What happened to Medina Spirit is not new or particularly uncommon. Take Santa Anita, the racetrack where Medina Spirit died on Monday. In 2019 alone, 37 horses died while training or racing.
MEREDITH CASH: Medina Spirit, the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby who was shrouded in controversy following a failed drug test, died… The lightning-fast colt collapsed during the final stretch of his workout at famed California track Santa Anita. He was just 3 years old at the time of his sudden death — a far cry from the 25-to-30-year average life expectancy of a modern domesticated horse.
Medina Spirit’s premature death is jarring. And given his widespread notoriety for testing positive for an illicit substance after winning horse racing’s most prestigious event, Medina Spirit’s untimely demise is perhaps the most prominent example of a racehorse gone too soon. But he’s far from the only racehorse to die before his time, and he isn’t even the only young horse to die under his trainer’s care.
The death of Medina Spirit is once again shedding light on the dark underbelly of thoroughbred racing — and raising questions about the morality of the sport. Medina Spirit’s owner, the Saudi Arabian businessman and venture capitalist Amr Zedan, entrusted the young Dark Bay into the care of Bob Baffert. The 68-year-old is well-known in the horse racing world as one of the highest-achieving trainers in the sport… But his reputation doesn’t solely extend to his success on the track…
Over four decades, nearly 30 horses failed drug tests while training under Baffert, according to the Association of Racing Commissioners International… This year, a bombshell investigation from The Washington Post revealed that Baffert is among the trainers with the highest number of horse fatalities in California. Only two horse trainers in the entire state have racked up more equine deaths than Baffert, but the sport’s most prominent winner has the highest rate of fatalities per races run…
Only once has Baffert faced a serious investigation into his conduct related to his horses’ deaths. In 2013, seven of his horses mysteriously dropped dead in rapid succession. An investigation from the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) found that the horses all had thyroxine in their systems. Thyroxine is a medication used to treat conditions rarely, if ever, seen among racehorses.
Studies have suggested that unnecessary use of thyroxine can result in serious, often fatal heart conditions in horses. But trainers looking to win races and give their horses any possible edge have administered the drug to help boost the horses’ metabolisms…
Still, Baffert faced no repercussions for the seven sudden horse deaths at Hollywood Park. Though the final report said the rapid fatalities were “undeniably exceptional,” investigators found no evidence of wrongdoing and could not determine “a definitive explanation for the highly unusual sudden death clustering”…
Medina Spirit… was the definition of an underdog, defying the odds — 12-1 heading into the Derby — to win horse racing’s most prestigious race. But the feel-good story of David outpacing a stampede of high-priced Goliaths fell apart before the ink was dry in the history books; news got out that Medina Spirit had failed a post-race drug test… The test showed that Medina Spirit had the banned substance betamethasone, an injectable corticosteroid that helps reduce pain and swelling in horses’ joints, in his system…
While Baffert told The Post that Medina Spirit died of a heart attack, animal rights groups and regulators alike insisted that the equine’s “cause of death cannot be determined until the necropsy and toxicology tests have been completed.” In a statement provided to Insider, PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo said the organization “urges Santa Anita and Del Mar officials to bar Baffert, pending the outcome of an investigation and a necropsy.”
“It’s premature to say that Medina Spirit died of a heart attack or what the true cause of his fatal collapse was, given that many of trainer Bob Baffert’s horses have suddenly dropped dead,” Guillermo continued. “All of Medina Spirit’s veterinary records must be seized, and a thorough investigation must be conducted…
What happened to Medina Spirit is not new or particularly uncommon… Take Santa Anita, the racetrack where Medina Spirit died on Monday. In 2019 alone, 37 horses died while training or racing at the Arcadia, California, facility, according to The Washington Post. While a CHRB investigation into the matter found no evidence of criminal activity, the board found that many of the horses had ailments related to over-exercise.
The CHRB also found that “many of the trainers who worked at Santa Anita felt pressured to race their horses despite their health,” according to The Post… In The Washington Post’s data mentioned above and analysis of horse deaths in California, Baffert ranked third-most in total deaths since 2000. Six other trainers accounted for more than 50 equine deaths in that span, and in total, the 10-worst offenders in the Golden State had 617 dead horses on their hands. And that’s only accounting for 10 trainers in a single state…
With horses receiving dangerous cocktails of unwarranted — if not illicit — drugs and being worked to death all across the sport, it’s clear Baffert’s conduct is a symptom of a much larger disease… Congress took aim at those larger issues by passing the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020. The legislation, which takes effect in July of 2022, focuses on “developing and implementing a horseracing anti-doping and medication control program and a racetrack safety program” within the United States.
It’s a step in the right direction, to be sure. But so long as the sport continues to incentivize short-term success at the expense of the health and wellness of racehorses themselves, competitors will surely find innovative ways to push ethical and legal boundaries in pursuit of wealth and glory. SOURCE…
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