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Articles Witnessing an Unknown Filly's Death NY TIMES THERE was no array of photographers at Belmont Park yesterday, no
sobbing in the crowd as a badly injured superstar horse tried to stay erect
on three legs. There was no national spotlight. Instead, there was death. In the seventh race at Belmont, a 4-year-old
filly named Lauren's Charm headed into the home stretch. As she began to
fade in the mile and an eighth race on the grass, her jockey,
Fernando Jara, felt her struggling, pulled up and jumped off.
As the race concluded, Lauren's Charm collapsed. No one, except those
associated with the horse and two track veterinarians, seemed to notice. The scene was in stark contrast to what unfolded at Pimlico last Saturday
when the Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro, severely fractured his ankle in the
opening burst of the Preakness. A national audience gasped; an armada of
rescuers rushed to the scene. In the days that followed, as the struggle to
keep Barbaro alive took full shape, there was an outpouring of emotion
across the country and heartfelt essays about why we care so much
about these animals. But I'm not so sure we do, and I'm not so sure the general public fully
understands this sport. When people attempt to rationalize the uneasy
elements of racing, they often say: "That's part of the business. That the
game." But there was nothing beautiful or gracious or redeeming about the
seventh race at Belmont. This was the underside of the business.
The nuts and bolts part, where animals are expendable parts of a
billion-dollar industry. The two vets raced to the stricken horse, followed by the assistant
trainer Anthony Rodriguez; his mother, Doreen, who served as the
hot walker; and the groom. By the time they reached her,
Lauren's Charm was dead. Dr. Jennifer Durenberger, the second vet to reach the horse, said the
filly had died of an apparent heart attack. "This was very
uncommon," she said afterward in a telephone interview from her office. "It happens to one in
20,000 horses." I'm not sure how many fans in the meager crowd of 3,741 paid attention to
the white equine ambulance that pulled onto the track, or saw the filly
being loaded in it. The filly's owner, Joseph Dirico, was watching a simulcast of the race at
a track in Massachusetts with his father and uncle. "She started dropping
back," he said last night of the horse he had named after his wife. "That's
what I saw. I didn't expect to get a phone call saying she'd had a heart
attack. I'm glad I wasn't there. I would have run down to the track, I
would have had tears in my eyes. She was a nice horse, a really correct
filly." On Saturday evening, Barbaro's devastated owners said that these things
happen in racing, that it is part of the sport. Yesterday, Dirico said, "I
guess that's part of the game." What is the nature of this game? Horses go down much more frequently than the general public realizes, and
many in the business have noted that had Barbaro not been the winner of the
Kentucky Derby, he might have been destroyed after being injured. Jara, an 18-year-old Panamanian, seemed to take Lauren's Charm death in
stride. He had finished fourth aboard Jazil in the Kentucky Derby, his first
Triple Crown race. He said that Lauren's Charm was the first horse to die
with him in the saddle in his four years of racing. Asked if he was going to think about the horse during the rest of the
day, he said no. "There is another race to come," he said. "You
have to think about the next race." "Everything is equal," he added as he compared Barbaro to Lauren's Charm,
who won one race in her career and earned all of $77,363. "But Barbaro could
have won the Triple Crown." The dead animal was loaded in the ambulance and carted to the track's
stable area, where it was put on its side, legs bent as if it were still
running. The carcass was then half carried and half pushed into an area
designated for autopsies. An earth mover helped push the horse against a
concrete wall. I asked one of the track supervisors what would happen now. He said if
the horse was insured, there would be an autopsy. If not , then he
would wait to hear from the owner to determine if there would be
an autopsy at the owner's expense. Dirico said he indeed might order an autopsy. "I had no insurance on
her," he said. "If reasonable, I'd like to have it done for my
own peace of mind." I wondered why he didn't have the horse insured. "Insurance is so
expensive," he said. "I never thought it would come to this. I've had good
luck with horses." The gate to the fenced-in area was closed. I glanced back at Lauren's
Charm, lying on the ground. Just days ago, the cameras were trained on
Pimlico, and a nation cried for Barbaro. I wonder what the nation would
have thought about this. One animal breaks an ankle on national television in a Triple Crown race
and sets off a national outpouring of emotion. A 4-year-old collapses and
dies in full view on a sunny afternoon and not many seem to
notice. Or care. As they say, it's the business. But what kind of business is this? Fair Use Notice: This document may contain
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