Horse deaths at Parx Casino and a racing association’s alleged financial misconduct have the industry alarmed

As the thoroughbreds entered the gate at Parx Casino last weekend for the first turf race of the Pennsylvania Derby, owners and trainers held their breath.

It wasn’t just $3.9 million in combined purses at stake on Sept. 21 at the state’s busiest racetrack.

If all went well, the recent worry about the hazards of racing on the grassy strip that circles the Bensalem course’s infield would be gone.

Several weeks earlier, on Aug. 24, a top-earning gelding named Causes Trouble took a spill on the course, suffering a shoulder injury so catastrophic that the 5-year-old racehorse had to be euthanized.

Both Causes Trouble’s owner and the president of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association were quick to complain. They described the turf as dry and clumpy, and littered with perilous divots.

“It’s an inherently dangerous sport, but if you have holes in the course, it’s much more dangerous,” said John Fanelli, the racehorse’s co-owner.

Officials with the sport’s top regulatory agency reflected those concerns. After inspecting the track following Causes Trouble’s death, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) sent Parx a lengthy list of recommended repairs meant to ensure that horses would be safe as Derby Day neared.

But as the horses approached the turf’s three-eighths mile marker during the Alphabet Soup Handicap two weekends ago, onlookers were aghast.

Near the tract of grass where Causes Trouble had broken down, the chestnut-colored thoroughbred Freedom Eagle stumbled and suffered a grievous injury.

The 3-year-old was vanned off the course and later had to be put down.

For Bob Hutt, president of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association (PTHA), the two recent tragedies on Parx’s turf course underscore a growing schism between Parx Racing’s management and some of the association’s 2,500 members.

Hutt says his association — which includes horse owners, breeders, and trainers at Parx — wishes not only to safeguard the animals, but a livelihood that has become endangered over such deaths.

By one recent estimate, Parx Casino ranks among the world’s most profitable casinos. It ranked first in Pennsylvania in combined slot, table, and sports wagering revenue with more than $590 million this fiscal year, according to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. State gaming laws require it to operate and maintain a racetrack.

Despite its wealth, Hutt and several owners and trainers allege that Parx Racing’s management neglected to properly maintain the turf.

“This may be one of the worst turf courses anywhere in the United States,” Hutt said. “People have told me they wouldn’t let Little Leaguers practice, let alone play a game on a field that looked like that.”

Since May, seven horses have died during races at the course, including two on the turf, according to records obtained by The Inquirer. Necropsies of both deceased horses have not returned to reveal the true nature of the injuries sustained on the surface.

Officials with Parx Racing disagree that the turf course is to blame.

Joe Wilson, the racing office’s chief operating officer, said concerns over the course’s conditions were unfounded, and that his staff made the suggested repairs in the weeks before the Derby. Wilson added that HISA had inspected the course twice this year — each time deeming it safe for racing.

“Our number one thing in racing is safety — for both the horses and the people that attend to them and ride them,” Wilson said. “I don’t take something like that lightly, and that’s why we acted on it.”

While HISA safety regulators confirmed that Parx’s staff completed much of the recommended maintenance before the fatal Sept. 21 race, some trainers were appalled by a video posted that day showing the course still choppy and uneven.

And Hutt’s frustrations with the racing industry at Parx don’t end with the turf.

This month alongside fellow PTHA board member John Julia, Hutt launched a civil court filing alleging that past leaders of the nonprofit Horsemen’s Association fostered a system of financial misconduct and cronyism before Hutt’s tenure began, bleeding money from the organization for more than a decade.

The petition in Bucks County Common Pleas court seeks removal of seven current PTHA board members, including its executive director, who Hutt and Julia allege could have done more to report the mismanagement and corruption.

Those named in the filing deny the allegations.

Before Causes Trouble’s two-year racing career came to an end, the thoroughbred netted its owner more than $260,000 in purse earnings and 10 first-place finishes at tracks throughout the region.

“Every sport has some risk of injury,” Fanelli said. “But was the course fit? Obviously not.”

Horse owners have long understood the realities of catastrophic injuries and aim to avoid them, though it’s in the past decade that the public’s attention has increasingly turned to horse racing deaths through intensified media coverage and outcry from animal rights activists.

News outlets documented an industry saddled with fatal injuries, where increasingly oversize purses incentivize trainers to overexert lower-value horses and, in some cases, administer illegal drugs that mask injuries until the animals break down.

But the scrutiny, at a time of the sport’s wavering popularity, has led to notable reforms.

In 2020, U.S. Congress formed the Horseracing Integrity Safety Authority, a national body tasked with regulating the country’s patchwork of thoroughbred racecourses. And since 2009, horse racing-related deaths per 1,000 races have dropped 34% overall at the nation’s tracks, according to the Equine Injury database maintained by The Jockey Club, the pro-thoroughbred racing organization.

Records obtained by The Inquirer show a dozen horses died from injuries or sudden deaths related to thoroughbred racing at Parx in 2023. That does not include horses that died during training or from other illnesses.

This year, including two deaths on Sept. 21, 10 horses were euthanized after suffering racing-related injuries on Parx’s turf and dirt tracks.

Through the first half of this year, HISA records show Parx’s 5,628 races run had a death rate equal to Penn National racecourse in Grantville, the second-busiest of three thoroughbred tracks in the state.

Parx’s rates were slightly better than the average death rate of 33 HISA-monitored tracks around the country. Meanwhile, Presque Isle Downs in Erie — with far fewer runs — had the second-highest horse fatality rate among the 33 tracks, with two deaths on 963 runs.

But in a span of 28 days, two horses died during $100,000 stakes races on the Parx turf. The deaths prompted Wilson to shut down the grass course for lengthy stretches for testing and repairs, and close it for the season three weeks early.

Historically, rates of racing-related deaths at Parx and other thoroughbred tracks in Pennsylvania have not been publicly available.

For all of Hutt’s concerns over racing at Parx, few trump his frustration with the previous management of his own Horsemen’s Association.

The nonprofit, whose presidency Hutt assumed in 2023 after running on a reform-oriented platform, is open to anyone who owns or trains a horse at Parx. Members rely on the group’s leaders to negotiate for them with Parx management.

A majority of its funding, earmarked for purse payments, pensions, and health benefits, comes from gambling.

A provision under Pennsylvania’s 2004 Race Horse Development and Gaming Act — meant to salvage the state’s struggling horse racing industry — secured horsemen’s groups a percentage of slot-machine income from their casino affiliates. An agreement between PTHA and Parx reserves around a third of the casino’s physical slots revenue for the association each year.

But more recently, Hutt and Julia’s court filing alleges, the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association functioned “almost like a RICO operation” under former president and attorney Sal DeBunda — the longtime leader Hutt ousted — and former executive director Michael Ballezzi, who is now deceased.

The filing outlines a sweeping history of alleged misconduct.

Those include nearly a decade of alleged “ghost consulting” payments, which former PTHA leaders allegedly funneled to themselves and their associates via contracts without evidence of completed work, according to the filing.

Among those the suit claims to have benefited from ghost consulting is disgraced former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo.

In 2009, the Philadelphia Democratic power broker was convicted on all 137 counts of conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice, and filing false tax returns. Fumo had defrauded the state Senate and two nonprofit organizations, and staged a cover-up in a failed bid to thwart the FBI and federal prosecutors.

After serving four years in prison and a period of house arrest, Fumo announced in 2014 that he had begun a renewed career as a political consultant and listed the Horsemen’s Association among his clients. DeBunda, a longtime Fumo associate, praised the former politician’s professional rebirth.

Fumo and DeBunda declined to comment. Neither is named as party to the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the filing claims that PTHA board members who aided or failed to report the alleged misconduct violated their fiduciary responsibility to the organization.

Those board members said in a joint statement that they would “not be intimidated by those who engage in personal attacks and litigation for their own gain.”

“The respondent PTHA board members will vigorously and forcefully defend against the false and malicious allegations made by Mr. Hutt and Mr. Julia and their defamatory assault on our character and reputations,” the statement said.

Among other allegations leveled in Hutt and Julia’s filing are that DeBunda used PTHA funds to pay his personal horse stable more than $380,000 for ghost consulting, and directed PTHA legal work to the Philadelphia law firm where he is currently of counsel while compensating it with “possible overpayment of fees.”

Hutt considers himself a whistle-blower speaking for underrepresented members of the Horsemen’s Association.

“I’m 78 years old, I should be enjoying my life,” Hutt said. “But I will always stand up for those who cannot defend themselves.”

As PTHA members continue to question safety at Parx, officials with the racing office say the turf course will remain closed through the fall amid ongoing maintenance. The dirt track will stay open.

Wilson, the COO, said he was aggressively pursuing the safest possible surface.

At the time of Causes Trouble’s death, the fatality was the second on Parx’s turf in the previous five years, according to Wilson, who added that Parx is twice accredited in a safety alliance by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association.

“It’s very rare to have an injury on a turf course,” Wilson said.

But due to the turf’s relative safety, the deaths of Causes Trouble and Freedom Eagle have drawn heightened scrutiny from critics like Hutt.

The day after Causes Trouble’s August death, the PTHA president sent frantic messages to HISA officials urging them to intervene.

A Sept. 6 letter from HISA to Parx Racing following the agency’s investigatory visit painted a picture of a turf course in need of repair.

Regulators urged Parx to irrigate the entire track, conduct daily moisture tests, fertilize and mow the grass, aerate a section near the starting gate, and fill divots throughout the course, according to the letter. They also suggested that Parx manage its geese population, which can damage the course when feeding on the grass.

Meanwhile, the regulator found that Parx experienced an “irrigation system problem” during a nearly monthlong turf closure leading up to the Aug. 24 race, according to Ann McGovern, the HISA’s director of racetrack safety. Staff had “not been able to irrigate during a time of year that they had described as a drought” while waiting to repair a water pump, McGovern said, resulting in dry conditions.

HISA has not attributed the two horse deaths on the turf to surface conditions; the regulator called the recommendations improvements.

Regulators told Parx to shutter its turf for the two weeks leading up to the Derby to complete the work. Parx completed those recommendations in time for the event, according to McGovern. HISA found “noted improvement” in the course’s conditions.

For critics on the PTHA board, the initial depiction of the turf came without surprise.

Drawing attention to what he sees as a need for better maintenance and equipment, Julia mentioned that one water truck for irrigating Parx’s dirt track still bears the track’s long-abandoned name, PhiladelphiaPark.

“The reality is, it seems like the casino does not want to invest a dime,” Julia said. “It’s a conversation about return on investment — how do we make it so everybody wins?”

Wilson, contesting that allegation, said the racing office has made numerous upgrades to the facility, such as the addition of a rider protection rail and protective rubber flooring in the paddock. “Any time a project comes up we spend the money,” Wilson said, “especially when it comes to safety.”