[Vision2020] Thoughts on horse racing

[Carl Westberg]

Never been much of a fan of horse racing, and am even less so after what happened at the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.  Some thoughts from an ESPN writer.........
	Monday, May 5, 2008




This time is different




	By Bill Finley
Special to ESPN.com




This one is different. This time, the people are not going to buy that
tired, old "it's part of the game" line. The public is outraged by the
death of Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby and asking some very
serious, very appropriate questions about whether or not horse racing
is tantamount to animal cruelty. 
This is usually where the sport buries its collective head in the sand,
tells people how much everyone involved with the game loves their
horses, and hopes the controversy dies down. This time, that's not
going to work. The horse racing industry has to be proactive and take
some severe measures to make this sport safer and more humane for the
animals that compete and the humans that ride them. 
It has to send a message: We admit we have a problem and we are going
to fix it. To do nothing of substance is unacceptable and will convince
a large segment of the population that horse racing, as a New York
Times columnist suggested, isn't that different from animal fighting.

Horse racing must:
1. Ban all drugs. How can the sport possibly justify allowing horses to
race on steroids, painkillers and diuretics that dehydrate the animal?
With the exception of Canada, no other country in the world allows
anything but hay, oats and water. There can be no doubt that the
proliferation of drugs, illegal and otherwise, in the sport has
contributed to the increasing fragility of these animals.
2. Control excess use of the whip. I doubt very much that the actions
of Gabriel Saez in any way contributed to the death of Eight Belles,
but the sight of a jockey beating a horse in the stretch with a whip
contributes to racing's image problems. People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) has already come out demanding that Seaz be
suspended for his use of the whip.
Jockeys insist the whip is necessary to help control their mounts, but
do they really need to beat the tar out of a horse to make them run
harder than they would without the punishment? Is that not inhumane?
Many countries have rules against excessive use of the whip and jockeys
who have broken those rules have received severe punishments. The same
must now be done in this country.

3. Convert to synthetic tracks.
Synthetic tracks are obviously not perfect and they will never prevent
all catastrophic injuries, but they are considerably safer than
traditional dirt surfaces. Would Barbaro, George Washington and Eight
Belles still be alive had the Kentucky Derby, Breeders' Cup Classic and
Preakness been run on a synthetic surface? The answer is, quite
possibly.
Eight U.S. tracks have synthetic surfaces, but there has been no
movement to convert any additional tracks from dirt to synthetic. Maybe
it's time for more racing commissions to do what they did in
California, mandate that tracks must convert to a synthetic surface.

4. Promote longer races.
The breeding industry continues to accentuate speed over soundness and
stamina, no doubt another contributing factor to the alarming rate of
catastrophic injuries. Who can blame them? There are great rewards out
there for fast, precocious horses who need not go any further than a
mile.  Once, the Jockey Club Gold Cup, one of the most important races
on the calendar, was run at two miles. No more. Even the
mile-and-a-quarter distance is starting to disappear.
The only way breeders are going to start producing sounder, sturdier
horses is to create a system where those horses have much to gain on
the racetrack. We can start by making the Breeders' Cup Classic a mile
and a half, the Breeders' Cup Distaff a mile and a quarter and
increasing the distance of many other major races.

5. Take meaningful strides to stop the slaughter of horses.
Though there are some very generous and good-hearted people in the
sport, the industry has, by and large, a deplorable record when it
comes to dealing with the issues of caring for its retirees. Retirement
organizations are largely left to fend for themselves, scraping pennies
together will little financial support from the industry. The result is
there is not enough money out there to prevent the deaths of thousands
of racehorses each year in the slaughterhouse.
People are tired of seeing horses die. Perhaps some of the reactions
that have come from the Eight Belles situation are over the top, but
that's not the point. Horseracing has to react to public sentiment,
something it has never been very good at doing. It has to do so because
it's the right thing to do for the horses and because it has to deal
with a public relations nightmare.
Are we that far from the point where sponsors pull their ads from
Triple Crown telecasts because of pressure put on them by animal rights
activists and/or the media outcry over all these deaths?
 
Horseracing has come to a crossroad. It had better go down the right
path.

Bill Finley is an award-winning racing writer whose work has
appeared in the New York Times, USA Today and Sports Illustrated.
Contact Bill at wnfinley at aol.com

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