21 Equine Professional Athletes Die

Saddly, 21 Venezuelan polo-horses died on 4/22/09 at a Palm Beach Polo Club. They were there for a an international match. Just bef0re the match began, these horses just collapsed and died. Some died right there on the spot. some were taken to a equine hospital, and died several hours later. Five survived, showing no effects of sickness. These five held the clue to what had killed the others.

The 21 horses that died were given a supplement know as Biodyl. The others were not. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out. Biodyl is a combination of B12, a form of selenium and other minerals. It was given to the horses to help them recover from exhaustion.

Juan Martin Nero, who is with the Lechuza Polo, stated that the horses were given what they are always given - vitamins.

Having been involved in Thoroughbred racing for my entire life, it is customary to give performing horses such as these vitamins and supplements. They are professional athletes. The problem may have been that the Biodyl may have been copied or "compounded" in the US. This is not illegal if the drug has been approved by the FDA. However this supplement had not been approved.

It's not clear whether the horses had been given a compounded form of the Biodyl or not. One question to ponder is, why were they exhausted? And if they were they exhausted, perhaps they should have shipped into the polo grounds earlier, and been given more time to recuperate from their journey. I don't know any of the facts about this. I don't know where they came from before arriving in Palm Beach, or anything related to their journey. I'm just posing the question because I do know that if an athlete tries to rush anything in relation to his or her performance in a competition it usually leads to injury, and sometimes death.

Stay tuned to more on this story.

On a personal note. As I mentioned, I've been involved with Thoroughbred racing all my life. I galloped horses for around 15 years at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar, and wrote for the Racing Form and other industry publications. I've been on some of the best horses that ever looked through a bridle. I lived for it. Couldn't wait to get up at 4:30 AM and get on my first horse at 5:30 AM. But I haven't been on horse in many years. Being an animal rights activist, I have a love hate relationship with racing. I love the horses, and the their heart. Some of them are true competitors. But the truth is, they are not built to run. Not they way we ask them to. I'm not attacking the entire industry, but I do feel that changes need to be made. I believe there are many people involved in the industry that would agree with me. In relation to the deaths of these 21 polo-ponies, it seems unbelievable that 21 horses would just die at once like that. But the truth is that, and I don't have the exact statistics on this, but from what I've experienced I would say that on average 25 horses a week have to put down, nationwide, because of irreversible injuries. Sadder yet, is that many are put down because they are insured as "racehorses" and if they can no longer race, they are destroyed and then the insurance money can be collected. Now, I am not saying that all vets will do this. Or that all owners will have this done. But I do know of one personal story that was told to me by a vet that did do this. And I'm almost in tears thinking about it now.

I was very young, but what this vet said to me was, "The horse would have been alright for a riding horses, but the owners wanted the insurance money. I had to keep giving him more of the drug. He just didn't want to die. He kept fighting it."

God! I should have slapped him across the face. I should have reported him. I should have done a lot of things. He is a monster for having done that. But the only thing I did was eventually distance myself from this individual. It was all I was capable of doing at the time. That was 20 years ago. Now I'm blogging about it.

So my concern is really with all "working" horses, and their care. Especially when there is a lot of money involved, which there is in Polo and racing. As I mentioned earlier, they are professional athletes. Even human professional athletes do stupid things to enhance their performance. Or don't do all the things they are supposed to do to insure it. But they at least have a choice. Biodyl is not something given to the horses to enhance their performance, but as a asked earlier, why were they exhausted. And don't think that things are not done to enhance a horse's performance.

But that is another story, which I will go into at another time.

Stay tuned - I've got a lot to talk about.

Tere Albanese