Picking Up the Pieces at Ellis
by: Chad Mendell, Staff Writer
November 2005 Article # 6330

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No call at 2 a.m. is good. Rodney Leibring, DVM, received one of
those calls on Nov. 6. Leibring, a Thoroughbred racetrack practitioner, was
asked by the male caller if he was at Ellis Park yet. Leibring, confused because
he wasn't expected there until after 8 a.m., replied, "No why?" The man told
Leibring that he needed to get there right away. A tornado had just hit the
racetrack's stables, and it didn't look good.


Part of Ellis's grandstands, the paddock area, and offices
were destroyed by an F3 tornado. View more images here.


Dr. Rodney Leibring and several other veterinarians arrived at
Ellis just after the tornado hit.

Chad Mendell Photos

An F3 (the Fujita scale ranges from 0 to 6) tornado hit Ellis Park
in Henderson, Ky., with winds of up to 200 miles per hour. A 400-yard-wide path
of toppled trees and leveled buildings indicated the tornado's path. The tornado
traveled 41 miles, killed 22 Western Indiana residents, injured more than 100
people, and resulted in the death of three horses at Ellis Park.

At Ellis, two horses belonging to Burl McBride and one horse owned
by Mary Nelson were seriously injured during the storm and were euthanatized.
Only two track workers were injured when their concrete dorms were leveled by
the storm.

Leibring, along with two other veterinarians, worked nonstop
cleaning and suturing horses' wounds. Leibring fears that some horses will
develop infections in their wounds because they were covered with dirt and
debris from the storm.

Rebecca Beasley, owner and trainer of six racehorses who survived
the tornado at Ellis Park with minor injuries, said, "It's never good to get a
phone call at 2 a.m. with someone telling you that your barn has been destroyed
by a tornado, and when you get there, they're right.

"Doc stitched that black filly up by his truck headlights," Beasley
said. "He told me that if it looked like it would scar he would come back and
redo it later."

While Leibring was working on Beasley's Nasty Leader, a horse she
bought as a steeplechase prospect, he said, "They all look pretty amazing for
what they went through."

Beasley laughed, "I don't think he had any problems jumping out of
that stall that night."

Ten of the 39 barns at Ellis were reduced to splintered heaps and
twisted metal. The other 29 barns suffered medium to light wind damage. The
force of the tornado even twisted a gooseneck horse trailer's frame and tossed
it over the nearby levee wall as if it were a child's toy.

Josh Abner, a spokesperson for Ellis, said it could have been much
worse. The Ellis Park race meet just ended, which had more than 1,100 horses on
the backside.

"Over the next week, we were going to start consolidating our horse
population," Abner said. All 158 horses were going to be moved into the 10 barns
that were razed by the tornado because they were the closer to the track's
entrance.

The horsemen worked together to rescue the horses. "All the horsemen
and the security personnel did a real good job," Beasley said. "The security
(people) were very organized and concerned about us. They weren't barking orders
or anything like that."

Owner/trainer Burl McBride lost a pair of 2-year-olds (a gelding who
just won his last race and an unraced filly) that were euthanatized because of
their extensive injuries. "Bob Jackson (director of operations at Ellis) was
there soon after it happened," McBride said "He was there helping people and
asking what was needed. Bob's a horseman, and he knows what it is like to lose a
horse. There were a lot of people there the next day just looking at the damage,
but Bob was there helping us."

Jackson helped uncover one of Mcbride's fillies trapped beneath a
concrete wall. "I thought she was dead," Mcbride said. "The filly was in shock
and she fell several times moving her to another barn." Even two days after the
tornado, the filly still wasn't back to normal. Mcbride's yellow sign and a
stall gate were the only distinguishing marks left of Barn 14, where the two
deceased horses were stabled.

Mary Nelson also lost a horse in the same barn. Lord Nitro (a
3-year-old gelding) was stabled on the back side of barn 14. "He suffered a
broken jaw and shoulder and ribs and had internal injuries, and his legs were
really bad," Nelson said. "It was just a horrible sight."

Susan Souls, executive director of the American Red Cross Cardinal
Chapter brought food and water to the track workers. She said, "There was such
an indescribable silence here on Sunday--an eerie silence. There was a lot of
activity going on and a lot of things being done, but there was a hush over the
track. People spoke softly."

Paul Kuerzi, Ellis Park vice president and general manager, issued a
memo to the horsemen stating that the track will begin its clean-up efforts next
week and asked that all horses be removed from Ellis by Sunday. "We are not
forcing anyone to leave our grounds, and we certainly understand that finding
new quarters and training facilities is not a simple process," Kuerzi said. In
addition to the challenge of finding new places for the horses, some of them are
unable to be moved because of their injuries.

Churchill Downs Inc., which owns Ellis Park, hopes to return
simulcasting to the track by Nov. 16. As of Wednesday (Nov. 9) 108 horses
remained at Ellis. It will be some time before the racetrack, which was littered
with debris, will reopen. Owners are looking to move horses to other tracks or
training centers such as Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., and Oaklawn Park in
Hot Springs, Ark.

"We don't know what we're going to do from here," Nelson said.
"We've called a couple of places, but we don't know right now. We're just trying
to let our horses heal and try to figure some things out."



Pictures referenced in story follow:

TORNADO HITS ELLIS PARK; THREE HORSES EUTHANATIZED
In the early morning hours of Nov. 6, an F3 tornado with winds of more
than 200 mph touched down at Ellis Park. Three horses were euthanatized after
sustaining severe injuries from flying debris and collapsing structures. Two
track workers were injured as well



A portion of Ellis' grandstand was demolished by the tornado, which also
scattered debris across the track.



Ten of Ellis' 39 barns were totally destroyed. Barn 14 (above) housed the
three horses belonging to Burl McBride and Mary Nelson that were euthanatized
due to their injuries.



"It's amazing that any horses made it out of those barns alive," said
Rebecca Beasley, owner/trainer of six horses at Ellis.



Flying debris accounted for numerous horse injuries.



"This thing is a mess," said Fred Nelson, Mary Nelson's husband. "You can
talk about this and take as many pictures as you want, but unless you're here
and you see it with your own eyeballs--you just can't understand it."



"This was bad--but as bad as it was, what happened in that trailer park
over there (where 23 people lost their lives in an Evansvillie, Ind., community
on the other side of the Ohio River) was way worse...way worse." Nelson said.
"My heart goes out to those folks."



"I was in my dorm room (near the front of the racetrack) and we came out
right after it happened. I came past the kitchen and said, 'Everything's gone,'"
Mary Nelson said. "I can't believe how anything made it out of there alive."



What an Art, a 2-year-old filly owned by Jerry Joe Greenwell, had a 4-inch
gash on her left hind leg. Veterinarians placed a drain tube in the wound so it
can be cleaned.



Rodney Leibring, DVM, recieved a call shortly after the tornado hit Ellis.
Leibring used carhead lights to help him sutured horses like Beasley's Imagine
the Roar (shown here). Leibring removed a 6-inch piece of wood from the filly's
side. Electricity was partially restored to the track two days later.



Cuts and puncture wounds were the most common injuries horses at Ellis
sustained. This large puncture wound went clear to the filly's bone.



Only two track workers were injured at Ellis as they slept in their dorms
(like this one here). One individual suffered two broken fingers, and the other
broken an ankle.



A barn that once blocked the view of the lower barns was completely
leveled. Lower barns that housed about half of the track's horses sustained less
damage.



Several trailers were flipped on their sides. This particular trailer was
tossed about 300 yards over the levee wall that surrounds the barns at Ellis.



This tree was about 12 feet wide at the base and was ripped out of the
ground by the tornado's fury.

Photos By Chad Mendell








Vikki Burnham

Louis Arthur Partnership

http://www.LouisArthur.com

"To know a Thoroughbred is to be lifted up to a place of unparalleled passion,
exhilaration and transcendence. Look into the eyes of a Thoroughbred and feel
his supreme power and spirit, and you'll be lifted up to a special place of
beauty, passion, possibility and freedom." - Unknown


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