PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – The Meadows racetrack says it has less than a handful of deaths at the track in a year.

So for two horses to die on the same day is highly unusual.

Race day was a little different Tuesday. People were trying to figure out how two horses died yesterday.
That hasn’t happened in 50 years.

“In an average year, we will have three to four horses go down in a year,” Mike Jeannot with the racetrack said. “So it’s very unusual.”

The two mares died within minutes of each other, one during a race, one before a race.

Sue Daldisera was there when it happened.

“It’s heart wrenching, it really is,” Daldisera said. “It happens. The one had a heart attack and the other, we don’t know, you can’t blame the track, you just can’t help it.”

Daldisera and her husband own five horses at the Meadows.

“Oh, I’m very attached,” she said. “I’m very attached, one person named precious Suzy, I’m very attached.”

Right now, the racing experts at the Meadows don’t know a specific cause for the deaths of the two horses. However, there is an early theory on the death of one of the horses.

“One of the early reports of the first horse that died is that he choked down,” Jeannot said, “which as to do with their breathing. That’s what caused the deaths. We’ll find out for sure when the autopsies are back.”

For the owners at the Meadows, the deaths are tough to take – the horses are family.

Daldisera said she worries about her horses the way people worry about their families.

It’s difficult for the horse owners to take.

However, the people at the Meadows call the deaths an extraordinary even by any standard. It hasn’t happened for 50 years and likely won’t for another 50 years.

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