In a sport that thrives on a gambling culture and relies on complicated numbers, there is real pressure to make those numbers mean something. That translates, in horse racing journalism, to providing readers with complete context for the numbers behind their bets.
In the race for reader attention, horse racing media has become more specialized and nuanced than ever before, covering everything from race-day injuries to breeding and drug use. But the industry can’t escape its dark side. It is still creating, profiting off of and destroying thousands of thoroughbred horses every year.
The sport has evolved from a primitive contest of speed or stamina into an enormous public-entertainment spectacle with fields full of runners, sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment and massive sums of money. But the basic concept remains the same: a horse that runs faster and farther wins.
At Santa Anita last weekend, the sun was low in the sky and the backstretch shimmered with a pinkish light. The pack of horses and riders moved with a hypnotic smoothness, swooping over the track’s dirt surface with huge strides. War of Will, on the inside, hugged the rail as he made the turn to the far stretch. McKinzie, on the outside, was gaining, with Mongolian Groom close behind.
But as the pack approached the top of the stretch, McKinzie began to tire and lose ground to Mongolian Groom. And at the top of the stretch, the horse with the highest finishing place won, a chestnut colt named Vino Rosso. The crowd roared.
For decades, the overwhelming majority of thoroughbreds in the United States have received a drug called Lasix, noted on the racing form with a boldface “L.” This is supposed to reduce the risk that hard running will cause horses to bleed from their lungs, a dangerous condition known as exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage.
The drug works by unloading epic amounts of urine — twenty or thirty pounds’ worth. It is an effective and relatively safe performance-enhancing tool, but it comes at a cost.
The industry can’t hide behind the veil of its breed registry and its claim to “create and verify” every horse it uses in a race. It can’t pretend that it is not accountable for what happens to these horses when they leave the track — where they hemorrhage into a slaughter pipeline and are offered Facebook posts and short windows of opportunity to be rescued by independent nonprofit rescue groups before being shipped overseas to end their lives. It’s a hellish way for a horse to die. But there are better ways to fix a horse race than juicing a thoroughbred. The industry can start by providing an adequate, industry-sponsored wraparound aftercare solution for all the horses it creates, profits off of and ultimately kills. Then it can begin the work of repairing its damaged reputation.