A number of readers want to know what I think about this. Short answer: I think they are nuts whose movement is going nowhere. In one hundred years, they will be remembered with the same fond amusement as we give to the Victorians who spent time investigating whether rocks had spirits, and the existence of fairies.
Other readers want to know what I think of the tragic death of Eight Belles at this year's Kentucky Derby. For those who don't know, the filly fractured both her ankles at the finish after coming in second. PETA is claiming that the horse was injured and the jockey should have pulled up.
I was sick and slept through the race, so I can't comment on the jockey's conduct. I'm not against horse racing per se; anyone who has ever worked with show horses or race horses knows that the good ones really love what they do. They sort of are like human athletes--they are extremely competitive and they like to perform. Balky horses who feel kind of middling about running flat out don't make it to the Derby.
The risk of injury is tragic--particularly because horses can't survive any serious injury to their legs. But I don't see that risk as a reason to stop horseracing, when racehorses are extraordinarily well treated and have lives that are, as near as we can determine, pretty enjoyable for them.
I do, however, think that humans have a responsibility to the animals we breed. I'm not sure that we should race two and three year olds, who are lovely and fast, but also have bones that aren't fully formed and may be more vulnerable to injury. I'm very sure that we should make all the racecourses in America switch to synthetic track. I also think eventers should rip up their courses and replace the picturesque stone walls with something less liable to catastrophic injury.
Too, I think we should take a long, hard look at extreme breeding. I feel this way about show dogs, which are getting more inbred and disease-ridden with every passing year as breeders obsessively try for perfect physical characteristics at the expense of health--and at least in the breed I'm familiar with, bullmastiffs, keep making the dogs bigger even though this makes joint trouble much more likely.
Racehorses, too, are often bred for speed and racing spirit to the exclusion of nearly everything else. If you value speed over soundness, you're going to end up with a lot more injuries. Even if you don't care about the horses, there are human jockeys that also often get hurt when this happens.
Horse people really, really love their animals--it's ridiculous to put them in the same basket with industrial pig farmers. But they're also wrapped in an insular community, which tends to lead to complacence: as long as all those other horse lovers are doing what I do, then it must be all right. Plus there's a collective action problem--one breeder can't breed horses for soundness if everyone else is shopping only on performance. With all the bad publicity various corners of the horse world have recently had, I hope that the equine world will get serious about policing its collective action problem and set up tougher standards that alleviate some of these problems.
It would be intresting to see if installing synthetic tracks nationwide would have a significant impact on injury rates. With a breakdown rate of 1 per 1000 starts, it strikes me that it may well be economical.
the Victorians who spent time investigating whether rocks had spirits, and the existence of fairies.
Last time I checked, that ghostbusters show was still running all the time on Discovery Channel.
I'm not against horse racing per se; anyone who has ever worked with show horses or race horses knows that the good ones really love what they do.
What about the bad ones? Have you determined that their lives are enjoyable as well?
Yeah but ghosts and the Chubacapra and Bigfoot are sensible. What kind of superstitious dolt thinks rocks have spirits!
Don't think to hard about about it and it makes sense.
The issue of extreme breeding is a concrete instance of Derek Parfit's Non-Identity Problem.
This is it -
If *not* for extreme breeding, then Eight Belles wouldn't have existed at all. So it surely can't be the case that Eight Belles is/was worse off than she would have been in a world without extreme breeding, because in that world she would not have been at all. So she was not harmed. So what's wrong about extreme breeding?
I just heard something I didn't know; the U.S. is the only major horse racing region in which it is allowed to have horses race while taking what the commentator called "therapeutic medicine". This allows horses which are fundamentally unsound to race and win, become valuable, and have their genes greatly expanded in the population. His point was that outlawing the use of these medicines when a horse races would prevent animals with less durability from having their genes become more prevalent. He also said the whip could be outlawed immediately, without effect on the quality of the competition.
12 year old girls that own a horse really, really love their horses. Race horses are investments. I have yet to meet a genuine "horse person" that looks favorably on the race industry.
Horse racing is in such a steep decline that any safety problems are likely to be self-correcting. While racing is not going to disappear anytime soon, by all indications it's going to keep on shrinking as its aging fan base dies off.
Have to dispute two points:
1) The dog comparison isn't a good one. Horse *are* bread for speed, stamina and durability. Health, in other words. Dogs are being bred purely for appearance. No one in their right mind would breed a racing horse that was beautiful but couldn't breath or walk right.
2) Has there really been an uptick in horse injuries? How significant is it? Eight Belles wasn't the first horse to break down in the Derby.
I suspect will is right on the medical side. The same is going on in football where players can be injected with pain meds and sent back out to get seriously injured.
One way to remedy horse racing's decline would also help with the safety problem caused when young horses are underdeveloped with respect to withstanding the rigors of racing.
The only race that the casual sports fan cares about is the Kentucky Derby. One race gets on the front page of every sports section in the country. For most sports sections, that's the only race to get that treatment. Another race, the Preakness, gets mild attention from the average sports fan. If those two races have the same winner, which is hardly typical, there will be some attention paid to the Belmont. If not, then no one thinks about the ponies for another 50 weeks (with the exception of the dwindling die-hards).
But what if there Derby weren't restricted to 3-year olds? People would then actually have a few years to follow the horses trying to qualify, such that the casual fan could take time to develop interest in particular horses? The triple crown races would have rivalries, multi-year duels between top horses. And immature horses wouldn't necessarily be rushed into their single chance at a big breeding payday.
Eight Belles might not be, but the breeding of Eight Belles, rather than a different, sounder horse, increased the net supply of suffering in the world.
Working with mustangs from BLM sales compared to former racing throughbreds has taught me a lot about the disadvantages of extreme selective breeding. Racing throughbreds do one thing really really well: run. Mustangs are good at well...being horses and doing what horses evolved to do. If I owned a horse I'd want a mustang-- I'd rather have a horse that lives a long time and can take me over rugged mountains than some porcelain running machine.
In fact, the total number of horses in the world is most certainly higher than it would be in a world without horse racing. So the net sum horse utility is most likely higher in this world than in the no-racing world. Of course a similar argument can be said of dairy cattle - my point is not that this means that we should have barbaric breeding practices for race horses and dairy animals, but that the proper moral principle to apply is not to maximize animal utility.
It turns out that Eight Belles and Barbaro share a bloodline. So not only does the breeding practice seem to have contributed to this, it was a known risk to the breeder and trainer. One can hope that this tragedy leads
Who are you? You really don't seem qualified enough in the area of animal welfare or horse racing to be offering up your opinion.
I seem to recall reading that 75% of the thoroughbreds racing today are descended from Native Dancer. Native Dancer was a very fast and somewhat fragile horse whose only loss was the 1953 Kentucky Derby.
I heard this morning that PETA was (thinking about? actually?) suing the jockey.
Unless this is a simple publicity stunt ("we decided not to pursue this... evil industry...etc") they'll get their butts handed to them on a plate. There's some real money involved and countersuits will be filed.
And I'd take an Arabian (bred) over a mustang for a trail horse. Their legs may require more care, but they have enough intelligence not to panic at rockfall.
"...anyone who has ever worked with show horses or race horses knows that the good ones really love what they do."
Hmmm. This statement seems fraught with philosophical peril.
If the jockey knew the horse was going to break down he would have pulled her up.
This is a matter of simple survival for the jockey.
If a horse breaks down the jockey is probably going to get dumped off the horse. He is going to get dumped into the middle of several thousand pounds of other horses moving at a high rate of speed. These horse are likely to stomp the jockey into the dirt with the very real risk of causing fatal injuries to the jockey.
If the jockey knew the horse was going to break down he would have pulled her up.
This is a matter of simple survival for the jockey.
If a horse breaks down the jockey is probably going to get dumped off the horse. He is going to get dumped into the middle of several thousand pounds of other horses moving at a high rate of speed. These horse are likely to stomp the jockey into the dirt with the very real risk of causing fatal injuries to the jockey.
MikeS -
Four of the last eight major races (the three triple crown races, plus the breeder's cup) have had a horse fatality on race day.
There are a few misconceptions that should probably be cleared up:
The synthetic vs. dirt argument has many dimensions, but even the safety one isn't completely clear. There has been a slight decline in injuries on artificial surfaces, but the racetracks that have installed artificial surfaces (Keeneland, Santa Anita, Arlington, Hollywood and a few others) are classier venues with better horses that are generally less susceptible to injuries overall.
The one area where synthetic may make a difference, interestingly enough, is in breeding. Synthetic racetracks play differently than dirt tracks. As odd as this sounds, speed is less important, while stamina is emphasized. Good horses on one track are bad on others; the horse that won the (synthetic) Bluegrass Stakes at Keeneland came in dead last in the Kentucky Derby, losing to horses that came in 10th and 11th out of 12 in the Bluegrass. As polytracks become more prevalent, breeders may very well begin emphasizing lines that are less speed-biased.
More important than the breeding lines, in my opinion, is the use of drugs. The U.S. and Canada are the only racing jurisdictions that allow drug use. However, horseracing is extremely fragmented industry, and imposing stricter standards creates a bit of a collective action problem, as no trainer wants to be the first to go cold turkey, and no track wants to be the first to impose strict standards and watch horses go elsewhere (actually, Delaware Park has done this and watched entries decline.) Drugs allow the horses to run in suboptimal situations and probably weaken the breed as a whole.
The two year old and three year old ban seems wrongheaded, in my view. Seabiscuit ran 35 races as a two year old. Horses would often race extra races in between the Triple Crown races- now, the schedule is considered too crueling. Those were three year olds too.
As for horse racing dying, I hate to revert to the old hoary Samuel Clemens line, but the death of horse racing has always been greatly exaggerated. The faces at the track and the OTB are a lot grayer than in yesteryear, but that's because today's generation does a lot more playing online, where they can receive rebates for their losses. Furthermore, a lot of tracks are doing just fine with families and younger people, although a lot of the classic circuits, such as Maryland, are in steep decline.
Just my two cents.
Can you start a sentence with 'too'? As in "Too, I think we should take a long, hard look at extreme breeding"? If so I might start doing that.
> He also said the whip could be outlawed
> immediately, without effect on the quality of the
> competition.
Maybe on the COMPETITION, but too many people would rather purchase their items in a tack shop than patronize one of those "adult book shops".
I don't believe horse racing is in steep decline. It's certainly not the broadly popular sport that it was 40 years ago, but to Steve Donohue's point, the sport is doing well economically.
Two-year-olds used to run much more frequently, but both breeding and scheduling have resulted in more fragile, more pampered horses. (I would think there's some similarity to be drawn with starting pitchers, who are both used less often and more injury-prone than they were decades ago....)
Too, this: "If those two races have the same winner, which is hardly typical, there will be some attention paid to the Belmont." Some attention doesn't seem to fit the bill -- if a horse has a chance at the Triple Crown, the Belmont usually gets a ton of attention.
A synthetic surface would not have made the Derby safer. No track is in better condition than Churchill on the first Saturday in May.
A horse breaking down so long after the finish is extremely rare. One of Unbridled's Song's progeny suffering an injury is not rare. Eight Belles inherited both speed and fragility from Unbridled's Song.