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The Horseracing Industry: Drugs, Deception and Death

They weigh at least 1,000 pounds, they have legs that are supported by ankles the size of a human’s, and they’re forced to run around dirt tracks at speeds of more than 30 miles per hour while carrying people on their backs.(1) Racehorses are the victims of a multibillion-dollar industry that is rife with drug abuse, injuries, and race fixing, and many horses’ careers end in slaughterhouses. A New York Daily News reporter remarked, “The thoroughbred race horse 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.”(2)

The Starting Gate
Racehorses can cost millions of dollars and are often purchased by syndicates, which may be composed of thousands of members.(3,4) There are also trainers, handlers, veterinarians, and jockeys involved, so a horse is rarely able to develop any kind of bond with one person or with other horses. Racehorses travel from country to country, state to state, and racetrack to racetrack, so few horses are able to call one place “home.” Most do not end up in the well-publicized races but are instead trucked, shipped, or flown to the thousands of other races that take place all over the country every year.

Racing to the Grave
Horses begin training or are already racing when their skeletal systems are still growing and are unprepared to handle the pressures of running on a hard track at high speeds.(5) Improved medical treatment and technological advancements have done little to remedy the plight of the racehorse. One study on injuries at racetracks concluded that one horse in every 22 races suffered an injury that prevented him or her from finishing a race, while another estimates that 800 thoroughbreds die each year in North America because of injuries.(6) Strained tendons or hairline fractures can be tough for veterinarians to diagnose, and the damage may go from minor to irreversible at the next race or workout. Horses do not handle surgery well, as they tend to be disoriented when coming out of anesthesia, and they may fight casts or slings, possibly causing further injury. Many are euthanized in order to save the owners further veterinary fees and other expenses on horses who can’t race again.

Given the huge investment that owning a horse requires, reported one Kentucky newspaper, “simply sending one to pasture, injured or not, is not an option all owners are willing to consider.”(7) Care for a single racehorse can cost as much as $50,000 per year.(8) When popular racehorse Barbaro suffered a shattered ankle at the beginning of the 2006 Preakness, his owners spared no expense for his medical needs, but as The New York Times reported, “[M]any in the business have noted that had Barbaro not been the winner of the Kentucky Derby, he might have been destroyed after being injured.”(9) Compare Barbaro’s story to that of Magic Man, who stepped into an uneven section of a track and broke both front legs during a race at Saratoga Race Course. His owner had bought him for $900,000, yet the horse hadn’t earned any money yet and—unproven on the track—wasn’t worth much as a stud, so he was euthanized.(10) Eight Belles suffered a similar fate when she broke both her front ankles after crossing the finish line in the 2008 Kentucky Derby.(11) 

Joseph Dirico, the owner of a filly who suffered a heart attack and died mid-race at Pimlico only days after the Preakness, said of her death, “I guess that’s part of the game.”(12) That sentiment was echoed by the general manager of Virginia’s Colonial Downs, where five horses died within eight days.(13) “We're upset when it happens,” he said, “but it's just part of the racing game."(14) At least six horses died at the track the year before.(15)

Drugs and Deception
“Finding an American racehorse trained on the traditional hay, oats, and water probably would be impossible,” commented one reporter.(16) Many racehorses become addicted to drugs when their trainers and even veterinarians give them drugs to keep them on the track when they shouldn’t be racing.

There are trainers pumping horses full of illegal drugs every day,” says a former Churchill Downs public relations director.(17) “With so much money on the line, people will do anything to make their horses run faster.” Which drugs are legal varies from state to state, with Kentucky holding the reputation as the most lenient state.(18) The New York Sun explained that because “thoroughbreds are bred for flashy speed and to look good in the sales ring … the animal itself has become more fragile” and that “to keep the horses going,” they’re all given Lasix (which controls bleeding in the lungs), phenylbutazone (an anti-inflammatory), and cortiscosteroids (for pain and inflammation).(19) Those drugs, although legal, can also mask pain or make a horse run faster. Labs cannot detect all the illegal drugs out there, of which there “could be thousands,” says the executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium.(20) Morphine, which can keep a horse from feeling any pain from an injury, was suspected in the case of Be My Royal, who won a race while limping.(21)

Rick Dutrow, the trainer of 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown, openly admits to giving his horses Winstrol, a steroid that is illegal for equine use in 10 states, although not in the three that host the Triple Crown. Before it was banned in Pennsylvania, nearly 1,000 horses were tested for steroids and more than 60 percent tested positive. Big Brown’s veterinarian concedes that “without steroids, they’d lose some horses that can’t keep up the pace and race every three weeks or every month.”(22)

Even the ‘Winners’ Lose
Few racehorses are retired to pastures for pampering and visits from caring individuals.

An insurance scandal cost the life of Alydar, who came in second in all three races of the 1978 Triple Crown and fathered many fast horses. After being retired from racing in order to serve as a stud at a Kentucky farm, Alydar was originally believed to have shattered his leg by kicking a stall door and was euthanized when he wasn’t able to maintain a splint.(24) Ten years later, an FBI investigation revealed that his leg was deliberately broken when it was tied by a rope to a pickup truck.(25)

Ferdinand, a Derby winner and Horse of the Year in 1987, was retired to Claiborne Farms and then changed hands at least twice before being “disposed of” in Japan; a reporter covering the story concluded, “No one can say for sure when and where Ferdinand met his end, but it would seem clear he met it in a slaughterhouse.”(26) Exceller, a million-dollar racehorse who was inducted into the National Racing Museum’s Hall of Fame, was killed at a Swedish slaughterhouse.(27)

Although there are currently no equine slaughterhouses in the U.S., there is still a multimillion-dollar horsemeat export industry that sends tens of thousands of horses every year to Canada, Mexico, and Japan for slaughter.(28,29) One Colorado State University study found that of 1,348 horses sent to slaughter, 58 were known to be former racehorses.(30) During an undercover investigation inside Japan’s largest horse slaughterhouse in Kumamoto, PETA investigators captured video footage of a terrified thoroughbred’s tragic final minutes: After the horse is sprayed with water, he panics, slips out of his halter, and escapes inside the slaughterhouse, only to be caught and killed minutes later. Visit PETA.org for more information on this investigation.

Most horses who are sent to those facilities are forced to endure days of transport in cramped trailers.(31) Usually, there is no access to water or food, and injuries are common: A University of California, Davis, study of 306 horses destined for slaughter found that 60 of them sustained injuries during transport.(32) While veterinarians recommend that horses be offloaded for food and water every four hours while traveling, the U.S. Department of Agriculture allows horses to be shipped for 28 hours without a break.(33) Horses are subject to the same method of slaughter as cows, but since horses are generally not accustomed to being herded, they tend to thrash about in order to avoid the pneumatic gun that is supposed to render them unconscious before their throats are cut.(34)

What You Can Do
In a commentary on the racing industry, a reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News remarked, “It is not something they talk about much in their advertising, but horses die in this sport all the time—every day, every single day.”(35) Help phase out this exploitative “sport”: Refuse to patronize existing tracks, work to ensure that racing regulations are reformed and enforced, lobby against the construction of new tracks, and educate your friends and family members about the tragic lives that racehorses lead.

References
1) Ted Miller, “Six Recent Horse Deaths at Emerald Downs Spark Concern,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer 8 May 2001.
2) Bill Finley, “Sadly, No Way to Stop Deaths,” New York Daily News 10 Jun. 1993.
3) Sherry Ross, “Fans Are Buying In,” Daily News 1 Jun. 2003.
4) “The Odds Are You’ll Lose: Owning a Racehorse,” Financial Times 1 Feb. 2003.
5) Glenn Robertson Smith, “Why Racehorses Are Cracking Up,” The Age (Australia) 15 Nov. 2002.
6) Miller.
7) Tim Reynolds, “Technology Can’t Prevent Horse Injuries,” The Lexington Herald-Leader 30 Aug. 2001.
8) Andrew Beyer, “A Beyer’s Guide for Racehorses,” The Washington Post 3 Jun. 2003.
9) William C. Rhoden, “An Unknown Filly Dies, and the Crowd Just Shrugs,” The New York Times 25 May 2006.
10) Rhoden.                                                                                                           11) Associated Press, “Runner-Up Eight Belles Breaks Front Ankles, Euthanized on Track,” 3 May 2008.
12) Reynolds.
13) John Packett, “Track Trauma: Sesamoid Bone Injuries Are Common and a Leading Cause of Death at Colonial Downs,” Richmond Times-Dispatch 19 Jul. 2007.
14) John Packett, “Four Horses Die in Five Days at Downs,” Richmond Times-Dispatch 8 Jul. 2007.
15) Packett, “Four Horses Die in Five Days at Downs.”
16) John Scheinman, “Horses, Drugs Are Racing’s Daily Double; No Uniform Policy in Industry,” The Washington Post 27 Apr. 2003.
17) Alex Straus, “Dark Horses,” Maxim May 2002.
18) Janet Patton, “HBPA Proposes Uniform Policy on Drugs in Racing; Horsemen’s Group Targets Maze of State Rules,” The Lexington Herald-Leader 17 Oct. 2001.
19) Max Watman, “So Far, So Good for Barbaro,” The New York Sun 21 May 2006.
20) Scheinman.
21) Peat Bee, “Cut the Poppycock and Treat Drugs With Horse Sense,” The Guardian 13 Jan. 2003.
22) Bill Finley, “In Horse Racing, Test of Beefed-Up Champions,” The New York Times 2 Jun. 2008.
23) “Trainer, Vet Charged in Trotter’s Death,” Associated Press, 22 Apr. 2001.
24) Straus.
25) Skip Hollandsworth, “The Killing of Alydar,” Texas Monthly Jun. 2001.
26) Straus.
27) Barbara Bayer, “1986 Kentucky Derby Winner Ferdinand Believed to Have Been Slaughtered in Japan,” The Blood-Horse Magazine 26 Jul. 2003.
28) Allen G. Breed, “And What of the Spent Racehorse?” Associated Press, 25 Nov. 1999.
29) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Horsemeat Slaughtered/Prod Animals (Head),” 2006.
30) Gerard Shields, “Landrieu Bill Backs Horses. Senate Bill Would Ban Consumption Slaughter,” The Advocate 9 Jul. 2007.
31) K. McGee et al., “Characterizations of Horses at Auctions and in Slaughter Plants,” Colorado State University Department of Animal Sciences, 2001.
32) Todd J. Gillman, “Judge Won’t Stop Slaughterhouses; Appeal Weighed,” The Dallas Morning News 14 Mar. 2006.
33) C.L. Stull, “Responses of Horses to Trailer Design, Duration, and Floor Area During Commercial Transportation to Slaughter,” Journal of Animal Science 77 (1999): 2925-33.
34) Josh Harkinson, “Horse Flesh: Texas Struggles With What to Do with Its Overabundance of Equus caballus While Europeans Wait With Open Mouths,” Houston Press 13 Apr. 2006.
35) Kris Axtman, “Horse-Meat Sales Stir Texas Controversy,” Christian Science Monitor 28 Apr. 2003.
36) Rich Hofmann, “Racing Brings Up the Rear in Safety,” Philadelphia Daily News 23 May 2006.