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How Humans Failed Racehorses

Why do racehorses die? As beautiful as a thoroughbred is in full flight, the legs that seemingly rarely touch the ground are fragile. Ankles the size of a Coke bottle and hooves the size of a crystal ashtray propel a 1,200-pound thoroughbred at speeds up to 35 miles per hour... As is so often the case, money is the root of the problem. Trainers push horses too hard, sometimes giving them illegal performance-enhancing drugs. That’s because owners know that a signature win will turn their million-dollar investment into a multimillion-dollar A.T.M. in the breeding shed. Do the math: Mystik Dan can be retired tomorrow and enter a life where he mates twice a day, to 155 mares, potentially earning…

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Featured

 Five reasons why horse racing is cruel

The horse racing industry is animal suffering for human entertainment. Here are five reasons why the "sport" of horse racing is cruel.

 Horse racing is too far gone to be saved. The next best thing is to be honest about it

If you can witness a young horse die catastrophically in a race or in training and move on from it with no more than a pang of remorse, you are a detriment to racehorses. If you can publicly mourn the death of a horse who ran notably but ignore altogether the death of a horse who did not, you are a detriment to racehorses. It is a normal response for the violent death of an innocent animal to impact a person in such a way as to make them turn away. If you can repeatedly witness horses die and continue to engage with “the game” then it is not the public, or the animal rights activists, who don’t understand, but you who has been desensitized. I speak from personal experience.

Articles of Interest

A Brief History Of Horse Racing: From Greece To Modern Times

Horse racing has been a popular sport for centuries, attracting millions of fans worldwide. It has undergone significant changes over time, with technological advancements and updates in racing regulations. Today, horse racing is a multi-billion dollar industry, with major events like the Kentucky Derby and the Royal Ascot drawing in large crowds and generating substantial revenue.

As Kentucky Derby Nears, Last Year’s Deaths Cast Long Shadow

The breakdown of 12 horses in the days surrounding the celebrated race a year ago has led to existential questions about the sport and its future.

At the Kentucky Derby, horses are worked to death for human vanity

The horse racing industry is egregiously cruel. We should end it yesterday.

Cobra Venom, Cocaine, and Corruption: New Documentary Reveals the Dark Side of Horse Racing

‘Broken Horses’ unveils how rampant doping and a thirst for cash are destroying the sport of kings.

Do racehorses even know they’re ‘racing’ each other? It’s unlikely

Based on decades of experience and everything we know about horse behaviour, I think the most plausible answer is “no”.

Does Horse Racing Have Hidden Mental Health Issues?

Horse riding has evolved through centuries to take on forms suitable to the persisting norms and attitudes. While the change has majorly attributed to the growth of the practice as a sport of horse racing or equestrian disciplines, in more recent times, mental health benefits have framed a noticeable base. The use of horses or horse riding for mental well-being has grown exponentially over the past few years.

How Racing Hurts Horses

Behind the romanticised facade of horse racing is a world of injuries, drugging, gruesome breakdowns, and slaughter. While spectators wear their fanciest hats and sip champagne, horses are running for their lives. We’ve laid out the step-by-step process that takes place before, during, and after races.

How U.S. racehorses end up on dinner plates

The global pipeline begins at poorly regulated U.S. auctions. Once a horse is marked for death, advocates say, “any concern for its welfare goes out the window.” About 20,000 U.S. horses—including former racehorses, work horses, show animals, discarded pets, and even wild horses—are sold to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico every year, according to a recent report by U.S. nonprofits Animal Wellness Action, Center for a Humane Economy, and Animals’

Is horse racing in America on its last legs?

The sport’s odds are not good.

Kentucky's "backside workers" care for million-dollar horses on the racing circuit. This clinic takes care of them.

Seventeen years ago, Odilia Castillo, now 37, traveled from her home in Chiapas, Mexico, north to work as a "hot walker" on Kentucky's race tracks. Every morning she wakes up at 3 a.m. and heads to the track by 4 a.m. to walk the horses, who need at least 30 to 45 minutes to cool down after training. Castillo said she has a "connection with the horses," and that's what kept her caring for the animals — until, in 2021, she couldn't work because of a pain in her stomach. She said she didn't know what the pain was, so she went to the Kentucky Racing Health Services Center. The Louisville clinic was founded in 2005 to meet the needs of those known in the racing world as the "backside," mostly migrant workers who care for the horses who race at tracks such as Churchill Downs.

Medicine in the Sport of Horse Racing

Beyond the mental and physical demands of training and performance endured by any professional athlete, jockeys are confronted with health challenges unique to their sport. In this review of the literature, we aim to educate sports medicine physicians regarding the underlying causes of injuries, describe injury management, and make recommendations for appropriate preventive strategies. Overall, there is a void of literature, and so our authors offer expert opinion and encourage others to get involved in making this a safer sport.

Racing 2-year-old horses is lucrative, but is it worth the risks?

There have always been inherent risks when it comes to racing horses, but these risks may be amplified when horses as young as two are placed under the intense physical stress of racing. Horse racing should be reformed so limited financial incentives are attached to racing two-year-old horses. Let’s explore why.

Racing Needs to Reckon With the Kentucky Derby’s Roots in Slavery

The legacy of slaveholding and racism in the nation and in Kentucky shaped horse racing at Churchill Downs. Even though Black men originally participated, racial animus led to the near total exclusion of Black people from the sport in the Jim Crow era. The first winner of the Kentucky Derby was a Black jockey named Oliver Lewis who rode the horse Aristides in 1875. The horse’s trainer was also a Black man, Ansel Williamson. But soon after, Black jockeys and trainers were systematically barred from competition and compensation.

The Death of a Racehorse

In the dirtiest sport there is, deregulation, doping, and politics changed a man named Jimmy Rivera's life forever.

The horseracing industry is ignoring what science says about whipping

It is easy to see why whipping in horseracing has become a touchstone issue, disliked by the majority of the public and a central threat to racing and other equestrian sports’ social license to operate. When the justification for whipping tired horses comes down to semantics, how much longer will society tolerate this violent form of “encouragement”?

The Science and Controversy Behind Horse Racing’s Most Popular Race Day Drug

Trainers have used Lasix for decades to reduce bleeding and improve performance in North American racehorses.

Why horse racing is so dangerous

Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, is suspending operations after 12 animals died. Why are racehorse deaths so common?

‘Broken Horses’

With confidential documents, recordings and exclusive interviews, “Broken Horses” provides a vivid tour of the business and political forces that control the Sport of Kings and resist measures to implement changes that could decrease horse deaths. It is a story of reckless breeding and doping, of compromised veterinarians and trainers, and of fans who are drawn to the sport’s beauty and pageantry but increasingly wonder how long one of America’s oldest sports can continue to have its social license renewed.

Resources

PETA

Pushed beyond their limits, most horses are subjected to cocktails of legal and illegal drugs intended to mask injuries and artificially enhance performance. Many horses—fittingly called “bleeders” by the racing industry—will bleed from their lungs, a condition known as exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage. In an attempt to decrease the bleeding, many horses are given a drug called Lasix or Salix, a diuretic with performance-enhancing qualities.