I have always felt pretty "meh" about horse racing in general. My family always watches the Kentucky Derby because…you know, I don’t know why we do. We just always have gotten together to watch it.

Everyone picks a different horse to be the winner. I always pick a horse who is shown pooping in the pre-race news coverage, but the only one I saw was Big Brown, which my dad had already chosen as his horse. My mom chose Eight Belles, who was my second choice because she was the only filly to run in the past 9 years. So, I decided on Colonel John because he had his tongue sticking out and that amused me. I never said my reasoning in choosing horses was sound or anything. (Other than the pooping before the race- that is said to work every time.)

So, we watched the race, congratulated my dad because he had chosen the winner, and then watched in horror when they said Eight Belles had gone down on the track. Several minutes later, they updated and said she had broken both her front ankles and had to be euthanized. My daughter ran to me and jumped in my arms and started crying. I cried with her.

And it set me to thinking how dangerous horse racing really is. Like I said before, I’ve always felt fairly "meh" about horse racing to begin with, but when I sat down and started reading about it this morning, I’m feeling pretty strongly against it.

The best post I saw on the subject was from the Humane Society’s blog. The whole post is a great read, but this was especially convincing:

Here are some of the historic problems. Drugging of injured horses
to keep them running, which makes vulnerable horses more susceptible to
breakdowns. Racing horses too young. Because the marquee events feature
3-year-olds, these horses must start racing at the tender age of two
years, and that’s well before their skeletal systems are sturdy enough
to endure the pounding from the rigors of the race track. And third,
racing horses on track surfaces that are not forgiving—with American
tracks favoring dirt surfaces over grass or synthetics.

And then there are the problems coming to light more than
ever—problems related to breeding. Breeding too many horses, and
waiting for someone else to clean up the problem. And breeding them for
body characteristics that make these animals vulnerable to breakdowns,
especially those spindly legs on top of these stout torsos.

These are all good points. Horse racing has always been secondary to other, more widespread problems for animal rights advocates, but perhaps it is time we started speaking up for the poor thoroughbreds as well.

Photo: AP