Too sad, yes. I was just wondering if this was the incident with today's winning owner, though. Have you heard if he lost a horse this week? Someone was talking about that at the end of the broadcast today.
Harlan's Holiday is alive and well. When they said McPeek (the trainer of the horse that won today) "lost" him, they meant that he was fired by the owners. So the horse was moved to another barn, or trainer. This was devastating to mcPeek as he had trained that horse from the get go. So it was sweet revenge that his other horse in the race won. The owners of Harlan's Holiday were very upset that the horse did not race well in the Derby or Preakness so they blamed the trainer. Since the horse is only two years old, he has many years of racing left. He probably did not race today because of the trainer change.
Poor War Emblem, even though he tripped out of the gate he still gave it a shot. But that start was just too much to overcome. Lucky for him, he could have been hurt or thrown his jockey. His stud fees will still be astronomical.