The horse race is the enduring and fascinating spectacle that has entranced spectators for centuries. From its earliest accounts in the Greek Olympic Games (where riders rode bareback and hitched their horses to chariots) through today’s multi-billion dollar industry, this thrilling sport has left a mark on our culture that is hard to overstate. A day at the races can include everything from betting for the winning horse to eating gourmet food and sipping champagne in private suites. But if you take a closer look at the sport, you can’t help but see that the problems with equine welfare are systemic and baked into its business model.
The most obvious problem is the fact that horse racing is a dangerous sport for both horses and their jockeys. Falling off a horse during a race can be fatal for both, but it is even more deadly for the horses themselves, who often suffer life-threatening injuries. The average equine falls around 40 times per year and is responsible for almost half of all racetrack fatalities. The majority of these falls occur during races and are the result of a catastrophic injury such as a broken leg or fractured neck.
Another issue is that racing has a long history of drug use. The sport’s oldest drugs included opium, strychnine, cocaine, and heroin, but as the sport moved to more professional standards, trainers began to experiment with newer, more potent performance enhancers. Powerful painkillers designed for humans bled over into race preparation and made it difficult to know which horses were on medication and which ones weren’t. As a result, racing officials couldn’t keep up with testing and the penalties for violations were relatively light.
Even so, horses are bred to run fast, and in their natural state they love to do so. In the wild, however, a horse’s instinct is to move as a group, and they prefer to run away from harm rather than toward it. This is why a horse’s ability to run fast, or “win” a race, does not necessarily correlate with how well it will perform in its second career, as a breeding animal.
During races, most thoroughbreds are injected with Lasix, a diuretic that is noted on the racing form with a boldface “L.” This helps prevent pulmonary bleeding caused by hard running and causes the horses to unload epic amounts of urine, twenty or thirty pounds worth.
The truth is that there has never been an evolution of the sport’s business model with the best interests of the horses as its top priority. Too many racing aficionados blow off the concerns of animal rights activists and the general public and continue to do what they do best: make money while failing to protect the animals they claim as their own. The only way for horse racing to change is for its aficionados to finally listen and get serious about making the sport better.