14 horses die just before polo match

[garybeck]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- Fourteen thoroughbred horses dropped dead in a mysterious scene Sunday before a polo match near West Palm Beach, Florida, officials said.

State and local veterinary teams are trying to figure out what happened at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington, Florida, as team Lechuza Caracas prepared to compete in a U.S. Open match.

Two horses initially collapsed, and as vets and team officials scrambled to revive them, five others became dizzy, said Tim O'Connor, spokesman for the polo club.

"A total of seven died on our property," O'Connor told CNN. Seven other horses died en route to a Wellington horse farm and a veterinary hospital.

The cause of the deaths has not been determined, and necropsies and blood tests were underway, he said.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/19/dead.horses/index.html

[bitchkitty]

1. How awful - I would say it's probably poisoning. n/t

[garybeck]

2. that was my guess too n/t

[FSogol]

3. Chinese horse feed? Contaminated water source? n/t

[Why Syzygy]

4. That's horrible! Foul play? nt

[saigon68]

5. It's the Rat Poison Maude

[d_b]

6. mass suicide?

[merwin]

34. More likely a murder suicide.

Stupid horses and their defeatest mentality. Or maybe it was the chickens. I suspect fowl play.

PS: If this post made no sense, then you're reading it correctly :)

[Hawkeye-X]

7. It neighs and neighs and doesn't want to anything for overrich, so it's a Jonestown!

But, I do feel bad for the horses. Hopefully someone'll be arrested shortly.

[Captain Hilts]

8. Whoa! That sure sounds suspcious. nt

[KakistocracyHater]

32. on a related note, we need vet ambulances

& that would create more jobs.

[mikelgb]

48. the vet cancer place I take my cat to has an ambulance.

[tomm2thumbs]

9. something in the water? what else would they have in common internally at one site?

Scary -

[bedazzled]

12. the water does suck here. hopefully not enough to kill you, though. if it does, i'm dead!

actually most things about wellington suck.

i am known for my negative attitude, however...

[tomm2thumbs]

13. wellington...

You have a negative attitude? What half-witted, completely incompetent, loser-of-a-human-being told you that?

oops, it's catching. my bad

[bedazzled]

19. i don't know how to SURVIVE without a negative attitude anymore

at least when you think the worst, you know
what to expect.

[FarCenter]

10. Was it just Venezuelan horses that died?

Probably poisoning.

[SpiralHawk]

37. Venezuela? Could be a Hugo hate-factor at work here....

I'm just saying...

[NashVegas]

51. See #50

for info on the team owner.

[bedazzled]

11. what a tragedy! that'll be the end of wellington, i guess

i live there, but am not a "horsey person."

i know a lot of them, though. the folks who care for
the horses are my kind of people. the people who own
the horses, on the other hand -- better not go there.

wellington is on the way down in a big way. many folks
here who thought they were rich and found out recently
that they're not...

if it's not proved to be poisoning, that'll be the end
of polo here, i guess.

[stillcool]

16. 14 horses in that short of a time span...

that's something nasty. I used to work there. I saw a horse die once during a polo match, and it was awful.

[bedazzled]

22. i've never seen a polo match, but i've seen them practicing. looks very strenuous

and dangerous, too.

[merwin]

35. I don't know about you, but if I saw 14 football players drop dead before a game,

I'd suspect foul play.

[Dirigo]

17. Polo Moving North to Port St. Lucie

The new owner of the Tesoro Club in Port St. Lucie Florida Mr Glenn Straub reported in the Palm Beach Post the other day that he wants to build a beautiful polo grounds and make it a premiere polo venue nationally at Tesoro only about 45 miles north of Wellington Polo grounds. It doesn't look good for Wellington does it with all the crime and now the loss of 14 horses. This is a terrible turn of events for the homeowners who invested in Wellington now faced with crime, pestulence, a county that is as corrupt as the Republicon party in congress and in tonights news thieves are circumventing Wellington's crack Wackenhut security cops and stealing residents trendy tires and rims off their vehicles leaving them high and dry up on bricks. I am beginning to wonder what else can go wrong in Wellington. $7M mansions valued at less than $3M, $100,000 plus horses dropping like flies, murders, robberies, drugs, home intrusions can all lead to living in Palm Beach County a living hell.

[bedazzled]

21. i see you're familiar with it, then!

palm beach is awful, and getting worse.

of course, i don't think port st. lucie is
any better.

i don't like florida much. i've only been
here three years, but it's not for me...

[Dirigo]

24. Palm Beach County A Living Hell

Bedazzled,

For starters St. Lucie County is rural by comparison to PBC, but our county commission is not in the federal penitentiary for corruption like nearly the entire board of PBC. We don't have the numbers of murders, home intrusions, carjackings, drug related crimes nor are our "trendy wheels" being stolen. It's still a nice place to live. I've owned three thoroughbreds so I could easily be "again" one of the horsey set. I like polo and have visited Wellington Polo several times. It makes perfectly good sense to me to have a wealthy sportsman of polo build a magnificent state of the art polo grounds here in Port St. Lucie. True unlike Palm Beach County we don't have titty bars, prostitutes working US1, but we do have a good city police department and an excellent sheriffs department, maybe this sort of pressure from the authorities in St. Lucie County has squeezed the criminal element from expanding outside PBC and Martin counties. I will give it 10 years and we'll be like PBC and Martin counties, but lets enjoy the bucolic pristine environment of St. Lucie County while we have it.

Bring on the horses, set up a huge polo complex, we have the space for it.

[bedazzled]

29. rural's always best, isn't it! there's a lot to be said for knowing your neighbors.

i've been living in wellington for three years now
and am barely on a nodding basis with my neighbors.
i'm just glad i didn't buy a house here. it would've
been a total waste.

it's nice to hear that some politicians in florida
aren't in prison! i've almost grown used to the stories
of the crimes in palm beach county. of course, there
was a lot of that in new jersey, where i came from.
guess i'm used to the idea that politicians are criminals!

well, let them build a nice polo stadium there, and i hope
that it doesn't result in st. lucie turning into another
palm beach county. that would be a disaster... the worst
part of wellington is that it must've been really nice
once.

g'night!

karen

[rucognizant]

25. Insurance scam?

Polo ponies and racing thoroughbreds, different horses. The Derby Horses are on their trainers farms, ( mostly in other states) preparing for the big race in 2 weeks.

[chimpyisstillsatan]

26. but it may be a renewal for "beef" Wellington! nt

[get the red out]

14. Thoroughbred horses dropping dead, the Derby is in 2 weeks!

I hope they get a handle on this soon. I am sure there will be horses from Fla in the Ky Derby. If this is some contagion I hope it gets isolated and not spread around from state to state. I am not a big horse person but live in a state that is all about it, we had the mare reproductive syndrome problem here in Kentucky a few years back and so many foals were lost, it was awful for the horse industry. Those poor beautiful creatures! So heartbreaking.

[stillcool]

18. Polo horses aren't racing horses...

the game is really strenuous on the horses.

[Dirigo]

27. Strenuous on the horses, yes, but...

polo horses love to run just as my own thoroughbreds liked to run like streak lightening and jump fences and do cross country. Polo "ponies" are horses and they run 7 minute chukkers and can only do two chukkers and sit out a couple chukkers. There are only 4 horses on a team and 2 teams on the field 300 yards long and 160 yards wide--plenty of room and the optimum word for the sport is safety. There are a lot of referee whistles and the game is frequently stopped briefly. So the horses are exercised true but not unreasonably so with two mounted judges watching carefully and veteranarians on site. You'll notice too that the polo season wraps up this month and doesn't go into the heat of summer.

[stillcool]

42. I worked at the Palm Beach Polo Club...

saw a horse die one day during a polo match. Supposedly had a heart attack.

[get the red out]

36. If it were some disease

it probably wouldn't car what the horses did for a living. The flu doesn't exactly skip over humans due to profession.

[stillcool]

41. what does disease have to do...

with the fact that polo horses aren't racing horses, and therefore won't be running in the Derby?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

15. sad. n/t

[DeepBlueC]

20. Someone's flunking Chemistry...

I hope it doesn't turn out to be someone looking for a *competitive edge* although I would not be surprised. x(

[TeeYiYi]

47. My thought exactly...

... Someone screwed up with the steroid injections.... :(

TYY

[tomreedtoon]

23. I'll bet Tony Soprano's horses are still alive.

With the understanding that "Tony Soprano" is a stand-in for whatever organized crime head engages in polo. I'm sure one of them is; polo is a sport, and sport is evil.

Tell me this much; did the dead horses still have their heads attached?

[SheilaT]

28. My first thought is that

the horses were all given "performance enhancing drugs" or some other medications.

[Arugula Latte]

30. Goddammit.

:grr:

[KathieG]

31. It's looking like they were poisoned...

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...,6952636.story

"According to several sources, the horses had a reaction to a steroid derivative that may have been tainted with a cleaning solution. The shots apparently were administered by an Argentine vet, not licensed in the U.S."

[BabyDoe]

33. VEE can not be discounted as a cause of horse disaster

VEE -- Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis -- cannot be ruled out as a cause of the polo ponies disaster in Wellington -- at least not until the necropsies have been concluded. This pernicious, mosquito-borne disease can cause instant death in horses -- it also causes nervous system disorders. VEE affects other equines (zebras, donkeys, mules) and humans. Horses in the US are routinely vaccinated against VEE, but practices vary widely in other countries. Most countries outside of the US and UK are not as rigorous in their health care of horses. It has been more than a decade since the last major breakout of VEE (1995 in Venezuela and Colombia), so perhaps South American horse owners have become complacent and are not routinely vaccinating against VEE.

[bedazzled]

38. yikes - a serious mosquito-borne illness that can affect humans in florida - sounds scary!

the mosquitos here are huge! since we are in a major
drought situation (which seems to go unnoticed by my
fellow citizens and the media) the mosquitos are
somewhat less than usual. under normal circumstances
i can't walk outside, day or night, without being bitten.

there was a horse quarantine here a few years ago, as i
recall. several horses died. pretty much put
wellington off the map. if this incident turns out not
to be poison, this community will be pretty much finished,
i think.

[Robb]

43. Or trich.

Trichomoniasis can be fatal, and much more common than encephalitis. Horses were about the "target" age, too, IIRC.

[bklyncowgirl]

39. The horses all belonged to the same team. It sounds like poisoning--accidental or otherwise.

Polo's a strenuous sport and horses have been known to collapse from exhaustion, heart attack whatever. For a large group of horses on the same team to suddenly drop dead is just not possible.

It should be pretty easy to figure out what these animals have in common and test for contamination in feed, water, etc.

This is a terrible shame. If someone did deliberately poison these animals they should throw the book at them.

[theHandpuppet]

40. Death count now at 21 horses

This has to be a case of poisoning, in which case some scumbag should have a jail cell waiting for him or her!! :mad:

[Dappleganger]

44. What a tragedy!

It's got to be poisoning and they had better bring the culprit(s) to justice!

[RebelOne]

45. UPDATE: 21 Horses injected with cleaning fluid.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1171996/Mystery-21-polo-horses-die-injected-cleaning-fluid-ahead-Florida-tournament.html

[Coventina]

46. This is pure speculation on my part, but after reading that article

and seeing that the horses were injected with what was believed to be a vitamin solution....well, I recalled that many of the ingredients in vitamins (like ascorbic acid for Vitamin C) are made almost exclusively in China....

Although, my first thought (and most likely scenario) remains sabotage.

[NashVegas]

50. About the Team's Owner, Victor Vargas

January 2008 - http://sybilstar.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-to-resist-temptation-to-scapegoat.html

"Mr. Vargas says his survival strategy is remaining agnostic about politics."

Exactly. Play the field. Don't play politics. Where have we seen that before? How many US companies wait to see which way the political wind is blowing before writing their campaign finance checks?

"In 2002, helped convince other bankers not to join strikes led by businesses that were aimed at ousting Mr. Chavez. As president of the banks' industry association, he helps negotiate banking regulations."

Exactly. Where have we seen that before? How many US banking regulations are put in place through consultation with industry big-wigs? Why fight city hall when you can feather your nest and get so big the government has to bail you out if you bet incorrectly?

" 'A businessman has to deal with his government, no matter how far to the right or left it is,' he says."

From last week - - http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090414-704305.html


Vargas' Banco Occidental de Descuento (BOU.CA), like many other financial institutions, enjoyed skyrocketing profits during the last few years by handing out cheap consumer loans as the country was inundated with cash from the surge in oil prices. But such lending has drawn criticism from Chavez's opponents, who contend they have aided a government bent on stifling private initiative. These bankers "don't realize that they are walking into the slaughterhouse," declared a recent editorial by local trade magazine Veneconomia.

[garybeck]

49. how could cleaning fluid get into a vitamin shot? n/t

[msanthrope]

52. Easy--it wasn't a vitamin shot..

A 'vitamin shot' would be pre-packaged in single use syringes for vet use....

This sounds like a contaminated steroid/stimulant shot, probably all drawn from the same contaminated bottle.

Could be re-used needles, but that seems like an awful lot of cleaning fluid to have to stay on/in the needle.

[doodadem]

53. This wouldn't be contagion

Anything infectious would not just stick to one team's horses. This has to be something the animals were given.

Don't know about polo there, but Wellington has a HUGE dressage community. My old trainer moved to Ft. Meyers, but frequently travels over to Wellington to train and compete. She still works with plenty of the small time folks like us, but she also has a fair number of wealthy clients that she both trains for, and buys/sells dressage prospects.

And don't worry folks, as a native Louisvillian, I can assure you there won't be any polo horses in the Derby.

[doodadem]

54. I just had another thought here.......

I'm wondering if this vet was actually trying to give them hyaluron/hyaluronic acid? Although a vet should be able to get the real thing easy enough, when I was ordering it online they had to advertise it as "cleaning fluid" on the vet sites for regulatory purposes.

The veterinary trade name is Adequan. Hyaluronic acid is injected for horses with joint problems. I was giving it to my gelding for arthritic changes in an ankle. Although, I can't imagine giving it to a whole team of supposedly younger horses just as a preventative, I guess its possible. It basically helps relubricate joints.

Maybe the vet got hold of some that really was cleaning fluid???

[mantis49]

55. Some years ago, Lippizaner stallions

died at Western Illinois University during their performance after eating off Japanese yew trees outside of the hall where they were going to perform. I had planned to go to see them, but had a family emergency and had to miss the show. I was so glad I wasn't there.

No one at the University and no one who handled the horses thought about what they were browsing on before the show.


www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/horses/facts/poison.htm

http://asci.uvm.edu/equine/law/cases/injure/entertainment.htm

Edited to add another link