THE pictures will haunt you. The stories will scar you.

On the afternoon of December 7th, the San Luis Rey Downs training center in Bonsall, California was engulfed by wildfire. The Lilac Fire, bolstered by the fierce Santa Ana winds, hit the training center quickly and forcibly, igniting palm trees around barns, which spread to hay and straw before engulfing full barns. Desperate, workers and volunteers turned horses loose from their stalls and hoped for the best.

Horses died. Horsemen were injured. Livelihoods were obliterated. Lives were upended.

In all, 46 horses perished in the fire. Amazing, really, that only 46 died at a facility that housed nearly 500 horses. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

Horses were evacuated – some escaped – to the nearby Trifecta Ranch, nearly 100 wound up there and the rest were moved to Del Mar, where volunteers quickly created a triage for displaced horses and horsemen. Social media sites, Twitter and Facebook, became hubs for lost and found horses – owners and trainers posting photos, asking “Have you seen this horse?” and finders posting photos, asking “Do you know this horse?”

There were miracles and nightmares.

“It was horrifying,” said owner Jeff Bloom, who had three horses stabled at San Luis Rey. “We thought one of ours had perished because he was one of the loose horses. I was at Del Mar helping from the get go with the unload of horses, every time a van came, ‘none of mine, none of mine, none of mine.’ By the end, he still wasn’t there and then somebody called and found him over in the corner at Del Mar, he had been dropped off. Sure enough, there he was, unharmed. He got loose early, I don’t know how long he was lost for, but he didn’t have a mark on him.”

Bloom lives close to San Luis Rey Downs but was blocked by road closures from getting to the training center.

“It was total chaos. You’d see horses get off the vans, it tore your heart out, what you saw, it was terrible. The heroes were the ones that were there at the scene,” Bloom said. “At Del Mar, it all started coming together and got organized quickly. Del Mar did an incredible job. It really was a horrible situation that could have been a lot worse.”

Trainer Clifford Sise was devastated by the fire, losing horses and emerging with two shanks, that’s it. He told the LA Times: “I lost everything. 40 years. I lost all my tack, all my machines, my webbings. It was all burned. My whole livelihood. I feel like quitting.”

The sport rallied as it always does in times of despair, raising over $600,000 via donations to help the victims of the fire.

“It was amazing how much outpouring of help came from the community and the industry and it was immediate,” Bloom said. “Some guys lost everything. This is going to have a significant impact on racing out here, for the horsemen affected and for California racing as a whole.”

If you wish to donate, please go to www.gofundme.com/thoroughbredcare