Hit Zero owner: ‘I don’t question’ care horse received before death at Laurel Park

(Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun/TNS)

LAUREL, Md. — The 3-year-old horse was supposed to be perfect.

That was the inspiration behind the name, Hit Zero, a piece of 10-year-old Bailey Horowitz’s world she carried with her as a curious and cheerful spectator on Friday morning at Laurel Park.

In competitive cheerleading, “hitting zero” means completing a routine without deductions or mistakes. Bailey is a cheerleader, and when her father, Justin Horowitz, bought a young colt in October 2024, he gave the horse a name that belonged partly to her.

“I wanted my kids to fall in love with horse racing just like I did,” Horowitz said.

By the time Hit Zero stepped into the starting gate for his first career race on Black-Eyed Susan Day, the Horowitz’s had waited nearly 19 months to see him run. Over the past 1 1/2 years, trainer Brittany Russell gave Hit Zero time to mature, overcome the soreness that delayed his debut and evolve into the racehorse she believed he could be.

Friday felt like the payoff for everyone’s patience.

Horowitz let Bailey miss school so she could attend Hit Zero’s debut. Sheldon Russell, Hit Zero’s jockey and Brittany’s husband, wore bright orange silks in honor of Horowitz’s alma mater, Syracuse. Bailey and her father wore orange, too, while her brother, AJ, celebrated his sixth birthday. Everything seemed to be lining up for a day full of festivities.

For Maryland racing, this weekend’s setting was already unusual. Black-Eyed Susan Day and the 151st annual Preakness Stakes had moved from Pimlico Race Course to Laurel Park while the Baltimore track undergoes a massive redevelopment, turning Laurel into the temporary home of the state’s signature racing spectacle.

Hit Zero was the betting favorite in the 6-furlong opener on Black-Eyed Susan Day, a race Horowitz’s family had imagined as the beginning of something special. The family had visited Hit Zero at his stable at Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton in recent months, closely following his buildup.

As the field turned for home, Horowitz thought Hit Zero put his nose in front, and in that moment, after all those months of waiting, he allowed himself to envision the finish he had hoped Friday might become.

“Thinking he’s going to start running away from this field,” Horowitz said. “And then … he just kind of slowed down.”

Hit Zero faded fast and finished last. A clueless Bailey looked up at her father and asked, “What happened?”

Unaware, Horowitz told his daughter he hoped nothing was wrong, though he already knew, deep down, that something about the race looked off. That was not the horse he had watched Brittany train with precision and care, he thought. As Sheldon explained, Hit Zero appeared to run out of energy, and Horowitz let himself settle into the disappointment of a poor debut.

“I guess we’ll live to fight another day,” Horowitz thought.

Horowitz stood near the paddock with Bailey, texting about the results with his partner, Evan Trommer, when his phone rang. It was a call from Frank Alosa, Horowitz’s best friend and Russell’s racing manager. Before Alosa informed him of the gut-wrenching news, he asked two questions.

Was Horowitz on speakerphone? No.

Was Bailey standing next to him? Yes.

“I need you to not respond right now,” Alosa told him. “I just need you to listen.”

Horowitz braced for disappointment, thinking Alosa might be calling to soften the result and look forward to Hit Zero’s next run. Then Alosa bluntly told him there would be no next race. Hit Zero had walked back, collapsed from what was labeled by officials as a “cardiac event,” and could not be saved by veterinary personnel. A necropsy will be conducted to determine the cause of death, according to Maryland racing officials.

Bailey was close enough to understand that something in her father’s facial expression had changed.

“He didn’t die, did he? He didn’t die, did he?” she asked aloud.

Horowitz hung up, tightly embraced his daughter and informed her of the tragedy. Hit Zero had died.

Bailey burst into tears as Horowitz tried to hold himself together for her while absorbing a sudden loss he had never experienced nor expected. He had heard about other owners losing horses and understood the risks associated with the sport. But Hit Zero was only the third horse Horowitz had owned. His first, Heldish, had done well, while his second, Monkey, never made it to the races.

Hit Zero was the horse he hoped his children could grow and fall in love with. In a tragic turn of events, on the first race of a historic Preakness weekend, the horse named after Bailey was gone.

Brittany eventually made her way back to Horowitz and Bailey after saying her goodbyes to Hit Zero on the other side of the track. She attempted to comfort the Horowitz family and offer assurance regarding Hit Zero’s health history and treatment in the lead-up to his first and only race.

“There was nothing more they could have done,” Horowitz said. “Whether I buy another horse or not, those are the type of people I want to be surrounded by in my life. This is a brutal thing that’s happened, and we’re all sad. But I don’t question the care Hit Zero received, not one bit.”

“He was truly a family horse,” Brittany wrote in a post on X. “We are heartbroken.”

All around them, Black-Eyed Susan Day continued with more races at Laurel Park, with the signature evening race won by My Miss Mo.

For Bailey, though, the racetrack no longer felt like the place where her father had tried to share his passion.

“I want to go anywhere but here, the racetrack,” she pleaded with her father. “Please, Dad, never buy another horse again.”

The roughly two-hour ride home to the Philadelphia area was mostly silent, according to Horowitz, who messaged his wife from the car, apologizing for bringing his family so fully into the sport he grew up loving.

“I’m so sorry that I wanted my family to be so into this,” Horowitz wrote. “I roped you guys into it, and got you all emotionally involved, and now this happened.”

Over the following days and weeks, Horowitz, 42, a former television reporter, expects to receive more information regarding Hit Zero’s death, though he does not question the horse’s training and development he received from the Russells.

“No one’s to blame in this, it’s … a brutal thing,” Horowitz said. “Every single person associated with him every day gave him the best care in the world. I’ve never experienced anything like this. I told Brittany’s team, ‘I don’t know what you’re supposed to do in this situation, but make sure that they do the right things for him.’

“If I ever do buy another horse, the people I’d want to do it with are Brittany and Sheldon and the team of people that I’ve found in this experience. Those are the good people that make it more than just owning a horse, but really a full experience with [the Russells] that make this really meaningful in life.”

Hit Zero’s name carried the idea of a perfect routine, but what remains is the memory of a horse who was deeply loved before his first race and mourned before his family ever made it home on race day.

“Hit Zero was like family to us,” said Horowitz, “so, this is as gutting as anything could possibly be.”