Colt Bolts
City On Line, a 4-year-old colt running at Belmont Park last week, broke off line from his lead pony before the fifth race on May 20 and went streaking down the tunnel to an enclosure field.
If this were a Disney film, there would have been a cricket or hummingbird tangled in his mane telling City to be free. And then City would have run right out of Belmont to go on some wacky musical adventures.
But this ain’t Disney and instead of running free, the chestnut colt was blinded by the light coming out of the tunnel and smacked into a bronze statue of Secretariat, making a loud enough sound for the entire grandstands to hear.
The jockey, Jose Lezcano, was thrown off City (before it ran toward the paddock) and the statue base of the ‘73 Triple Crown winner was broken, but the real damage happened to City On Line’s irreparably fractured femur.
The horse enthusiasts in the audience know that such an injury means an early death. PETA knows that such an injury gives them more fodder with which to alienate itself from the masses. This case was no different. It takes four healthy legs to hold up a horse’s massive upper body. Horses aren’t euthanized because they can’t race (in theory), they’re euthanized because of the excruciating pain such an injury causes these animals.
City On Line likely would have had laminitis if not put down quickly, a disease that to humans would be similar to if we walked only on our fingernails and toenails, had them ripped out and still had to put all your weight on them every day.
As easy as it might be to decry the quick killing of racehorses, perhaps decriers should investigate the as yet unknown reasons for the New York colt’s sudden freakout. If that doesn’t do it for you, I’ve already sent in a petition to have a City On Line statue memoriam made and set sideways at the base of the Secretariat monument as an eternal relic of the incident.
That ought to get ‘em.
Check out the AP.
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