Woodbine Barn Fire Toll: 32 Horses Dead

Woodbine Entertainment reported Monday that 32 Thoroughbreds were killed in Sunday’s barn fire at Woodbine Racecourse near Toronto, Ontario. The damage estimate was set at $3 million.

The horses were stabled in barns 7 and 7A at Woodbine

Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

Woodbine Entertainment reported Monday that 32 Thoroughbreds were killed in Sunday’s barn fire at Woodbine Racecourse near Toronto, Ontario. The damage estimate was set at $3 million.


The horses were stabled in barns 7 and 7A at Woodbine. The fire was spotted at 2:50 a.m. EDT in barn 7 and, fueled by hay and wooden beams, quickly spread to barn 7A.


No humans were killed or seriously injured, though some suffered from smoke inhalation. The barns were nearly at capacity–126 of the 128 stalls were filled–and a groom who was sleeping in the barn at the time is credited with getting at least 50 horses out of their stalls. He received help from other grooms and security personnel.


“Our security people were here within a minute,” said David Willmot, chairman and chief executive officer of Woodbine Entertainment. “And people came flooding out of the barns to help. It’s unbelievable how many horses were saved

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Kristin Ingwell Goode was a staff writer for The Blood-Horse, a weekly Thoroughbred news magazine and a sister publication to The Horse.

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

Where do you primarily feed your horse?
280 votes · 280 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!