Santa Anita, you had one job!

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Santa Anita racetrack is a beautiful place.  There’s history. Seabiscuit raced there, a statue honors him.  It’s good to sit in the stands, look at the mountains, and drink a beer, watch the horses race.  Read the little horse newspaper.

Santa Anita’s been having problems though.  Horses keep dying there.

Since December 36 (!) horses have died.

On Saturday at Santa Anita they had the Breeders’ Cup, a nationally televised race.

Santa Anita!  This is your big moment.  All eyes on you.  You’re on TV, time to shine.

Please.

Don’t let any horses die.

They had ONE job.  And what happened?

A green screen was rushed onto the track to block Mongolian Groom from the view of 67,811 fans and a prime-time television audience. He was loaded onto an equine ambulance and taken to a hospital on the backstretch.

Cup officials said in a statement about two hours after the race that Mongolian Groom had been euthanized after suffering a serious fracture to his left hind leg.

Guys!

Couldn’t we pretend we were giving him tender care? euthanize him later?!

I’ll be sad if Santa Anita closes down.  It’s like some enchanted time capsule of southern California.  But, if you’re in the horse business, you can’t get me excited about horses and then keep killing them.

Start of the Juvenile Sprint by Jlvsclrk for Wiki