Racehorse dies at Belmont while wearing nasal strip: Report

The first day after nasal strips were allowed to be worn by racehorses at Belmont Park, See the Music, a 3-year-old filly, collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack on the track.

The over-sized breathing aid has gotten a lot of attention in the past couple of weeks because of California Chrome’s run for the Triple Crown.

The nasal strips were approved jointly Monday by the New York Racing Association, the New York State Gaming Commission and the Jockey Club, allowing California Chrome to try for his sweep of the Triple Crown on June 7 in the Belmont Stakes.

On Wednesday, See the Music died.

California Chrome wore the nasal strips to victory in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, but his connections were thinking of possibly skipping the Belmont if the colt wasn’t allowed to wear one in New York.

Prior to Monday’s approval, New York was the only racing jurisdiction that didn’t allow the strip to be worn through rule 4033.8 in the Gaming Commission: Only equipment specifically approved by the stewards shall be worn or carried by a jockey or a horse in a race.

See the Music’s body was sent to Cornell University, where a necropsy was performed.

“We are awaiting necropsy results,” said Lee Park, a spokesman for the gaming commission. 

“There is no reason to believe that wearing a nasal strip would contribute to a sudden death of a horse.”

The Gaming Commission’s medical director, Scott E. Palmer, cleared the way for the strips to be used in New York in a statement that read, “Equine nasal strips do not enhance equine performance nor do they pose a risk to equine health or safety and as such do not need to be regulated.”

Horse's freak death at Churchill Downs blamed on track's new sound system: Report

A racehorse died Thursday at Churchill Downs after a freak fall that the trainer blamed on the sound of a starting gate bell blaring on the track's new sound system attached to the racetrack's vaunted new video board.

The 5-year-old mare Never Tell Lynda was walking toward the paddock on the dirt track when she reared, twisted and fell, hitting her head, said her trainer, Kenneth Wirth. She died before the first race of the day at the track that's home to the Kentucky Derby.

A heartbroken Wirth later said the horse was spooked by what he thinks was the sound of a starting gate bell coming from a commercial on the track's ear-blasting speaker system.

Churchill Downs recently debuted the world's biggest HD video screen  — the "Big Board," as it has been dubbed — and boasted about its 750-speaker sound system going into Derby week.

Towering 170 feet over the backstretch, the high-definition, $12 million video screen is bigger than three basketball courts and larger than any single panel of the giant display hanging above the field at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys.

"We teach horses to break from that," he said. "And you've got it on a loud speaker that everybody in a two-city block can hear. Well, what's she going to do? She thinks she's supposed to take off. And that's what she did. And when she did, she lunged and she lost her balance and went down."

The fall was not witnessed by any of the track veterinarians, but staff rushed to her aid, said Will Farmer, chief racing veterinarian for the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.

"It was quickly evident that this horse was in the process of expiring," he said. "To ease her suffering, one of our veterinarians euthanized her."

A necropsy will be performed on the horse, but the clinical signs matched the trainer's description, Farmer said.

Wirth said the sound system was "way too loud" at the time of the accident.

"The only thing you can blame is the music," Wirth said. "They've got to do something about it... The horses are the main thing here."