Horse racing is a sport that involves running horses at breakneck speeds while other bettors try to predict which will win the race. While many people think of it as an exotic and glamorous pastime, the truth is that horse races are brutal for both the participants and spectators alike.
Every year, multiple thousands of would-be racehorses are killed at the track due to colic, a painful and deadly abdominal affliction; laminitis, an excruciating inflammation in the feet; respiratory infections; neurological disorders; parasitic infestations; and traumatic injuries such as cuts from riding and jumping. Additionally, many racehorses suffer from everyday abuse. They are torn from their mothers and herds as mere babies and then broken, an industry term that refers to making them pliant and submissive. They are made to run in circles at a relentless pace, which can be physically and emotionally exhausting for even the best-trained and conditioned horses. They are subjected to whipping, a practice that would get them arrested if done to their dogs at the dog park, and endure the use of instruments such as nose chains, lip chains, eye blinders, mouth “bits” and cribbing collars, which make them feel suffocated while they’re being forced to exert themselves. And at the end of their careers, they are slaughtered, going from athlete to meat in a matter of days.
In addition to being brutal for the horses, horse racing is a terrible economic model. It requires huge amounts of capital to produce and maintain a quality stable of horses. Those in the know call it a ponzi scheme because, at the top of the pyramid, there are few winners and lots of losers. This makes it a perfect vehicle for corrupt officials and shady business practices.
It’s also a highly inefficient way to distribute money to the public. Bettors contribute a large percentage of the total wagers, and winners receive only a fraction of the winnings after a deduction for the track (takeout). It takes an enormous amount of money to fund the purses—the prize pools that attract the best horses—which are then turned over to the racing authority to pay for operations, capital improvements and the maintenance of the facility.
There are also real-world lessons to be learned from the controversies surrounding horse race journalism, including the need to provide more context for horse racing figures and not to discount different figures based on popular narratives. And there are many parallels with the ongoing debates about pre-election polling.
The First Amendment’s freedoms of speech and press give news outlets broad leeway to conduct any kinds of opinion polling they wish, as long as it’s not deceptive or unfair. But that doesn’t mean that polling is without its critics, especially among media scholars who study elections and news coverage. Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor and a prominent journalist critic, has long been one of them. His criticisms of horse-race polling date back decades, and he recently took up the cause of urging newsrooms to shift their focus from the odds of a candidate winning to describing the potential outcome of the election.