Outrage is expressed over reports that Ferdinand was “disposed of” after he was no longer effective as a breeding stallion.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The racing world expressed shock and sadness Tuesday upon learning that 1986 Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand might have been slaughtered last year in Japan.
From Ferdinand’s jockey, Bill Shoemaker, to racing fans and even the horse’s former veterinarian, Dr. Alex Harthill, all were expressing outrage over a story that first appeared Monday night on the Internet Web site bloodhorse.com.
The Internet story, and a longer version published in the July 26 issue of The Blood-Horse magazine, suggests that a slaughterhouse was the “likely fate” for Ferdinand, whose epic battle with Derby winner Alysheba in the 1987 Breeders’ Cup Classic brought him the Horse of the Year title. Ferdinand held off Alysheba by a nose in the Classic.
Ferdinand was Shoemaker’s fourth and final Kentucky Derby winner, making him the oldest jockey, then 54, to win the race. Ferdinand was the first Derby winner for his 73-year-old trainer, the late Charlie Whittingham.
Ferdinand was retired to stud at Claiborne Farm, his birthplace, in 1989 then five years later was sold to the JS Company in Japan.
But according to The Blood-Horse, the chestnut-colored Ferdinand was “disposed of” last year when he no longer was useful as a breeding stallion. He would have been 19 years old.
Ferdinand’s former owner in Japan, Yoshikazu Watanabe, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the horse no longer was effective at stud and was in some discomfort, so he gave the horse to a friend two years ago. He confirmed that Ferdinand was “disposed of” sometime last year.
“In Japan, the term “disposed of’ is used to mean slaughtered,” wrote the author of The Blood-Horse story, a free-lance writer named Barbara Bayer. She added: “No one can say for sure when and where Ferdinand met his end, but it would seem clear he met it in a slaughterhouse.”
Bayer’s conclusion appeared to be somewhat indefinite, and the managing editor of The Blood-Horse, Evan I. Hammonds, cautioned that, “we are not saying for sure; we’re saying it was his likely fate.
“We don’t have ironclad proof,” Hammonds added. But he said that Bayer, the author, has lived in Japan for 20 years and understands the language.
“We have complete faith in the story,” Hammonds said.
The full story in the magazine, which became available Tuesday, tells how Ferdinand spent six breeding seasons at Arrow Stud on the northern island of Hokkaido. He bred 77 mares in his first year, but by his final year at Arrow, in 2000, he bred only 10 mares.
Then his fortunes went into a tailspin that Bayer believes ended at a slaughterhouse.
“He was put into the hands of an agent and that’s what this agent does,” Hammonds said.
The author concluded that a slaughtered thoroughbred in Japan would likely be used for pet food.
“That’s a terrible way for him to go,” said retired jockey Shoemaker, when contacted at his home in California. The rider said he would have tried to bring Ferdinand back to the United States to an equine retirement farm, if only he had known the fate he faced.
“Sometimes life is not fair,” Shoemaker said, “even with poor animals that can’t do anything about it.”
Harthill, the veterinarian and a close friend of Whittingham, the trainer, said from Louisville that, “Charlie would have wanted to slaughter somebody” if he’d been alive to learn the horse’s fate.
“He’d have bought the horse himself to save him,” Harthill said.
Another horse trainer in California, Richard Mandella, said the news was “just devastating.
“What can you do to stop it?” Mandella asked. “It’s terribly sad and hard to believe, a horse as great as he was.”
Said a racing fan in Lexington, Hank Haynes: “They give their lives for our enjoyment, and if an animal wins the Derby and the Breeders’ Cup Classic, what more could he possibly do to live a long, natural life?”
Yet Bayer’s story suggests that a long and natural life is anything but the fate that nearly all stallions and ex-racehorses face in Japan.
“Ferdinand’s story is the story of nearly every imported stallion in Japan at that point in time when the figures no longer weigh in his favor,” Bayer wrote. She added that an aged imported stallion “has virtually no chance at sanctuary.”
Bayer also quoted a Japanese horseman who said little sentimentality is expressed in that country for horses that cannot turn a profit. According to Bayer, he told her that racing is not considered part of the culture in Japan, and that horses generally are seen only in terms of profit or loss.
“They need to be a protected species,” said Haynes, in Lexington. The racing fan said he was “sickened” to learn Ferdinand’s fate.
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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
AP-NY-07-22-03 1945EDT
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