

Horses being mistreated is not a decisive statement, there are many trainers and jockeys who just adore their horses and are in love with them.