Money, drugs, social media, lawyers, weak regulation and lack of resolve by racing authorities.
Heat?
I can’t read the article because it’s behind a paywall. Do the stats at Monmouth support the headline?
That’s what I was wondering. Same paywall problem and the NJ.com headline is the first I’ve head Monmouth hasn’t had a good start this year. Usually these things make news in racing circles first.
Seems like its someone trying to stir up some bad news. This is the recent article, but it pertains to 2022. https://paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/report-monmouth-park-sees-equine-fatalities-rise-for-third-straight-year/
Interesting article- three straight years of increasing fatalities. I’m not sure anyone needs to stir in order to see what appears to be going on at various tracks across the country.
Unless you simply do not want to know, or care.
This writer clearly has an agenda, when he’s including a horse injured in his stall, a horse that had an adverse reaction to medication in his stall, a death from respiratory distress possibly from injesting rodenticide, another injured in the stall, and a colic. This is out of 22 deaths, 5 occurred off the racetrack. Thats nearly 1/4 of the deaths they are counting as race track deaths had nothing to do with racing or training. Yes I care, but I also care that facts arent being skewed.
Can anyone post the article? I’m not paying.
Monmouth’s EID data through 2022:
And again, I’ve heard nothing about the current meeting. That doesn’t mean anything, it’s just that usually if there is an out of the ordinary problem, racing people are talking about it well before it hits the local news cycle.
Monmouth is always a bit anomalous anymore because there hasn’t been much of a population of horsemen based in NJ for a long time. They are all based out of other states and a lot just ship in from their stables in NY, PA, MD, WV, etc. instead of stabling there for the duration of the meet.
Most of us care a great deal–when the “facts” are correct.
Horses are dying. Fact. What can be done?
Horses are dying every day, everywhere. I was trying to discover if something unusual was happening at Monmouth (which hasn’t been reported by the racing press.) Apparently that’s private information, so I’m out.
Thank you Captain Obvious. This is specific to racing.
We can’t read the article. It’s behind a paywall.
I see a potentially sensational headline, comments from @halo indicating it’s heavily biased, and that’s it.
How is anyone supposed to have a reaction? I suppose you wanted a reaction since you shared it.
It’s weird that NJ.com would have insider information that the racing industry doesn’t have.
This is why data is so dangerous to just make rash judgements on. The JC says Monmouth had a total of 9 fatalities in 2022, with no indication of what exactly each one was. The article I posted stated there were 22 fatalities, including 6 that were off track that had nothing to do with racing. So which one is correct? Either one?
And, the nature of horses…
There are something like 1500 stalls at Monmouth. Their race meet runs from May through September. Horses come and go, so the total number of horses that ran there is undoubtedly much higher.
Not to sound callous, but 22 fatalities isn’t quite as eye popping when you consider it is out of 1500++ horses over a 5 month span. Especially when you see in the article that @halo shared that these included unexpected events like broken tailbones that lead to impactions and stall accidents.
When I see a sensational headline, my first reaction is always, “what is the real story here?” If Monmouth is experiencing a problem, I want to know. But I’ve also been around long enough to know that some fatalities are unavoidable. They are heartbreaking and terrible and should be taken seriously, but you can’t prevent them all, which causes the data to fluctuate.
Also adding: I think the EID omits non-racing causes of death, which is why the numbers are much lower. That can be a good and bad thing. You don’t get freak colics, etc. skewing then numbers, but you also may miss some fatalities that are directly the result of being in race training but weren’t a musculoskeletal injury on the track (like if an adverse medication reaction was caused by a medication being used to treat a non-fatal racing injury or, even worse, a PED used illegally).
So anyway, that’s my long-winded way of saying I still want to know what’s going on since I can’t read the article!
From Paulick Report. No pay wall.
