Bobby Frankel, Hall of Fame thoroughbred-racehorse trainer, dead at 68

Thoroughbred-racehorse trainer Robert "Bobby" Frankel died at his Pacific Palisades home Monday after a battle with lymphoma.  Frankel was a Hall of Fame trainer and a five-time winner of the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Trainer who worked with horses including Belmont Stakes winner Empire Maker.  Here's an excerpt from our colleague Eric Sondheimer's obituary of Frankel:

"He was a horse whisperer with racehorses," fellow trainer Barry Abrams said.

For more than 40 years, Frankel was one of the best in his sport. His horses earned $227,947,775 in purses, second on the money list to D. Wayne Lukas' record. He was a five-time recipient of racing's Eclipse Award for outstanding trainer, and he won 30 training titles.

Born July 9, 1941, in New York, Frankel was the son of New York caterers. He grew up in Brooklyn and was a maverick teenager who loved racing, handicapping and gambling.

He started training in 1966 in New York, moved to California in 1972 and was known as the "King of the Claimers" for his ability to select horses before a race to purchase regardless of the outcome.

"He was very smart," trainer Julio Canani said. "He'd claim a horse for $20,000 and run him for $8,000. He had everyone confused. They didn't know what he was doing."

Frankel's horses won a record 60 times during the Hollywood Park spring meeting in 1972, one of 10 training titles he won at the Inglewood track.

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Photo: Frankel looks out from his barn at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., in 2003.  Credit: Ed Reinke / Associated Press

New Interior Department plan would move West's wild horses east to preserves

Thousands of mustangs that now roam the West would be moved to preserves in the Midwest and farther east under a new Interior Department plan to protect wild horse herds and the range lands that support them.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday that the plan would not require killing any wild horses. Department officials had warned in recent months that slaughtering some of the 69,000 wild horses and burros under federal control might be necessary to combat the rising costs of maintaining them.

Nearly 37,000 wild horses and burros roam in Nevada, California, Wyoming and other Western states, and another 32,000 are cared for in corrals and pastures in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

Salazar said the current program is not sustainable for the animals, the environment or taxpayers.

The wild horse program, run by the Bureau of Land Management, cost about $50 million this year, officials said, up from $36 million last year. Costs for the current program are expected to rise to at least $85 million by 2012.

The bureau rounds up thousands of the animals annually but has had a hard time finding buyers in recent years.

Can't get enough of Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird? Now you can see him all day long on the MineThatBirdCam

Thoroughbred racehorse Mine That Bird went from a virtual unknown to an equine celebrity earlier this year when he won the Kentucky Derby with 50-to-1 odds.  The Canadian-born, 15-hands-high horse's big win also did a great deal to shatter a racing stereotype that geldings -- Mine That Bird is one -- can't win races. 

Why buy a racehorse who can never be put out to stud?  One of Mine That Bird's owners, Mark Allen, was succinct in his explanation.  "We wanted a racehorse, not a stallion," Allen told the New York Times after his horse's victorious run at Churchill Downs.

Well, while we are not the biggest fans of horse racing as a sport -- how could we be, when more than 1,200 horses died at American racetracks last year alone? -- we are big fans of underdogs in general, and of Mine That Bird specifically.  It's with that in mind that we advise you, via our colleagues at The Times' Fabulous Forum blog, that a new 24-hour webcam has been installed in Mine That Bird's stall, complete with streaming live video from Southern California's own Santa Anita racetrack. 

Mine That Bird is at Santa Anita for the Oak Tree meeting's Santa Anita Challenge Day tomorrow.  You can see him pacing, eating, sleeping and doing all the other fascinating things horses do here.  Santa Anita track spokesman Mike Willman told the Fabulous Forum that more than 14,000 visitors have done just that since the webcam was installed Wednesday.  Happy horse-watching!

-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Mine That Bird with trainer Chip Woolley Jr.  Credit: Mark Wilson / Associated Press

Your morning adorable: Playful pinto keeps himself entertained

We count ourselves among the biggest fans of Chief, an American paint horse stallion who never lets the fact that he's a horse get in the way of having a good time. (An American paint horse is a breed, while "pinto" describes the spotted coloring that appears both on American paint horses and horses of various other breeds.)

Like a human child, Chief seems not to distinguish between items intended to be toys and his own makeshift toys, like orange street cones and bags. (We bet if he received a fancy toy on Christmas morning, he'd toss it aside and play with the box.) We admire his imagination and his spunk!

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: downundercolour via YouTube

Prisoners, horses learn together

When they arrive at the Wyoming Honor Farm minimum-security prison, they're afraid. They lack trust, and they usually either want to fight or escape -- or both.

The same could be said about some of the inmates.

"You can almost look at them as inmates," said John Dowell, 37, who is serving his sentence at the north Riverton institution.

For almost three years, Dowell has trained wild horses brought to the honor farm as part of the federal Bureau of Land Management's adoption program.

"Some come into the system and want to change their lives," he said of inmates within the Wyoming Department of Corrections.

Others, however, have no intention of altering their ways.

"There's so many similarities," he said of horses brought from the wild and inmates off the streets.

For Dowell and other inmates who participate under horse adoption program supervisor Jeff Martin, they learn not only to calm wild animals captured around the state, but they also gain insight about themselves.

"The biggest difference between the horses and the inmates is the horses didn't ask to be here," Dowell said. "We made some bad decisions, and we're here for a reason."

Wild horse roundup captures at least 131 Montana mustangs

Federal officials say they will complete a wild horse roundup along the Montana-Wyoming border within the next few days.

As of Monday night, Bureau of Land Management contractors had gathered 131 wild horses as part of the agency's effort to reduce the size of the herd in the Pryor Mountain National Wild Horse Range.

Critics say the roundup threatens to ruin the genetics of a herd descended from animals brought to North America by Spanish conquistadors.

About 70 of the range's 190 adult horses will be offered for adoption. The remainder will be released, with most mares receiving a fertility control injection.

The captured horses are being held at BLM's Britton Springs corrals north of Lovell, Wyo. The adoption is scheduled for Sept. 26.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Two young stallions play together at the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range south of Billings, Mont. Credit: Matt Dillon / Associated Press

More than 1,200 horses killed at racetracks in 2008

The rush to improve safety since Eight Belles was euthanized at last year's Kentucky Derby did little to curb the number of horses dying at American racetracks in 2008, The Associated Press found in a national count.

Although many tracks were already implementing safety reforms when the popular filly pulled up lame with two broken legs after finishing second at the Derby in May 2008, her death on racing's biggest stage gave the effort a national face and new momentum.

However, the AP's count found only a slight change in the number of fatalities in 2008 (1,217) compared with 2007 (1,247). That's around 3 percent fewer deaths.

"If it were that easy to change, we would have flipped that switch a long time ago," said Mary Scollay, Kentucky's equine medical director, who is assembling an industrywide database on horse breakdowns, the findings of which haven't been released. "We've learned injuries are very complex in their causes, and there are a number of things that need to be critically evaluated."

Racing officials and equine experts are unsure exactly why the total remains so stubbornly high, though they point out racetrack deaths can happen for a variety of reasons. Also, no single change is likely to produce overnight results and many states implemented reforms after the Derby, so their impact would only be felt for part of 2008.

Last year, using open records requests sent to all thoroughbred racing states, the AP counted more than 5,000 horses that were reported killed at tracks between 2003 and 2007. The number was highest in the 2007 count because some states didn't keep track before that.

76 emaciated Arabian horses rescued, breeder arrested in Texas

An Arabian horse breeder in Texas was arrested Friday after sheriff's deputies, acting on a tip, found several dozen emaciated horses barely surviving in severely unhealthy conditions.

"Some of the horses were standing in 6 to 8 inches of urine and feces," Tom Reedy, public information officer for the Denton County Sheriff's Department told the Associated Press about the horrific scene at the Renazans Arabians ranch in Pilot Point, which he said resembled "a concentration camp for horses."

Reedy said 76 horses were moved to two new locations where they were to be evaluated and treated by veterinarians.

Besides the nearly tragic levels of starvation, the stables were a complete mess, authorities said. "The stalls in the stables were filthy and appeared not to have been mucked out for some time due to the large amount of feces and urine in each stall," Deputy Kirk Sissney wrote in his arrest affidavit, which was released to the local CBS affiliate. 

Gordon Dennis Key, the owner of the ranch, turned himself in Saturday. He is charged with Class A cruelty to livestock, a misdemeanor. He could go to jail for a year and receive a $4,000 fine. He is currently free on bond.

-- Tony Pierce

Mexican man arrested for punching police horse at Lollapalooza

The gray skies grew darker Sunday in Chicago when a man allegedly punched a horse as the Lollapalooza music festival drew to a close. 

Pablo Fernandez, a 21-year-old Mexican national, is accused of approaching a Chicago police horse at around 9 p.m as the three-day festival was winding down, and when he was told by the mounted officer that he could not pet the working animal, Fernandez became angered and allegedly punched the equine.

The assault caused the horse to rear back in a panic while in the middle of the concert-goers, police spokeswoman Gabrielle Lesniak told the Chicago Tribune. Fernandez was charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct. 

Police News Affairs Officer Kevin Kilmer told the Chicago Sun-Times that he couldn't confirm that the  violence was Lolla-related, but it did take place as the festival was wrapping up and police were trying to get crowds to disperse from Grant Park. Approximately 75,000 people a day attended the festival, which was headlined by acts like Jane's Addiction, Depeche Mode and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Kilmer had no word on the status of the horse.

-- Tony Pierce

A general view during the 2009 Lollapalooza music festival at Grant Park in Chicago.  Credit: Jeff Gentner / Getty Images

Horse involved in hit-and-run with car (don't worry; neither horse nor driver was seriously injured)

Tourists in Israel were driving down a highway when they encountered three horses galloping along the road. After they whipped out a camera, the scene took a unexpected turn when one of the horses trampled an oncoming car. 

Neither the horse or the driver of the car suffered any serious injuries. The same could not be said for the car, however, which suffered extensive damage to the hood and windshield.

Maybe the driver should consider upgrading to a car with more horsepower.

-- Brendan Bigelow