My ten-year old grandson recently attended the movie 'Seabiscuit' with some friends and a parent, and sat in the lobby for the remainder of the movie when he realized that the horses were being whipped and degraded.

His friends did not understand his feelings, nor his principled action, (and sad to say, neither do most of their parents).

I had not even talked to my grandson about horse racing: this is from his heart and his mind. But I can help him to answer the inevitable critics and doubters with this information (below) from PETA.

Every species of animal that humans use in any way is abused, but perhaps none more so than horses. Horses were meant by nature to run free, in herds, across wide, dry prairies, yet humans keep horses isolated and immobile in stalls, to take out at their pleasure, to subjugate and use for a few hours, and then they are put back into their prisons.

The whole 'horse-loving' culture is massively dishonest and cruel. Horse-lovers buy, sell, and trade the animals they proclaim they love so much like stocks and bonds. They trade in used horses for newer models; they buy horses as investments; they buy horses for the glamour and for the impression of wealth horses give.

With a very few exceptions, the horse owners that we have met are shallow, egotistical, and ruthless, and the lives of the animals they claim to love are pointless and filled with boredom and pain.

Judy Stone

PETA: Horse Racing: A Losing Bet

Drug abuse, injuries to horses, race fixing, organized crime, and declining public interest have all become integral to the horse racing industry. The industry's whips and blinders are visible reminders that horse racing is merely another form of animal exploitation. As trainer Ron McAnally said after champion Go For Wand shattered her leg in the 1990 Breeders' Cup Distaff race: "It's part of racing. They give their lives for our pleasure."(1)

Drugs and Deception

Racehorses have a drug problem; many have been turned into junkies by their trainers and even by veterinarians, who frequently provide drugs to keep horses on the track even when they shouldn't be racing. Commonly used drugs such as Lasix (furosemide) and Bute (phenylbutazone) relieve symptoms like pain and bleeding but don't treat the underlying disorders. Horses are forced to race with hairline fractures that would, without drugs, be too painful to run on. As a result, injuries and chronic lameness are common.

For example, according to a 1993 University of Minnesota study, 840 horses were fatally injured on U.S. tracks in 1992, and 3,566 horses—or one horse in every 22 races—were so severely injured that they could not finish the race—figures Sports Illustrated magazine called "appalling and unacceptable by any humane standard." Countless more horses suffer injuries that are not revealed until later.(2)

Veterinarian Gregory L. Ferraro, who gave up a lucrative 21-year career working at Southern California tracks after becoming disillusioned with the "rampant" use of drugs in racehorses, says, "In general, treatments designed to repair a horse's injuries and to alleviate its suffering are now often used to get the animal out onto the track to compete—to force the animal, like some punch-drunk fighter, to make just one more round. Equine veterinary medicine has been misdirected from the art of healing to the craft of portfolio management."(3)

Legal drugs like Lasix are also used to disguise the presence of illegal substances by weakening their concentrations.

Racing Regulations

According to Bob Baker, a one-time racehorse owner and trainer who left the industry to become an investigator for the Humane Society of the United States, horse racing is, "for all practical purposes, exempt from all anticruelty laws."(4) Horse racing is a partnership between the racing industry and individual states, which generate revenue from tracks, a classic case of the "fox guarding the henhouse." Says Baker, "The same entity that's supposed to be regulating the racing industry is also getting a percentage of every dollar wagered." Baker says this partnership also makes it hard to bring individual cruelty cases to trial because state prosecutors are often reluctant to pursue cases involving the racing commission, a state agency.(5)

When Horses Don't Win

Centuries of selective breeding have made thoroughbreds increasingly fragile. "They go 45 miles per hour, weigh 1,000 pounds and have ankles as big as yours and mine," says trainer Nick Zito. Agrees New York Daily News racing columnist Bill Finley, "The thoroughbred racehorse is a genetic mistake. It runs too fast, its frame is too large, and its legs are far too small. As long as mankind demands that it run at high speeds under stressful conditions, horses will die at racetracks."(6)

Thoroughbreds' genetic troubles are exacerbated by harder track surfaces, year-round racing schedules, and corporate owners who view horses as "investments" and race them too frequently in an effort to make more money. Says Ellen Parker, publisher of a newsletter about pedigree research, "Greed is a thoroughbred's biggest enemy. People get to thinking of horses as machines. You have to think in terms of the animal first."(7)

Unfortunately, the industry continues to put profits first. Horses are often run at 2 years of age, before their bones have fully matured, and are often injured as a result. The American Association of Equine Practitioners says 60 to 90 percent of racehorses are "significantly lame."(8)

Horses who fail to bring in winnings are rarely rewarded with an easy retirement; more likely, they will suffer an unceremonious early death, and their flesh will be sold overseas for human consumption or rendered into dog food or glue. Slaughterhouse "kill buyers" usually have standing agreements with race tracks to purchase horses whose owners have decided that they are not performing adequately.(9)

Former racers' journeys from the winner's circle to the killing floor are hardly a bed of roses. Horses may endure up to 36-hour-long trips in double-decker cattle trucks (which are too low for them to stand in without hanging their heads or falling to their knees) with no stops for food, water, or rest. Even horses who are injured on the track face these arduous trips. According to Bob Baker, horse owners and trainers "drug these horses up with Bute, steroids, all this stuff to get them to race when they shouldn't be, but when the horse breaks down, they don't euthanize him because with the price of horsemeat they can get more money if they get him to the slaughterhouse live [a requirement for horsemeat meant for human consumption]. So they'll stick that horse on the trailer with a broken leg, without any painkillers because they're too cheap to give the horse medication."(10)

Horse handler Tommy Burns, who was convicted of killing and injuring horses so their owners could collect insurance money, adds that even millionaires "throw the horses away like broken toys."(11)

Very few horses earn high stakes, become famous, and appear to lead glamorous lives. The vast majority lead stressful lives, which all too often involve crippling injuries and premature deaths. Regardless of their success, racehorses commonly end up at the slaughterhouse once their owners can no longer profit from them.

Horse racing is no longer legal in Belgium because of its inherent cruelty. By refusing to patronize existing tracks, by working to reform and enforce racing regulations, by lobbying against the construction of new tracks, and by educating the public about the perilous path racehorses face, concerned citizens can help phase out this cruel and exploitative "sport."

References

(1) Bill Finley, "Sadly, No Way to Stop Deaths," New York Daily News, 10 Jun. 1993.
(2) William Nack and Lester Munson, "The Breaking Point," Sports Illustrated, 1 Nov. 1993, p. 76.
(3) Nack.
(4) Linda Sanders, "Blood on the Tracks," The Voice, 11 Jun. 1991.
(5) Sanders.
(6) Finley.
(7) Chuck Dybdal, "The Triple Crown Is as Much a Test of Survival As It Is Speed and Stamina," Contra Costa Times, 26 Apr. 1998, p. B1.
(8) Wayne Pacelle, "Horse Racing: What's Around the Bend?" The Animals' Agenda, Jun. 1988, p. 14.
(9) The Humane Society of the United States, "Horse Slaughter Fact Sheet," 1994.
(10) Sanders.
(11) Baltimore City Paper, Jun./Jul. 1995, p. 21.