Horse Racing
ESPN news services 6y

Racehorses killed, one trainer hurt at San Luis Rey Downs training center

Horse Racing

SAN DIEGO -- At least 25 racehorses were killed when a wildfire engulfed about eight barns at a training center in northeast San Diego County, the California Horse Racing Board said Friday.

Horses that were in surrounding pastures remain unaccounted for.

Nearly 500 horses were stabled at the San Luis Rey Downs training center in Bonsall when the fire erupted amid strong Santa Ana winds Thursday, and workers risked their lives to free horses from stalls and herd them into safer areas, a board statement said.

Trainer Martine Bellocq was hospitalized after suffering severe second- and third-degree burns over 50 percent of her body while attempting to rescue her horses during the fire, one of her family members told Daily Racing Forum. 

Bellocq was placed in a medically induced coma at UC San Diego Medical Center. 

Horses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, usually carefully walked from place to place, were simply set free and encouraged to run away as flames engulfed the center, which is just a few miles from where the fire broke out.

Mac McBride, who was working with the center's trainers, said it was "total pandemonium when several hundred horses were cut loose."

When it was safe to bring in horse vans, surviving horses were taken to Del Mar racetrack.

"There was so much smoke it was difficult to see," said horse trainer Dan Durham, who got his 20 horses rounded up and was loading them into vans to be evacuated. "Some of the horses were turned loose so they could be safe. They were scattered around."

San Luis Rey Downs is home to horses that run at Del Mar and other top-flight California tracks such as Santa Anita Park. Doug O'Neill, whose horses have won the Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup races, is among the trainers who keep at least part of their stable there.

The sign at the front calls it "Home of Azeri," the now-retired mare who was the 2002 American Horse of the Year who earned more than $4 million in her career.

Los Alamitos Race Course, the track where Southern California's rotating thoroughbred circuit is currently running, canceled all races Friday so that the racing community can mourn.

Horse trainer Scott Hansen said he knows some of the 30 horses he had at the facility were killed.

"I don't know how many are living and how many are dead," Hansen said. "I guess I'll have to figure that out in the morning." For now, he said he was concentrating on getting his horses that survived to evacuation centers.

Another trainer, Cliff Sise, told KFMB-TV that he saw about 10 horses die, including his own filly.

"It was dark; everything was hot, and she wouldn't come out. I opened the pen and tried to get behind her and get her out, and she wouldn't get out," Sise said. "She burned to death that quick."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

^ Back to Top ^