Who is this jerk at Charles Town?

[majxmom]

Just what we need before the weekend where our sport gets to shine...

The gelding Oskar K broke down in a race at Charles Town. The horse ambulance was right there to pick him up. The trainer/owner, Boris Kocijan, ripped the reins out of the hand of the jockey and insisted on walking the horse to his stall, HOPPING ON THREE LEGS THE WHOLE WAY. The ambulance followed him all the way, asking him repeatedly to load the horse, but he refused.

Doesn't anyone at Charles Town have the gonads to knock this guy down and grab the horse?

I wrote a blistering email to Charles Town and told them that if they had any sense, they would buy this horse from this jackass, revoke his stalls and license, and get the horse vet care and adopt him out, before this guy shuffles him off to an auction like I'm sure he is planning.

[Barbaro06]

What the hell???

I've heard Charles Town can be a meat market. That is sad that an owner/trainer would treat his horse like that...what, was he cheesed off that the horse broke down? Makes me wonder what kind of trainer he is...

[majxmom]

And it was confirmed by a phone call to the stewards, who seemed to think they were helpless. I'd like to think that wouldn't happen in CA.

[trackgal]

stewards were helpless? you gotta be kidding me, people like this give the "real" trainer's out there a bad name. His own "Karma" WILL get him when will people ever learn what goes around comes around, I hope someday soon I will read about this poor excuse for a human being, like in the obits that his bloody body was found in a dumpster somewhere..I hope he dies a horrible death. (but really S-L-O-W one!)

[Nancy T]

Crosspost I found online

"Hi All,

I have been alerted about a horrifying incident at Charlestown racetrack on Wednesday, April 30 in the 5th race. A horse named Oskar K broke down in the race and, according to eyewitness accounts, was forced to walk off the track and back to his barn hopping, three legged, with a broken leg that was "hanging". According to one of the stewards at the track, Mr. Danny Wright, the ambulance had been called but the trainer Boris Kocijan chose to rush the horse off the track and back to the barn. Mr. Wright acknowledged that the trainer was in the wrong and says that he was "reprimanded" .

According to several trainers at Charlestown, the state vet, a Dr. Dibben, has told them that if a horse can be taken off the track without the the use of an ambulance this MUST be done in order to keep their injury and fatality numbers down. This is so unacceptable! !! As of this morning when my source spoke with the steward the horse was still in his stall in a gel cast and had not been xrayed! There were quite a few witnessed to this breakdown so the fact that this horse seems to have been denied the medical care he needs, and continues to be denied that care, is certainly negligent.

Please call the stewards at Charlestown to let them know how unacceptable that this cruel treatment of their horses will not be tolerated and that people are watching and are upset. They are afraid of bad PR. The toll free number is (800) 795 7001. You may spaek with any of the stewards. Thank you!!!

Diana

Christy Sheidy, Co-founder
Another Chance 4 Horses, Inc.
www.ac4h.com or call 610-621-5290"

[Shammy Davis]

Nancy T crossposted:

According to several trainers at Charlestown, the state vet, a Dr. Dibben, has told them that if a horse can be taken off the track without the the use of an ambulance this MUST be done in order to keep their injury and fatality numbers down. This is so unacceptable! !!

The situation at CT has be objectionable for a long time. It is no surprise to me that something like this could occur. I remember making a post approximately a year or so back about incident where the state vet scratched a horse at post time because of what we now know was a comment by a new rider that the horse didn't feel right. The horse was sound that morning, that afternoon, during the vet check, in the paddock, the post parade, and looked fine to all the connections during the warm-up. The trainer was suprised. The owners were surprised. I attended the race because the gelding was out of one of my mares though I was not the breeder. I am a retired farrier and horseman with over 40 years experience and I couldn't see anything wrong either. Let me tell you, the lies that followed this incident from the jockey, the state vet, and the stewards made Richard Nixon look like a saint. The jockey blamed the state vet and denied she had ever said anything, the state vet said it was the jockey, the stewards covered for the state vet, the racing commission secretary who replied to my inquiry was polite but it didn't have a clue. Oh, the gelding was sound the next morning. The owners, who were enthusiastic about racing, had had enough and sold the horse privately and got out of the business. So, I hope you will call the stewards and raise hell with them. The track is an embarassment to the entire industry.

[spex4me]

I know 4 year old bay Tb's are a dime a dozen but you might might to look at this canter listing by the trainer in question. Could this be the same horse??? Leg hanging off and sore knee are 2 very different things to me....

http://www.canterusa.org/midatlantic/trainerowned.html

[Shammy Davis]

spex4me: CANTER only advertises for the trainers. If CANTER owns the horse, then it is an adoption. If the trainer owns the horse, it is truly buyer beware. CANTER is not involved in a trainer/owner transaction with a perspective buyer. It sounds like in the case of this trainer it is truly buyer beware forever. Besides, CANTER Mid-Atlantic has had a precarious relationship with CT for at least the last 15 years, probably more.

[halfbridled]

I know 4 year old bay Tb's are a dime a dozen but you might might to look at this canter listing by the trainer in question. Could this be the same horse??? Leg hanging off and sore knee are 2 very different things to me....

http://www.canterusa.org/midatlantic/trainerowned.html

If you look at the bottom, the last update for the CANTER page was the day before this race. So I assume this ad has to be at least that old.
And a different registered name.

Will call Monday TY.

[Blue feather]

Charlestown is perhaps the least professionally run race track I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. I once had a trainer there who neglected to bring my horse to the paddock to be saddled before a race because he fell sleep. Just one of many "questionable"experiences I've had while racing there.

[joe horn]

PETA here's a place you might do a little good! CHARLESTOWN

[Sylvie Hebert]

i know Boris he was at my training center in florida in 2002 and he likes horses.i saw him take horses off other trainers hands and feed them when he could hardly afford a meal himself till he found them homes.i cannot believe he changed that much.i will tell you an old story that happened to me in 1994.i ran a mare at atlantic city racecourse who stopped on the track one leg in the air.she was a rescued horse and scared to death of trailers we always had to load and ship he with her private shetland pony who lived in her stall.so we walked her back to the barn on three legs,got her in a cast and the next day xrays showed a fracture of the cannon bone and also the ankle(complete fractures like a Z)vet suggested Bolton or put down.we did neither,could not afford the hospital and were convinced she had rights to try and live we kept her in Robert Jones for the rest of the meeting,cleaning her stall and feeding her hay,she was smart enough to never lay down or act up but we had to endure all the nasty remarks of the others.i still have her and have been paying her way since then..she even had a few foals. before you pass judgment on someone make sure you walk a few miles in his shoes..on the other hand i have bought quite a few horses at charlestown,beulah and the like and most of them were in terrible shape...so what can i say,changes are made one person at a time and it starts with me...then you...then one more and one more....so lets look at ourselves first and if each of us make today the decision to treat horses with respect and give them the best may be it will spread...one person at a time...sorry if my english is not great.

[majxmom]

Sylvie, I've seen on the COTH thread and on Alex Brown that Boris is really upset about this horse, and he wants it to live. I've never heard of him before this, so maybe it's true. But it is a fact not in dispute that he made a horse hop all the way back to the barn with a broken leg when a horse ambulance followed him the whole way, asking him to put the horse on. This is not "treating a horse with respect."

I'll give him this: apparently he is from Eastern Europe, and he may have had a fear of authority that if the horse was on the ambulance, that he would lose the decision power. But someone else at Charles Town should have stopped him. I cannot --CANNOT-- understand the stewards at CT not having the ability to help that horse right then.

After that, the tracks' solution has been to force Boris to put the horse down, or remove it from the track, when what he really needed was SUPERVISED veterinary care. Oskar K is the extreme loser in this situation, and CT deserves a huge black eye because of it.

[Sysonby]

I saw the COTH thread and frankly I was outraged at some of the people who were outraged.

If people really want to put the horse first, there are better, more productive ways to do it than being drama llamas online.

[griff]

I race at CTown and I have never hear a steward say they were powerless to do anything, including walking on water.

Also, there is absolutely no way Dr Dibbien told anyone to do anything to harm a horse.. He recently almost scrathed a friend's 4 YO at the gate because her legs were crooked. The jocky talked him into letting the horse race and she won that MSW for colts and geldings by 10 lengths. and then went on set a new track record at Penn National. for 5 1/2.

Lastly, CTown did have a bad record and one year almost averaged a down horse every race day. However, the vet's are much strictor now and they now have a decent record.. By the way, didn't three horses go down at Keenland last year in one day during the Breeder's cup?/ Two on the track and one in the paddock. I saw it on TV and I don't think CTown ever equaled that record even in it's worse years.

griff