By Bob Ehalt
In a winter filled with the glow of unprecedented purses and unusually mild weather, it’s sad to report that an ominous van rather than a horse has emerged as the lasting image of New York’s 2012 winter racing season.
The haunting specter of the white horse van that removes injured or deceased race horses from the track has been seen of late at Aqueduct with seemingly the same frequency as Sam the Bugler.
Since Nov. 30 there have been 15 fatal breakdowns in races over Aqueduct’s inner track, a figure which is reportedly 50 percent higher than in the past two inner track meets.
Numerous other times, like twice on Sunday, horses with minor or at least non-life threatening injuries have been led into the van and driven to their barn or a veterinary hospital for treatment.
Yonkers may have its talking spokesperson horse, but NYRA has now its van, which has become such a ubiquitous part of a day at the races in the era of real-time, digital coverage of the sport that one can only wonder how long it will be before its driver, or perhaps even the van itself, starts a Twitter account.
In response to a situation that’s spiraling downward at a frightening pace, NYRA’s vice president and director of racing, P.J. Campo, vice president of facilities and racing surfaces, Glen Kozak, and the circuit’s leading jockey, Ramon Dominguez, met with the media on Thursday to declare the racing surface safe.
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