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| Santa Anita Park in Arcadia said a horse died “suddenly” over the weekend on its training track, making it the sixth fatality this year. The 6-year-old named Double Touch died on Saturday, according to the racetrack. The exact cause of the horse’s death was unknown and results from a necropsy were pending, officials said. —KTLA, February 11, 2020. File photo, above, of Double Touch provided by Zoe Metz Photography to Horse Racing Nation. |
Amazing euphoria
all over my face
I am fifteen
driving a car
My Dad teaches me
the brake the gears
how to stop how to turn
how to make hand signals
at the Track parking lot
now empty of cars
My Mom had taken me there
to watch the whirlwind races
charging horses jockeys
whipping hounding
Weeks later near home
I drove toward a paper bag
Don’t run over it Dad said
it might have kittens inside
Advice admonishment
image forever implanted
Of course all that was
an ancient moon’s age ago
I did not know back then
about the numerous deaths
at the Santa Anita track
where on average
fifty horses die shot
each year of my life
Should I mention so many
other world racetracks
I used to recall driving
at the Santa Anita Racetrack
But now all I can think about
are dead horses
Linda Stryker writes from Phoenix, AZ. She volunteered for many years as a radio reader for disabled people. She taught for twenty-four years at Arizona State University. She founded the poetry groups Poetry Exchange and COW: Community of Writers. Stryker has been published in numerous journals and her chapbook Starcrossed was published in 2018. She is currently working on a collection.