CANTER MICHIGAN BANNED FROM TRACK!

From: Jo Anne Normile, Founder & Former Executive Director, CANTER MI

PLEASE BE ADVISED: This petition is NOT from Canter MI. It is being submitted by "Friends of Equines" on behalf of Jo Anne Normile, founder of Canter Mi but NO LONGER affiliated with them. Canter Michigan has been "banned" from the tracks by the Michigan Racing Commission for about three months now, and although Canter MI wants to keep this news quiet, we do not. We think this is the kind of thing we have to make a BIG noise about. Public exposure & embarassment are powerful tools.  If Canter wont show any public outrage over this fact, we will.  Michigan TBs need our help to get the TRUTH out....!

Below is a link to a petition for Canter Michigan so you can tell them what you think of their trying to hide the fact that Michigan Racing Commission has banned horse-rescuers from the tracks;

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/canter-banned-from-track-but-says-nothing

and then, on to this petition for the Michigan Racing Commission and the Congressional SubCommitte on Horse Racing Safety & Welfare;

Our immediate help is needed for Michigan's Thoroughbred racehorses!

SHAMEFULLY: After doing so for 11 years, in 2008, the Michigan
Racing Commission refused to issue track licenses for CANTER MICHIGAN
volunteers who used to walk the shed rows each week and through those years assisted thousands of horses that would have been picked up by kill buyers or auction/slaughter dealers. CANTER MICHIGAN received the Catalyst of the Year award in 2001 by the Michigan Horse Council for "Significant contribution to the Michigan horse industry", and positive publicity on Michigan's racing industry working with CANTER appeared in over 80 newspapers and magazines and televised stories including CNN.

EQUALLY SHAMEFUL: The ban of the rescue volunteers in the shed rows
has been going on for two months during live racing and neither
Pinnacle Race Course nor the racing trainers or their horsemen's
organization have interceded with the Racing Commission to allow
licenses for the CANTER rescue so their horses can have a chance at
surgery, rehabilitation and life after racing.

MOST SHAMEFUL: The Commissioner did grant licenses to trainers who
are well known auction/kill buyers. While other tracks like Suffolk
Downs and Delaware Park are exposing the kill buyer side of racing
and penalizing trainers who sell horses to auctions/kill buyers,
Michigan's new self-described "first class" Pinnacle Race Course is
doing the OPPOSITE! 

Could this action have anything to do with a major Detroit television station's November 2007 hidden camera investigation regarding running injured horses and entitled "One Race too Many"? Could it be because I
honestly replied to a Congressional request for information on
injured Thoroughbred horses for the Congressional sub-committee
hearing "Breeding, Drugs, and Breakdowns: The State of Thoroughbred
Horseracing and the Welfare of the Thoroughbred" on June 19 and
supplied witness Allie Conrad, the CANTER-Mid Atlantic executive
director, with information on horses that were injured or euthanized
due to their participation in Michigan racing? (See CANTERS testimony here:  http://www.canterusa.org/AllieConradTestimony.pdf )
Could it be because Michigan's racing industry keeps racing's dark secret and I did not?
PLEASE CONTACT The Horse-Racing Welfare & Safety Congressional Committee Members below and let them know what you think;

Contact:

The Thoroughbred Horse Racing House Commerce Subcomitte,
Washington, DC

Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Il.)
 http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/

Ranking Member, Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY)
http://whitfield.house.gov/

Rep. Cliff Sterns (R-Fla)http://www.house.gov/stearns/Congressman/Biography.html

Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb)
http://leeterry.house.gov/

Joe Pitts (R-Pa)
http://www.house.gov/pitts/

Then please contact the following people to ask why CANTER representatives have been refused licensing, and to voice your concern for these horses and protest the banishment of CANTER-Michigan from Pinnacle Race Course.

Christine White, Michigan Racing Commissioner;
 517-335-1420 or
WhiteC9@michigan.gov

Felicia Campbell, Pinnacle Race Course Chairman and CEO
734-543-3200

Michael McInerney, President, Pinnacle Race Course
mmcinerney@pinnacleracecourse.com

Gary Tinkle, Michigan HBPA;
734-753-2000 or mailto:mihbpa@40aol.com

The Detroit News rluna@detnews. com don.naussw@detnews. com

The Detroit Free Press jswikard@freepress. com dzeman@freepress. com

Nationally, please contact the following:

Alex Waldrop NTRA at 1-800-792-NTRA or mailto:ntra@ntra.com

MICHIGAN'S THOROUGHBRED RACEHORSES SAY "THANK YOU!"
AND SO DO WE!