Horse racing is one of the oldest sports in the world. It developed from a primitive contest of speed or stamina between two horses into a modern-day spectacle featuring enormous fields of runners, sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment and immense sums of money, but its fundamental concept remains the same: The first horse to cross the finish line is the winner.
The sport may be in need of a change in attitude, but it will likely never get it if the industry continues to ignore the concerns of animal rights activists and the wider public. Too often, horse racing aficionados blow off these concerns as hypocritical and unfounded whilst continuing to profit from the exploitation of younger running horses.
Havnameltdown was among dozens of horses to be euthanized at Pimlico last year, but for many people outside the racing industry his case was particularly jarring. A post-mortem examination revealed a host of issues that raised eyebrows: the injection of corticosteroids four weeks before the Preakness, the use of sedatives during his training and bone cysts (holes in the bones) in all four limbs, not just his fractured left front leg.
He also had a serious case of pulmonary bleeding, which is a common but often fatal side-effect of hard running. As a precaution, every thoroughbred at Pimlico received race-day Lasix, a diuretic which is indicated on the racing form with a boldface “L.” Its function is to prevent pulmonary bleeding by encouraging the horse to expel epic amounts of urine—twenty or thirty pounds worth.
Lasix’s use is one of a handful of drugs permitted under the rules of the sport to help prevent injuries and keep horses healthy, but the industry has yet to develop a lifelong tracking system for its thoroughbreds that would allow them to be traced after they leave the business. Instead, they are bought and sold infinitely into the unknown, where they will continue to be subjected to the same exploitative machinations and inevitably suffer the same fates as Eight Belles, Medina Spirit, Keepthename, Creative Plan and countless others.
In a modern society and culture that increasingly recognizes animals as equal in value to humans, it is simply unacceptable for an industry like horse racing to create and breed these magnificent creatures, then profit from them while leaving them vulnerable to injury, disease and early death. The for-profit business model must evolve, or the sport will fade into irrelevancy.