Electrocutionist has died

[MillyMix]

Such a shame. I really wanted to use him next season if he retired.

This years racings been full of great losses.

http://www.sportinglife.com/racing/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=racing/06/09/09/RACING_Electrocutionist.html

[Barbaro06]

I just read it on the Bloodhorse site. This year has been the pits. Now we lose another good horse. Many were looking forward to him in the Breeder's Cup.

RIP

[Heidilady]

So terrible. And they saw something was wrong too but couldn't stop the downward spiral. My heart goes out to his connections. I was really looking forward to seeing him.

I'm hoping we get to see Dylan Thomas and Alexandrova. It's so hard to get attached to promising horses and then have them taken away so I'm really anxious to just get the Breeders Cup done and in the books. I'm kinda bummed that Discreet Cat's not really looking to do it this year...I'm crossing my fingers that they're figuring he'll be better off physically as a 4 yo.

[skeenan]

I just read it on the Bloodhorse site. This year has been the pits. Now we lose another good horse. Many were looking forward to him in the Breeder's Cup.

RIP

Yup... ditto...

[Shammy Davis]

I've noted a number of tragic deaths of stallions and colts related to cardio-vascular problems over the past few years. Many of us remember when SWALE suddenly collapsed after a training session at Belmont. On other threads, the discussion of how drugs affect our horses have been hinted at. In the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred this month, there is a very interesting article on how drugs are effecting OTTB mares coming into foal. I don't know what the problems were for Elocutionist. I hope they do an autopsy. The industry needs to know what is going on across the board. Drugs and their related problems is nothing new to those of us who have survived with some long term memory. EQUUS Magazine was on top of this problem in their November 1986 edition. Apparently, the information contained in that article went unheeded. Healthy colts don't just keel over and die after winning $5m on the track. Stallions who have campaigned at a high level of athleticism don't just croak within months of being retired from training. Something is over the horizon. We need to be concerned less with stallion and family pedigrees contaminating our stock and more with the quality of care and use. For sure NTRA, JC, and state breeding & HBPA don't seem interested.

[madelyn]

Shammy.. I don't get the Mid Atlantic Thoroughbred magazine, but would be very interested in the article. I've long held the belief that the drugs given at the track can be harmful to fillies and mares' later reproductive abilities. And why not stallions, also?

On that topic, did you happen to notice that KY and Ohio are going to an even higher level of testing?

http://news.bloodhorse.com//viewstory.asp?id=35242

[Shammy Davis]

Madelyn: Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred is a great regional magazine. Unfortunately, they don't publish their stories on-line. It's only a $35 subscription and I can tell you that you won't regret having it on your coffee table. Further they always have great information on the east coast sales. Go to Marylandbreeders.com.

Further as your captioned article shows, any state going to higher testing levels should be applauded. Did you see where 26 open stakes races were eliminated at Mountaineer? It appears that "slots" are not the panacea that everyone believed them to be. With these types of cost cutting measures at individual tracks you can be sure that less attention will be paid to the health and care of our horses. As with Mountaineer, Penn National will next.

If you not interested in the subscription, PM me and I'll get my wife to scan the article and we'll email it to you.

[Barbaro06]

Shammy...I get MidAtlantic Thoroughbred too and read the article on the possible effects drugs have on horses coming off the track. Very interesting. Eventually there will be repercussions from loading an animal up on synthetic substances...and I agree that 99% of the stuff is unnecessary.