HORRORS OF HOBBY HORSE HALL RACETRACK, NASSAU, BAHAMAS

Scandal of the Starving Horses 1975-77

A John Brookland/Animal Rights & Wrongs UK Feature Article.

In 1975 I found myself starting a new job as Chief Inspector of the Bahamas Humane Society in Nassau and had no idea that soon after my arrival I would be sitting alone in a derelict stable at the Hobby Horse Hall Racetrack awaiting help, cradling the grotesquely grimacing head of a skeletal dying horse named Last Hope in my lap

Before arriving in the Bahamas I had been informed that I was expected to regularly inspect the racetrack stables and I had foolishly envisaged that in a millionaires playground it would on par with the likes of Newmarket in the UK or Churchill Downs in the U.S., but I could not have been more wrong because I had I arrived during the demise of Hobby Horse Hall when hundreds of horses suffered, and many died horrible deaths. The Government, Racing Commission and Horse Owners Association were all aware of the situation but chose not to do anything. It was a national scandal, but no one seemed to care and to this day many Bahamians look back with nostalgia. These are my horrific and sad memories of the track during the years 1975-77 written as an historical eyewitness account and in remembrance of all the horses that suffered there.

The track in its heyday in the 1960s with Ambassador Beach Hotel in background. Photo:OldBahamas.com

A Brief History.

Horse racing came early to the Bahamas, incredibly early in fact, when a rudimentary track was built near Fort Charlotte in 1792 by the occupying colonists. A “proper” track was constructed later opposite Cable Beach where the Baha Mar resort now stands and was popular from the 1930’s onwards until a major fire destroyed most of the facilities in February 1958. By 1960 a new grandstand and parade ring were built and state of the art starting gates and photo finish cameras were installed. It became the haunt of the rich colonial elite who mingled with the famous such as the likes of Erol Flynn and they enjoyed charcoal grilled lobster, turtle pie and steaks on the dining terrace while watching top jockeys and horses some from Miami. It had such a colourful social scene that the press eagerly wrote society columns publishing photographs of the celebrities and the fashions and hats worn by the ladies. So when I first visited the track in early October 1975 I was expecting great things and was fascinated to be following in the footsteps of Errol Flynn and his ilk, but nothing could have prepared me for the sights I witnessed over the next two years

The track was the haunt of the colonial elite and celebrities in the 1940s and 1950s including Errol Flynn pictured outside the grandstand. Photo: OldBahamas.com

Leaving horses to starve was accepted practice.

The racing season stretched from February to the end of May when there could be could be upward of 300 horses on the site and officially they all had to be removed by the 1st. June when electricity and water supplies were turned off. The reality, I soon discovered, was that only the thoroughbreds and breeding mares were taken while the luckier ones of those left behind were let loose to wander the island to fend for themselves. The unlucky ones risked starvation at the track or were just locked in a stable to die an awful death. Owners had been hit by soaring feed prices which had tripled over the previous two years and could not afford to look after them when racing stopped. It was accepted practice, and no one seemed to care.

It is exceedingly difficult to describe adequately what was happened behind the scenes in those last few years without it appearing totally exaggerated. As we drove into the stable yard, I could see pathetic looking half-starved horses everywhere, most of them wandering loose with protruding ribs and sunken backs. The yard contained fifteen or so long wooden stable blocks and a couple of more sturdy brick ones in various states of dereliction. I could not believe what I was seeing. Some buildings were covered in graffiti and painted murals. Nearly every stable door was damaged either by chewing or rot and most walls had planks missing or ragged holes in them. There was a thick haze and smell of marijuana permeating the whole place with a handful of stable lads many under the influence. Piles of dung littered the place along with beer cans and bottles, debris, and abandoned vehicles.

In my first twelve months I dealt with 39 seriously starved or injured horses and had to shoot a further ten. It was heartbreaking and never ending. [Nassau Guardian. John Brookland archive]

The few lucky horses that were still being looked after had to fight hordes of huge brazen rats when feed buckets were placed in front of them. They appeared from everywhere and when the horses tried to force their heads into the buckets they were bitten and had to back off and wait until the rats had finished. I approached one bucket and attempted to shoo the rats away, but they were pretty determined and showed little fear of humans.

Mares would often die giving birth and I would find them dragged out of the stable and dumped. It was so bad that it became routine for me to visit at least every other day during the off season to satisfy myself there were no horses starving to death so that I could sleep at night.

Most of the stable blocks were in various states of dereliction.[Photo: John Brookland 1976 Hobby Horse Hall]

My local colleague who was showing me round put it this way:

“This is the off season, man, and no one is interested in the track or horses at this time of the year. The best thoroughbreds and mares are taken away for breedin’, but the others are just turned loose, just turned out and abandoned man if they are lucky or just left to rot in their stables. You’ll find them wandering all over the island, some get hit by cars on the road and others starve in the bush. This whole track is crooked man. It works like this. There are a lot of good horses which win all the races and are taken away at the end of the season. After that no one cares about the others as they’re not worth a dollar. Look, see those horses over there, the skinny ones, they been fending for themselves all summer. Soon the trainers will be getting all their men to round em up wherever they are, stuff ‘em with feed for a few weeks and they’ll be racing in no time”.

When I suggested that they didn’t look as though they could win anything he replied:

“Trainers would be annoyed if they did. They’re the fillers. It’s all fixed, man.”

Inspecting each stable for sick or starving horses became almost a daily duty in the off season.[Photo: John Brookland 1975 Hobby Horse Hall]

Horses with weeping abscesses and talk of fixed races.

There was much talk of races being allegedly “fixed” or contrived with “Ringers” appearing under false names and old nags put in as “fillers” to make up the numbers alongside the thoroughbred preordained winners. There were stories that each owner or trainer of a stable allegedly took turns to win races to spread the prize money out fairly. Stable lads openly admitted that horses were drugged and made weak by not feeding or exercising them. During the season I found horses with weeping abscesses on their necks probably from caused by dirty needles and I sometimes found discarded drug vials which seemed to collaborate the stories.

Often when eight or nine horses were listed to run a race several never made it to the starting gate as there weren’t enough fit horses to be found that could complete the circuit without dropping dead halfway round. It was not unknown for the thoroughbreds to do exactly that as in the case of Sir Mark in the “Horse of the Year race” which dropped dead two yards after passing the winning post to much publicity. Cause of death unknown. Gambling syndicates and those “in the know” no doubt made a lot of money.

The whole Nassau race operation should have been a national scandal, but surprisingly few people seemed to care about the situation. The suspect “goings on” appeared to be common knowledge with one regular racegoer writing a letter to the editor of the main Nassau newspaper which included:

“I followed the 1975 season from beginning to end and sad to say it was very disappointing to the public and many patrons of the track expressed such sadness. If Mr Bastian [new racetrack director] is to do an honest job with the public in mind then he must make certain that the races are competitive and not given races i.e. races that are so made up for particular horse to win or the stable to win. Neither should a programme be made up to show nine horses in the race when in fact there only six honest entries. The proper thing to do is to run six horses and the public not to be cheated out of three.” [John Leon Rolle, Letter to Editor, Nassau Guardian 1975]

The end of the thoroughbred "Sir Mark" in the Horse of the Year race. Many horses collapsed and died during races from "unknown" causes. [archives of John Brookland]

I desperately wanted to close the track for good.

It was obvious that I could not stand by like everyone else and ignore all the suffering and death being caused to the horses and so I decided it was my mission to try and close the track. I was soon put on my guard by the young local racetrack veterinarian Dr Balfe who became a friend who warned me to “watch your back”, as he had been assaulted for trying to intervene. His warning was not without truth as I found out a few months later.

The track was owned by a company called Raceco Ltd and they told me they were on a downward spiral with operational money in short supply and any profits being syphoned off and disappearing to Miami and elsewhere. They were in talks with the government to buy the track and build a hotel, convention hall and casino complex which happened many years later. Mr. Franklyn Wilson, the racing Commission chairman and an M.P for Grants Town had no answers either but hoped a new track would be built in early 1976 off Gladstone Road which of course did not happen, and the 1976 season took place as usual with more deaths on and off the track. It seemed incredible that only 10 years earlier in its heyday it was holding high profile cup races with huge prize money and famous thoroughbred horses.

This then was the famous and iconic hallowed national racetrack of the Bahamas situated only a matter of yards from luxury hotels like the Ambassador Beach directly opposite and their tourist residents.

As the months went by I had to attend to a constant stream of emaciated, injured and uncared for horses both at the track and around the island, many of which we managed to put back to health, some I had to unfortunately shoot, a few I had to rescue having fallen down abandoned wells that dotted the island while others were injured in road accidents and a handful were found new homes. These were often stolen back by the owners once they were restored to health again as it was difficult to keep their location hidden on a small island which was all depressing and disheartening.

Having to deal with sights like this on a regular basis became an emotional strain. Photo:John Brookland at Hobby Horse Hall 1977

I did my best to be a nuisance to officialdom and horses owners taking what proved to be futile prosecutions and took every opportunity to give the track bad publicity with the help of the Nassau Guardian and the Tribune newspapers. They ran many front-page graphic stories using photographs that I supplied them.

I did my best to publicise the awful events occurring at the track with the keen help of the Nassau press. [Nassau Guardian October 1975/John Brookland archive]

Eventually I began to receive both veiled and actual threats from the track including a group of drunken alleged stable lads who turned up at the Bahamas Humane Society one afternoon brandishing cutlasses and wanting a word with me, but luckily, I wasn’t present. This was soon followed by another group who arrived late one evening brandishing cutlasses and banging them on my front garden wall shouting that they were going to chop me up. I went through a period of slight concern but being young I thought I was invincible at the time and I found it all a little surreal. I didn’t take it too seriously, but my employers were worried to the point of putting iron bars on my bedroom window – ornate ones I might add. From then on, I never went to the track at night and during the day never without my dog Condor and a fellow inspector.

Finding Last Hope’s Owner

I was determined to find her callous owner and eventually did. His name was Dencil Munnings, an apparently well-connected horse owner, who when I interviewed him could not understand why I had such a problem and laughed off any suggestion of me prosecuting him. Even though I was a district constable in the Royal Bahamas Police Force as part of the job, it was hard work to convince the Force to charge him as everyone thought prosecuting someone for starving a horse was absurd and had never been done before. I had to resort to getting the Police Commissioner involved who I had luckily met once at a party.

Mr. Munnings was eventually arrested and charged but my police colleagues failed to serve the summons on the pretext they couldn’t find him, so I took the summons and located him in a couple of hours. He didn’t turn up at two court hearings, but the judge to his credit, reluctantly issued a warrant for his arrest. Mr. Munnings finally had his day in court, pleaded guilty and was fined the maximum $50 (￡25) for the offence under a completely outdated and farcical colonial animal cruelty law. A waste of time perhaps but I wanted to make a point and it kicked started bad publicity for the track and my campaign to close it. But I passionately believed I owed Last Hope some justice for her suffering. I went on to prosecute several other owners.

The state I found Last Hope in having been shut in a stable to starve to death.

What Happened to Last Hope.

As regards Last Hope the poor horse I mentioned at the beginning, I remained alone with her for nearly an hour awaiting help and it was the closest I have come to any kind a spiritual or ethereal experience, sitting there in the stillness and gloom of the stable with just the sound of her shallow breathing. It was an event so awful that it has haunted me for most of my life and ranks amongst the worst cases of animal cruelty I experienced. It was the thought of the suffering and hopelessness she must have gone through and her grotesque skeletal appearance that affected me the most, particularly the sight of her tightly drawn face revealing her teeth in an agony death mask grimace. I could not believe she was still clinging onto life.

While I awaited our veterinarian, I found myself praying and encouraging her to hang on although I expected she would have to be destroyed, but after an examination our vet thought she had a very slim chance of survival if I wanted to give it a try and of course I did. He reckoned she had not eaten or drunk for at least two weeks and was lucky to have survived that long. We managed to get her to sit up on her front elbows with her head raised and amazingly she drank and ate a little. We manhandled her into a trailer and took her back to the Bahamas Humane Society where we set up a feeding regime and put her on a course of treatment. I found out later that she had suffered losing a foal a couple of months previously to add to her woes.

Last Hope a couple of weeks after her rescue looking good and before sadly her condition suddenly deteriorated. [John Brookland ?]

She was miraculously back on her feet after a couple of days and started putting some weight on and I spent as much time with her as I could. She soon responded to all the kindness of the many well-wishers among the staff and volunteers. Tragically, despite intensive care and treatment, she started going downhill after several weeks and died, her internal organs probably having been weakened too much. We were all heartbroken, particularly me. The only compensation was that she experienced some love and care in those last few weeks of life.

Last Hope was such a gentle horse.

The Track Finally Closes

The carnage continued for a few months even after the track mercifully closed in 1977. With racing finished there was no need for the horses and so most were abandoned, and it was an unbelievable and callous shamble causing even more horses to suffer and die. Many owners “protested” by shutting their horses into the stables to let them starve expecting some form of response, but the Government spokesman Cyril Stevenson commented:

 “we cannot take responsibility for these horses as they are privately owned. Nobody likes to see horses starving to death, but there is nothing we can do”.

Mr. Wellington Ferguson head of the Bahamas Horse Owners’ association stated:

“Several owners have been starving their horses in protest [at the track closing]. Others just cannot afford to look after their animals. We have done everything we can to persuade the government to make a decision whether racing will continue on another site.”

There were arguments over a missing ￡139,000 benevolent fund which could have been used to feed and care for the horses. Eventually some horses were airlifted to Miami to be found new homes, paid for by American charities. I visited the track a few months after it was abandoned awaiting demolition and wandered the empty overgrown stable yard now mercifully free of suffering horses. Looking round I wondered if it had all been a dream, but everywhere I looked held painful memories. I can still remember many of the horse’s names that I helped: Spanish Dancer, Strange Girl, Troublemaker, Royal Order, Air Queen, Hang Em High, Hot love II, Last Sight and Connie.

Postscript

The new hotel complex has obliterated all trace of the track except for a small nature reserve which bears its name, but there is no memorial to all the unforgivable abject cruelty caused to those poor horses. For some inexplicable reason there is much misplaced nostalgia for the place, even though at the end it was a shameful episode in Bahamian history.

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The Bahamas Humane Society still battles animal cruelty on New Providence Island and is always in need of your support. If you are holidaying there why not pay them a visit. Better still why not send them a donation or adopt an animal from them. Find them on: BAHAMAS HUMANE SOCIETY

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