Long shot suffers fatal leg injury on track
ARCADIA, Calif. — The Breeders’ Cup and Santa Anita came within 220 yards of staging a safe weekend of championship racing.
It all came down to the $6 million Classic in front of nearly 70,000 fans and a prime-time television audience. The 11-horse field thundered out of the final turn, with favorite McKinzie in the lead and Vino Rosso bearing down on him.
Behind them along the rail, 15-1 long shot Mongolian Groom suddenly faltered. Jockey Abel Cedillo jerked on the reins to ease the 4-year-old gelding, who hopped on three legs. His injured left hind leg dangled distressingly.
Vino Rosso charged past McKinzie to claim victory, triggering cheers and a celebration by his human connections. Up the track, a screen was set up to shield Mongolian Groom and an equine ambulance drove to his rescue.
But there was nothing to be done after the gelding sustained what Cup officials described as “a serious fracture” of his leg. Four veterinarians recommended that he be euthanized.
Mongolian Groom became the 37th horse to die at Santa Anita since last December, and the seventh since the fall meet began Sept. 27.
It was a final blow in a strife-filled season for a sport struggling to protect the lives of horses and jockeys amid public criticism by everyone from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to animal rights activists demanding an end to horse racing in California.
The deaths had prompted track owner The Stronach Group to change rules involving medication and training. The Breeders’ Cup beefed up its own prerace exams and observations of runners.
But no one can eliminate the unpredictability of sports or injury.
Craig Fravel has now left his post as CEO of the Breeders’ Cup to join The Stronach Group, where he’ll be in charge of executing and enforcing effective procedures and integrity standards for horses and riders.
The California Thoroughbred Trainers organization has agreed to help raise money for the purchase of an equine MRI (to scan horses while standing) for the equine imaging center on the Santa Anita backstretch. A Nov. 15 deadline is looming to contract for the equipment so it would be installed before the winter-spring meet opens.
The imaging center already has nuclear scan technology and will add an equine PET scan, with The Stronach Group kicking in $500,000 for it and another $200,000 coming from a private foundation dedicated to research on equine health issues.
As with the other fatalities, Mongolian Groom will undergo a required necropsy at UC Davis.
The gelding, whose owner and trainer are Mongolian, had been a surprising success story after being bought for $12,000 as a 2-year-old in training in 2018.
Besides winning the Grade 1 Awesome Again at Santa Anita in September to earn a berth in the Classic, Mongolian Groom had a second and two thirds in other graded stakes to go with career earnings of $579,141.