On the eve of the Kentucky Derby, Secretariat star James Cromwell has written to The Jockey Club urging it to adopt PETA's proposed Thoroughbred 360 Lifecycle Retirement Fund. The plan would require owners and breeders to pay a $360 retirement fee for each new foal they register. The money generated from the fees would be put into a fund to provide care for the 10,000 former racehorses currently sent to slaughter each year.

"These magnificent animals should not end up on a meat hook after a terrifying journey to a terrifying death," writes Cromwell in his letter. "I urge the Jockey Club, as the only official body that deals with every thoroughbred owner in every racing state, to implement PETA's Thoroughbred 360 Lifecycle Retirement Fund without delay."

Join James Cromwell in asking The Jockey Club to give racehorses the dignified retirement that they deserve.  

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Thoroughbred racehorse Coming Home, the granddaughter of Kentucky Derby winner Unbridled and the cousin of the doomed Derby entrant Eight Belles, was bought by a "meat buyer" at a livestock auction for $200 and was hours from being trucked to a slaughterhouse when a PETA investigator rescued her. Coming Home will at last come to a real—and permanent—home on a PETA member's farm, where she will never again have to fear for her life.
 

Coming Home relaxes with some friends after her rescue.

 
Thoroughbred owners and breeders in the U.S. may be thinking about the Kentucky Derby when they bring nearly 30,000 new thoroughbreds into the world every single year. But the derby is a dream. A livestock auction and a bolt through the brain are the reality for 10,000 castoff thoroughbred racehorses this year. Owners who pay exorbitant stud fees turn their backs on horses who are too old or injured to run or who are just not fast enough.
 

 
With the Kentucky Derby taking place this weekend, PETA is asking The Jockey Club, which registers all thoroughbred foals, to protect them by setting up a retirement fund called the "Thoroughbred 360 Lifecycle Fund." Owners and breeders would pay a $360 retirement fee for every foal, broodmare, and stallion they register and for every ownership transfer. This would generate more than $20 million every year that would go toward providing a humane retirement for the two-thirds of horses bred who are discarded by the industry.

Please e-mail the Jockey Club and ask that it adopt PETA's retirement plan. If owners and breeders are going to continue to crank out thousands of foals—and rake in millions of dollars off the winners' backs—the least that they can do is put some money aside for the horses who aren't quite fast enough to outrun the butcher.

Written by Michelle Sherrow