Fourteen Thoroughbred Horses Dropped Dead Before Polo Match

[tekisui]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- Fourteen thoroughbred horses dropped dead in a mysterious scene Sunday before a polo match near West Palm Beach, Florida, officials said.
Teams are trying to figure out what happened at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Florida.

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.

It's unclear what killed the horses but necropsies and blood tests were being done Sunday, the Palm Beach Post reported.

The U.S. Polo Association, the sport's governing body, is expected to open an investigation Monday, the Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported.

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 as they were transported to a Wellington horse farm and a veterinary hospital.

Vets ran intravenous tubes into the horses, struggling to help them breathe, officials told the Palm Beach Post.

Some horses died immediately, but some lingered for about 45 minutes, according to Dr. Scott Swerdlin of the Palm Beach Equine Clinic, the Sun-Sentinel reported. The clinic is the International Polo's consulting veterinarian group, the newspaper said.

more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/20/dead.horses/

[babylonsister]

1. Wow. Can you imagine being there for the match, and seeing

horses dropping like flies? Very sad; I hope they figure out what the cause was.

[meegbear]

2. I was watching the news at the gym this morning (no sound) ...

but my local CBS station (Boston) on their news runner at the bottom of the screen was reporting that the horses were injected with a type of steroid, but what was injected into them may have been tainted with a cleaning solution.

[tekisui]

3. That is so sad.

It make me sick to my stomach.

[peacetalksforall]

4. If this is true, should the owners go to jail? Does it make sense that

all the owners injected separately, but used the same source for the stuff injected? Or that they had a contract from someone who injected them all?

[MrScorpio]

5. Insurance fraud

That would be my first guess

[AngryAmish]

8. I heard one vet suspects poison

PETA types maybe? Or a disgruntled employee? Or something weird like fuel in the feed.

[TorchTheWitch]

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

It's looking like they were poisoned...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5493515

"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."


There's a few threads going around about this. And the death toll is now up to 21.

This is probably either a bad batch of the steroid drug or sabbotage.

[babylonsister]

7. UPDATE: 21 Horses Die Suddenly at Palm Beach Polo Match

21 Horses Die Suddenly at Palm Beach Polo Match
Cause of Mysterious Deaths Unknown; Vets Say 'Toxic Substance' Likely Killed Horses
By SCOTT MICHELS
April 20, 2009

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At least 21 horses have died after coming down with a mysterious ailment moments before they were scheduled to compete in the prestigious U.S. Open polo tournament.
21 polo horses die after falling ill ahead of Florida tournament; vets await tests for cause

Though the Florida Department of Agriculture was conducting lab tests to determine the cause of death, veterinarians said they suspected the horses were probably killed by some sort of poison.

At least 14 of the horses from Venezuela's Lechuza Caracas team, worth an average of $100,000 each, died Sunday after several of the animals became dizzy and collapsed as they were being unloaded at the International Polo Club Palm Beach.

Seven horses died at the club; a total of 15 died yesterday. The rest died overnight or early this morning as they were receiving medical care or en route to medical treatment, said Terence McElroy, a spokesman for the state's Department of Agriculture.

more...

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=7380774&page=1

[csziggy]

9. Looking less like steroids and more like poison and could be insurance fraud

Celeste Kunz, chief examining veterinarian at the New York Racing Association and a 19-year veterinarian, said Monday that she suspected a tainted substance was injected into the horses.

" something that was administered for it to work in a short amount of time and have an animal succumb that quickly," Kunz said. "My thought is that something was injected because it would have to affect the central nervous system."

She dismissed the chances that the horses ingested something because it would take longer to metabolize and they would show signs of illness sooner than they did before the match.

Anabolic steroids are not likely to have caused the deaths either, she said.

"It takes at least five days for to really work, and the effects aren't real obvious at first," she said. "Most of the time are used to build up their muscularity."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/20/dead.horses/

The team owner is a pretty shady and greedy banker:

By JOHN LYONS
January 29, 2008-WSJ

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Víctor Vargas is a polo-playing banker who zips between his six homes in a fleet of luxury jets. So you might expect him to be struggling in today's Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez has vowed to build a classless society.

But Mr. Vargas, 55 years old, hasn't missed a beat. His Banco Occidental de Descuento is expanding amid an oil-fueled economic surge. Like other bankers, he snares profits dealing in a flood of government-issued debt. And the Chávez years have done little to damp Mr. Vargas's exuberance for the trappings of wealth.

<SNIP>
Mr. Vargas says his survival strategy is remaining agnostic about politics. In 2002, he helped convince other bankers not to join strikes led by businesses that were aimed at ousting Mr. Chávez. As president of the banks' industry association, he helps negotiate banking regulations. "A businessman has to deal with his government, no matter how far to the right or left it is," he says.

Mr. Vargas's high-level government contacts have attracted critics who say he's suddenly become rich as "Mr. Chávez's banker." Mr. Vargas says he's only met Mr. Chávez twice, and besides, he's always been wealthy, having owned his Dominican Republic home and others for decades. "Juan Luis Guerra played at my first daughter's wedding too, and no one made a big deal about it," he says.
http://opinadortextos.blogspot.com/2008/01/polo-loving-banker-lives-really-large.html