Seven horses – each one young and healthy just days ago – are now dead after stepping onto the dirt track at Churchill Downs. This is a jarring body count for a sport that is supposed to be non-violent and that asks horses to do what comes naturally to them: to run.
Too many players in the horse racing industry are putting profits and prestige ahead of horse wellness.
Today, we are calling on the new federal racing authority – created through the work of Animal Wellness Action and The Jockey Club and others to promote horse safety in competition – to take action:
It should not be acceptable that seven horses died last week at Churchill Downs, or that 7,000+ horses died on American and Canadian tracks over the last decade. That should not be treated as normal.
Remember, the horses competing in the Triple Crown races are young horses – the equivalent of human teenagers. And they are fit and healthy. These are the last creatures who should be vulnerable to dropping dead or tumbling down in a heap.
It would be a mistake to think that horse deaths are just the consequence of a few bad trainers. Trainers throughout the industry have been doping horses for decades. Horses juiced up to gain an advantage in a race, or medicated to get injured horses into competition, have been staples of stable behavior. Horse well-being is subordinated to profit.
As a result, in far too many cases, racetracks have turned into crash sites.
We worked to change all that by leading the effort to pass the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) in Congress in 2020 – to ban race-day doping of horses and to create a uniform national set of rules governing racing.
These rules should have been in effect months ago. But the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association has stood in the way, suing in multiple jurisdictions to attempt to block enforcement of the law.
If they hadn’t delayed implementation of the law, the Kentucky Derby and its preceding races would have had proper oversight over the trainers and a protective watch over the horses. And maybe seven horses would be alive today.
Rest assured, we are focused on not allowing a replay of this suffering and death at the Preakness or any other race in America.
You can help us continue this fight and turn this tragedy in Louisville into lasting change at every horse-racing venue in the United States.
Please donate generously. As you can see, there’s so much at stake.
I assure you, we are committed to seeing a new normal in the racing industry. So many lives depend on our success.
For the animals,
 |
Wayne Pacelle
President
Center for a Humane Economy
|
