California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has issued her second statement in as many months calling for a halting of horse racing at Santa Anita Race Track after the death of another horse. Kochees, which died May 26, was the third horse to die in a span of nine 9 days at the track, and the 26th since Dec. 26, 2018.
“I once again call for an immediate moratorium on racing at Santa Anita,” the senator, an admitted lover of horses, said in a statement. “We need a thorough investigation of practices and conditions at the track before any more races are held.”
Feinstein noted medication methods and the possibility of overrunning as two things that could be contributing to the number of deaths. She even went as far as questioning the validity of horse racing in the country.
“Tracks in the United States have significantly higher rates of death than tracks overseas,” she says. “We need to determine what we’re doing wrong in this country and fix it. If we can’t, we need to consider whether horse racing has a future here.”
Kocheese, a 9-year-old gelding, sustained an injury on Saturday during the sixth race that surgeons discovered cut off blood flow to his front left leg. It was his 49th race.
The staggeringly high number of horse deaths at Santa Anita in just five 5 months prompted Feinstein to pose the question: “How many more horses must die before concrete steps are taken to address what is clearly an acute problem?”