In an LTE published in BloodHorse Friday, prominent breeder Roderick Wachman makes his appeal for industry unity, calling for the “agenda-driven squabbling to stop and for everyone to put their shoulders to the wheel and try to take control of our industry’s destiny.” What drew me, though, were his first few lines:
“The Thoroughbred industry continues to shrink and has a massive damage control and marketing issue. As things stand, we look like a passenger ship on a collision course with an iceberg. … Clearly, the anti-racing lobby is well supported and is getting prime-time slots on mainstream media.”
Then this: “We’ve all seen what happened to Greyhound racing, and horse racing seems to be on the same fateful path.”
Not seems, Mr. Wachman, is.
Joe, to be honest, I would never have known that there were multiple numbers of horses being killed by racing on a DAILY BASIS without the Horseracing Wrongs website informing readers of the reports of dead racehorses from the Freedom Of Information Act requests made by Patrick B.
Sweeping the information about dead race horses under the rug is par for the course in this industry.
I saw a horse drop dead for no obvious reason during a race at Centennial race track in Colorado in 1980. They didn’t show the replay of that race and there was no explanation given for her sudden death. That was a first for me. I had never seen anything like that before that time. I can understand how the industry would want to hide the facts as much as possible to keep people coming back to bet on the horses, however I didn’t go to very many tracks and didn’t have the money to burn.
IN all the time that I was actively betting horses, breakdowns, fatalities, life threatening injuries were- or so I erroneously thought – aberrations, occasional unavoidable accidents, and NOT by any means, an everyday occurrence.
Yes, I was wrong.
But not only did the industry do a much better job of hiding the horrors of the sport, one must realize that because horses needed to be in tip-top shape to perform, AND collect the purse money, I believe they were somewhat better cared for. If not, they’d lose. And back then, losing meant “no money $$”
Horrors.
But now, with the “get-them-in-the-race- at-all-costs-and-pick up-a-paycheck” mentality, equine “care’ has really gone right out the window. Of course, the rampant drug use is another leading cause of horses at two and three years old dying of heart attacks. But this dying industry’s days are most certainly numbered, with race tracks closing down right and left. It’s on life support, and sooner or later, there’ll be no choice BUT to pull the plug. It may come down to the Triple Crown, Breeder’s Cup and the Saratoga meet sooner than we think, and I think Saratoga will be the first to go. The premier race meet in the country has been reduced to many 4, 5 and 6 horse fields, and take it from this former bettor: we don’t like 4, 5 and 6 horse fields as the wagering opportunities are found in races with full fields.
Watch for a decrease in handle for the summer 2024 Saratoga meet. I’d bet on that..
A few years back we’d never have thought that major race tracks like Hollywood Park, Golden Gate Fields, Hialeah and soon – Aqueduct – would be razed to the ground. But they have, they are, and I firmly believe that it’ll be “good night nurse’ to horse racing before too much longer. The state of the industry is already being compared to the now all-but-dead greyhound racing. Not good if you make your living in the horse racing business, for sure.
-Joe
Great News.
Joe, I am also glad that you could comprehend that this use and abuse of horses as gambling objects or chips is rotten to the core and that you made the choice to walk away from this pit of evil.
Thank you for your determination to not continue in this vile activity as a handicapper/ bettor/ gambler. I feel you are different from many of those people involved in this industry of abusing, crippling, maiming and killing horses in that you indicate having a conscience when you refer to injured and doped racehorses as being “infirm” horses. Obviously, there are many people in this industry who don’t care that infirm horses are being forced to run as gambling objects/ chips for whatever purse money is offered no matter how much or how little the payouts might be.
When I was actively involved in betting horses, the ”game” was different:
1. Racing was self-sufficient – it could survive, and was even thriving on its own.
2, Payouts were paid only when you effectively COMPETED, i.e., finished1st, 2nd 3rd., hence the term ‘In the money”; you didn’t get a “participation trophy” – or cash- for just running the race and maybe finishing dead last.
These two factors are, IMHO, more than anything else, putting a death knell on the sport. Not that I ever considered this sport was squeaky-clean, and it’s dark underside was always there – but what we are seeing now is desperation for an industry that cannot survive on its own and never again will.
And the insiders all know that. They’re just trying to wring the last dollar out of it while they still can – horses and horse suffering be damned.
Horse racing, your days are numbered, and I, for one am glad that I no longer have any part in it.
-Joe
Miracles do happen!!! Five years ago, I could not have imagined this.
But now I more than imagine. I truly believe this barbaric sport will
be a thing of the past in my lifetime, and I’m an old guy.
Awesome!!
I love it when die-hard horse exploiters write letters to the editor of a racing industry publication and expose their fears, worries, concerns, complaints and et cetera.
It’s ironic, in my opinion, that an industry that calls itself a sport and a game (and has had at least a few people within the industry admit that KILLING HORSES is just “part of the game”) and that the owners and trainers and others are in constant COMPETITION with each other all the time to win races and such, throw their moral backbone out the window (if they ever had a moral backbone) and stoop to CONSTANT CHEATING and DOPING the horses with ILLEGAL drugs and ILLEGAL USE of legal drugs and therefore put the horses’ lives at constant high-risk of injuries and premature deaths in addition to the everyday abuse of forcing underdeveloped colts and fillies to carry weight on their backs and gallop fast would call for “unity” of sorts.
Organized crime and support of it is what this man is calling for. What could possibly be wrong with that…?
Yes! 👏
The people I talk to are scared just as that article states…love it!
Thank the LORD
Great!!!! I disagree with Mr. Watchman that the industry has a marketing problem. It has a cruelty problem. You can’t market that. As for “damage control,” if they didn’t have so much relentless, daily “damage,” they wouldn’t have to worry about people finding out. The only way the damage stops is to end the industry for good. I can only hope his fears about horse racing going the way of greyhound racing is one hundred percent spot on!!
Hallelujah
YES!!