Horse Racing is all Animal Abuse and Corruption

Hola! A few years back I had a coworker who had just turned 21. Like all just turned 21 year old, he wanted to do two things immediately. 1. Buy alcohol legally and 2. Gamble. So, he decided to take his girlfriend to Hot Springs, AR to go to the horse races. After he got back I asked him how he did and he told me that he pretty much lost all his money. Then he turned to me with a very confused look on his face and said “You know, several times when it looked like someone was cruising to victory, they would actually pull up and end up finishing out of the money.”

Imagine that. Horseracing … FIXED!? Say it isn’t so! Next you’ll tell me that boxing is fixed too.

I have been to the horse races several times. I’ve never really won any money at them because I don’t know

dick about it. I always buy the advice sheets, check the racing report in the paper and then take wild guesses as to which horse might win. But, I made a day of it, ate nachos, hot dogs, corned beef sandwiches and drank lots of beer to make up for the lack of winning. I enjoyed the races but there was always something about the whole thing that was kind of … unseemly.

Anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to vices like drinking, smoking, sex and gambling, my libertarian side comes out. Do I know that gambling preys on the poor and that horse tracks (and especially dog tracks) attract a “bad element?” And do I know that in so many places horse tracks (and especially dog tracks) are surrounded by drug houses, strip clubs and adult “theaters?” Yes, and I don’t care.

The problem with horse racing is its level of corruption and the treatment of the horses. Anytime you have a sport that is mostly rich people competing and there is enormous amounts of money at stake, you’re gonna have a lot of cheating and corruption. I think as a society we’ve just accepted this kind of thing, but we really shouldn’t because it’s the greed and corruption that causes the abuse of the animals.

Owners and trainers shoot the horses up with all kinds ofdrugs and growth hormones so they can race them earlier and more often than they should. You might claim NFL, MLB and NBA guys are shooting up with HGH too and that’s true. But, humans have the ability to decide for themselves to take the risk of HGH and the oppoeable thumbs to give themselves the shot. Horses don’t have that. They have to just take it. Hundreds of racehorses are severely injured or killed while racing each year.

When you watch the Kentucky Derby you’ll see all kinds of video of retired racehorses living out their

twilight years in Horse Heaven. They get put out to stud and just run free in the bluegrass fields and have sex all day every day. But for every retired racehorse that is living that life hundreds, if not thousands are simply run until they completely breakdown and are then shipped off to the glue factory.

“These horses are born to run?” True, but they’re not born to race. They’re trained to race and that training is brutal. They start them before their bones have fully formed, shoot them full of drugs and run them hard very early and often. Once they are no longer any use to the owners, the horses are then disposed of. The lucky ones are placed at a retired horse park and do live good lives. But, the vast majority of them are sold off to other people who continue to try to make money off racing them (either legally or in illegal match races) or are sold off to people who will transport them to Canada, Mexico or Asia to be slaughtered.

It’s possible for someone to go to the races and enjoy the sport and the betting all that great stuff, but we all need to remember what we’re also supporting when we do so.

Jayman3768@gmail.com
Facebook.com/Jayman68
@Jayman_IWS

*On Thursday good friend of IWS Radio, Justin in Lexington will guest post here in support of horseracing.