Two horses died during training hours at Belmont Park K Jan.8 due to injuries sustained in a collision on the training track, according to the New York Racing Association and a trainer of one of the horses involved.
Where’s Chris , a 3-year-old son of Twirling Candy, who won the Nov. 5 Nashua Stakes, and multiple winner Constitutionlawyer, a 5-year-old son of Constitution, who most recently started in the Queens County Stakes, collided near the seven-eighths pole around 7:45 a.m. following the renovation break.
Neither exercise rider Shannon Uske on Where's Chris nor Emmanuel Colon on Constitutionlawyer was injured in the accident. Daily Racing Form reported and NYRA confirmed that Uske did ride another horse later in the morning for trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. and got unseated. She was taken to Winthrop Hospital for evaluation.
"It was one of those crazy racetrack things," said Ray Handal, the trainer of Constitutionlawyer. "You do everything you can to be safe and certain things are unavoidable."
The loss of Constitutionlawyer is the first horse Handal has had die while in his care. Handal was featured in a special report by Tim Sullivan that was published last month in the BloodHorse Daily. In his 10th year as a trainer and after more than 1,500 starts, Handal had not lost a horse during racing, during training, from illness, or in an accident.
We exercise a tremendous amount of caution regarding safety, and I like my riders to have a certain skill set. We keep advanced riders and we pay well. All the things you can do to prevent these things from happening, we do," Handal said. "I take a lot of pride in it. You do all those things because stuff like this happens and you try to limit it.
"Everybody is shook up. Manny has been riding the horse the past year and a half for me. We are a very family-oriented barn, so everyone is very sad."
