Dear John,
Since late April, there have been nine horses who’ve died in competition at Churchill Downs in Kentucky—perhaps the most storied track in America. At Pimlico in Baltimore, one horse trained by legendary trainer Bob Baffert died in competition. And even after Baffert lost that horse, the rules of racing did nothing to stop him from running a different horse in the Preakness just hours later.
That circumstance tells us a simple truth: the Thoroughbred racing industry accepts the idea that horses die in competition. If you want to learn how we can stop racetracks from becoming crash sites, this webinar is for you. We hope you’ll register today.
It takes place June 8, 2023, at 8 p.m. ET/ 5 p.m. PT, and is free, thanks to the generous sponsor of this Claudia Miller Ignite Series on Animal Welfare.
Behind the pageantry and beauty of horse racing, there are big questions about the treatment of the horses, with breakdowns of horses on the track occurring at a pace that is no longer acceptable to the American public.
More than 7,200 horses died or had to be euthanized between 2009-2021 owing to racing-related illness and injuries, according to The Jockey Club, a national organization that works to improve protections for horses and the integrity of racing. What other sport would tolerate this number of casualties?
We’ll talk about how AWA pushed Congress to enact the Horse Racing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA). It gives us a vital new framework to make racing safer. HISA sets up a national authority to ban race-day doping and to set other guardrails for the sport. Btu there is more to do.
The Authority also must ban whipping of horses to push them past their limits. And when the Authority imposes mandatory suspensions for trainers whose young horses die in competition, they’ll get the message that no horse should go into competition with physical vulnerabilities.
Please register for this event today, and please forward this email to friends and family who have a vested interest in the well-being of horses and want to see major reform in horse racing.
