7th racehorse death in 3 months at Austintown racino; state records show that’s not unusual
[Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the number of racehorse deaths reported at Mahoning Valley Race Course from in 2020 and 2021 from 46 to 48.]
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The Ohio State Racing Commission has confirmed the seventh racehorse death since the beginning of the year at Hollywood Gaming’s Mahoning Valley Race Course.
A commission official told Mahoning Matters last month — after the fourth horse death was reported — that the recent fatality rate at the Austintown racino was higher than in 2020 or 2021. But it’s not, commission records show.
On Monday, Ruby Jane, a 2-year-old thoroughbred, was competing at the course when she “took a bad step” and went down during the race, Chris Dragone, Ohio State Racing Commission executive director, told Mahoning Matters.
“From what I’m being told, the horse stumbled coming out of the gate, and as the jockey was pulling it up on the turn, it took a bad step,” Dragone said, adding the commission is still in the early stages of an investigation into the horse’s euthanization.
Animal activists earlier this year claimed the hardness of the racino’s course — especially in freezing winter temperatures — puts added stress on racehorses’ leg bones, leading to fractures.
Dragone told Mahoning Matters the track on Monday was reportedly “fast,” which is a horse-racing term to describe a race track with dirt that’s hard and dry, rather than soft. Monday’s high temperature was 63 degrees, as reported by the weather station at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna Center.
Dragone said Ruby Jane’s euthanization makes seven racehorse deaths so far this year at the Austintown course, suggesting two other horses have died there in the past month.
Mahoning Matters in January reported on the death of Hoboken Hustle, a 6-year-old thoroughbred who was the third horse to be euthanized at the racino since the beginning of the year, following an incident at the course on a cold day in January. The fourth, the 4-year-old thoroughbred Uncaptured Soldier, was euthanized on Feb. 22 after breaking his right front leg during a race, Dragone told Mahoning Matters last month.
Dragone said last month he had no reason to suspend racing at the Austintown racino, since track and weather conditions were not deemed dangerous.
“I don’t plan on suspending Mahoning Valley, but I will tell you we took a look at racing every day at all the attractions, and if there’s any questions, we’re usually the first ones to make a phone call,” he said last month.
After Uncaptured Soldier’s death in late February, Dragone told Mahoning Matters the commission would pay closer attention to fatalities at the Austintown racino. He said he thought it unusual that the course had reported four horse deaths in two months, which was more than it reported in 2020 and 2021.
But that’s actually fewer deaths. The course reported seven deaths in the first two months of both 2020 and nine in the first two months of 2021, according to commission records obtained by Patrick Battuello, founder of Horseracing Wrongs, an anti-horse racing nonprofit.
Mahoning Matters independently reviewed those records, which detail 115 racehorse deaths in 2020 and 2021 at six betting courses in Ohio, including JACK Thistledown Racino in North Randall, MGM Northfield Park, Belterra Park in Cincinnati, Hollywood Gaming at Dayton Raceway, Eldorado Gaming Scioto Downs in Columbus and the Austintown racino.
Of those 115 racehorse deaths, 48 were reported at Mahoning Valley Race Course — the most among the six courses over those two years — half of which happened during or after a race. In other instances, horses were injured and euthanized following routine exercise or found dead in the stable, the records show. Some records produced by the commission are less specific about the circumstances surrounding a horse’s death.
In an opinion piece submitted to Mahoning Matters, Battuello says public records show more than 100 racehorses have died at Mahoning Valley Race Course over a five-year period — an average of more than 20 deaths per year. Commission records provided to Mahoning Matters show there were 22 deaths there in 2020 and 26 in 2021.
“[Mahoning Valley Race Course] only runs six months out of the year,” Battuello wrote. “In other words, that average actually comes out to roughly seven deaths every two months, higher than the four-in-two that has suddenly caught Mr. Dragone’s attention.”
Battuello told Mahoning Matters in an email that he requested public records for all racehorse deaths across the state in those two years from the commission, but said he suspects some deaths have fallen “through the cracks,” claiming horse death reporting in Ohio is “notoriously slipshod.”
This story was originally published March 23, 2022 at 2:19 PM