NYT Series: "Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys"

[tector]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/us...acetracks.html

Breakdown | Death and disarray at America's racetracks
Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys
The new economics of horse racing are making an always-dangerous game even more so, as lax oversight puts animal and rider at risk.


[video]

[b]By WALT BOGDANICH, JOE DRAPE, DARA L. MILES and GRIFFIN PALMER

RUIDOSO, N.M. — At 2:11 p.m., as two ambulances waited with motors running, 10 horses burst from the starting gate at Ruidoso Downs Race Track 6,900 feet up in New Mexico’s Sacramento Mountains.

Nineteen seconds later, under a brilliant blue sky, a national champion jockey named Jacky Martin lay sprawled in the furrowed dirt just past the finish line, paralyzed, his neck broken in three places. On the ground next to him, his frightened horse, leg broken and chest heaving, was minutes away from being euthanized on the track.