Have you ever broken an ankle? I can only imagine the pain, but it’s not a death sentence.
Unless you’re a racehorse.
Harliss was euthanized in January after he broke an ankle at Santa Anita Park. Uncontainable splintered his the next day. And they weren’t the only horses who died that weekend: Tikkun Olam sustained catastrophic injuries when he collided head-on with another horse while training.
That’s three dead in three days at the same Arcadia, Calif., track where more than 60 horses have died since July 2018 and more than 550 since 2007. When 38 died last season, Santa Anita’s owner said it was a “wake-up call.”
Don’t bet on it.
Hundreds of horses have died at Santa Anita. Ten died in 10 days last summer on four tracks in New York. More than 5,000—five thousand—have died over the last six years across the country. Those deaths weren’t wake-up calls because the horse-racing industry is not listening.
It’s also visually impaired. The next time another horse goes down in California, New York, Maryland, Kentucky, Florida, Texas, Illinois, West Virginia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, or the 22 other states where these fragile animals are run to death, the industry will do what it always does—turn a blind eye to the reasons why they’re dying. That you can bet on.
Racehorses weigh at least 1,000 pounds, their ankles are the size of yours and mine, and they’re forced to run around dirt tracks at speeds topping 30 miles per hour while carrying people on their backs—people brandishing whips. They begin training or are already racing when their skeletal systems are still growing and unprepared for the stress and the toll that running on a hard track at high speeds takes.
Because hairline fractures or strained tendons can be difficult to diagnose, the damage may go from minor to irreversible at the next race or workout. Eight Belles collapsed with two broken front ankles after finishing second at the 2008 Kentucky Derby and was euthanized on the track. Her trainer said she had run the race of her life.
To keep horses on the track when they shouldn’t be racing, trainers and even veterinarians pump them with anti-inflammatories, corticosteroids, and drugs that control pulmonary bleeding—a cocktail that can mask pain or make them run faster.
Which drugs are legal varies from state to state, but they’re given for one reason: Thoroughbreds can cost millions of dollars and owners want a return on their investment.
This is the sport of kings? To borrow a page from M*A*S*H’s Col. Potter, “Horse hockey!”
Racehorses are dying because they’re being raced.
Hand-wringing won’t change that. Neither will pledges to make reforms or empty appeals like Bob Baffert’s recent op-ed in The Washington Post. The high-profile trainer called for the creation of a federal board that would set a uniform, nationwide set of drug rules. “Nothing,” he wrote, “is more important than the health and safety of our equine … athletes.”
Except that under Baffert’s tutelage, horses would still be drugged, horses like Justify, who won the Triple Crown in 2018.
A few weeks before the Kentucky Derby, after he won the Santa Anita Derby, Justify tested positive for scopolamine, a banned drug that can improve a horse’s breathing and heart rates. The damning New York Times story also revealed that the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) essentially threw out the result and tried to keep it from becoming public.
Baffert’s response? That he never intentionally gave scopolamine to any of his horses.
He did, however, admit to telling his veterinarians to use thyroxine on every horse in his California barn, seven of whom suddenly died between 2011 and 2013. Baffert told investigators that he thought the drug, a thyroid hormone, would “build up” his horses, even though it’s associated with weight loss. He didn’t even bother to find out if any of them had thyroid problems.
But the CHRB cleared him of any wrongdoing.
This year’s Kentucky Derby has been postponed because of the COVID-19 crisis. Racing has also been suspended at Aqueduct. That’s not good enough.
Horse-racing should be suspended indefinitely until drugs are eliminated and horses stop dying.
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