Churchill Downs suspends Saffie Joseph Jr. after horse deaths
Listen 7 min Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share
LOUISVILLE — By late Thursday morning, a racehorse trainer wept at his barn more than 15 minutes into an upfront session fielding questions about his grim horror at an event of grand merriment. By late afternoon, Churchill Downs had suspended that trainer indefinitely and tossed out his Kentucky Derby horse. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight Crushed, shattered and self-doubting ranked among the ways accomplished 36-year-old trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. described himself over the fact that two of his horses collapsed and died among the four horse deaths at Churchill Downs in the past week. Dismissed was the way he and his Wood Memorial upset winner, Lord Miles, wound up, with the horse ousted by a request of stewards to which Joseph acceded before Churchill Downs acted, all of it a turn of strictness that echoed the old track’s ongoing two-year suspension of famed trainer Bob Baffert.
“Given the unexplained sudden deaths,” Churchill Downs president Bill Mudd said in a statement, “we have reasonable concerns about the condition of his horses, and decided to suspend him indefinitely until details are analyzed and understood. The safety of our equine and human athletes and integrity of our sport is our highest priority. We feel these measures are our duty and responsibility.”
Advertisement
The statement said nothing about Joel H. Marr and D. Wayne Lukas, two other trainers who each had a horse die in this somber spate upon the grandest stage. The ouster of 30-1 shot Lord Miles followed the withdrawal of 10-1 shot Practical Move earlier in the day and meant two alternates could slide into the 20-horse field: 30-1 shot Cyclone Mischief and 20-1 shot Mandarin Hero, with the latter bringing a third Japanese horse into the fold briefly — until Continuar scratched hours later to reduce it to two. King Russell, a 50-1 shot, will step in for Continuar.
Wild On Ice, a 3-year-old gelding and the lone Derby hopeful among the four casualties, died April 27 after a five-furlong workout from which 61-year-old jockey Ken Tohill pulled him up with an injured left hind leg before he was euthanized. Parents Pride, a 4-year-old Joseph mare, died Saturday during the eighth race on the card after pulling up midway through the five-furlong sprint. Take Charge Briana, a 3-year-old filly trained by four-time Derby champion Lukas, died Tuesday during a 1 1/16-mile allowance race at Churchill Downs, and Chasing Artie, a 5-year-old gelding and another Joseph horse, died that same day on his way back after finishing the eighth race, a 5½-furlong sprint.
Joseph, who won a Triple Crown in his native Barbados at the audacious age of 22, who has thrived especially at Gulfstream Park near Miami and who has trained previous Derby horses in 2020 and 2022, went ahead and scratched his horses who had mingled with Parents Pride and Chasing Artie at the Keeneland track in nearby Lexington. Still, he spent Thursday morning holding on to the idea of running Lord Miles and two other entries in other races on the 12-race Derby card coming Saturday. He answered questions in long passages with about six reporters, until the weeping submerged his words.
Advertisement
“How can it not cause self-doubt?” he said before one pause.
“I mean, it shatters you,” he said before another.
He envisioned a “nerve-racking” Saturday under “enormous” pressure, which he won’t have to endure. By late afternoon Thursday, Churchill Downs reiterated its seriousness about the health of its foremost athletes by announcing the suspension of Joseph, weeks from the end of Baffert’s two-year suspension for the positive drug test that caused the disqualification of his apparent 2021 Derby winner Medina Spirit.
“While a series of events like this is highly unusual,” Churchill Downs said in that statement Wednesday, “it is completely unacceptable. We take this very seriously and acknowledge that these troubling incidents are alarming and must be addressed. We feel a tremendous responsibility to our fans, the participants in our sport and the entire industry to be a leader in safety and continue to make significant investments to eliminate risk to our athletes. We have full confidence in our racing surfaces and have been assured by our riders and horsemen that they do as well.”
Advertisement
Churchill Downs said the University of Kentucky Veterinary Diagnostics Lab would perform “complete necropsies” on the four.
Joseph spoke repeatedly of a hunger for answers regarding the two deaths. He said bloodwork on all his horses lent no clues. He said state regulators visiting the barn found no irregularities. He said the second death made him suspect a common reason, and he said he considered it a duty to find that reason if possible. “We’re testing all the feed, the hay, the straw, the supplements, anything like that, to see if there’s any part on our part,” he said. “We’re going to do everything within reason to figure it out.”
He spoke a common refrain about how horses and their delicate constructions die also in places such as fields and paddocks, and he told of his own fundamental shift.
Advertisement
“It rocks your confidence,” he said. “ … I’ve run horses my whole career, had horses get hurt from injury, but I’ve never had a horse die in a race, from something internally. And we’re talking 4,000 starts.”
Joseph was in Florida on Saturday when Parents Pride, who had won an allowance race at Gulfstream on March 26, died after collapsing. “The first one happened, and you’re in the position: ‘Why? Why, why?’” he said.
He traveled just in time for further horror. “So then I get here for the second one, I get here Tuesday morning,” Joseph said. “I see the horse. He looks magnificent, everything perfect, [but] because something happened, so now you’re extra-scrutinizing yourself, to question, to see. Saddled the horse in the paddock, the horse showed all good signs. From the time he broke, he showed nothing, from out of the gate. At about the quarter-pole, it crossed my mind: Something’s not right. And at the eighth pole, I knew something wasn’t right because this horse, he didn’t run his race again. He just looks lethargic. And then you’re hoping that he comes back safe, and he was galloping back fine. That was a relief to see him coming back, and then he . . . And here he is, the same way. And so from then on, mentally, it could destroy you mentally. It’s not something that is easy to handle, honestly.”
Advertisement
Chasing Artie died after finishing that 5½-furlong turf sprint in ninth and last as the third favorite, in his first race since Sept. 10. “I wouldn’t wish this on the worst person you could find,” Joseph said. “It crushes you. It knocks your confidence. It makes you doubt everything. It makes you question everything. But there’s two ways: You can run away from it and pretend it didn’t happen, or you can face it and find out what you can do, and that’s what we’re doing.”
By then, the organization Animal Wellness Action had issued a statement calling it “reckless and wrongheaded to allow Saffie Joseph Jr. to put one more horse into competition at Churchill Downs.”
In response to the scrutiny of animal advocates, Joseph said: “Come to the backside. Come and spend a day at my barn. You’re welcome. Come and spend a day at any barn and see how much care and love there is.”
GiftOutline Gift Article
Source: The Washington Post
