For me, the worst human beings do to animals is take away their autonomy, their freedom. Stick them in a cage, a crate, a tank, or, in the case of racehorses, a tiny 12×12 stall for the vast majority of their day(s). It is cruelty defined, all the more so for being done to social animals like horses. And, it is profoundly sad.
As part of an ongoing effort to educate the masses, I have asked various equine experts to weigh in on confinement. Follows is the first of a series. This one comes from the powerful pen of Jo Anne Normile, a former breeder and owner, founder of two successful rescues, and HW Advisory Board member (and, not so incidentally, a mentor to both me and Nicole in the early days, when we were learning all things about horses and horseracing). Jo Anne has been a frequent contributor on these pages, and I thank her kindly for this.
“River Wolf: Deprived by the Depraved”
by Jo Anne Normile
River Wolf entered this world on March 26, 1986, at a breeding farm in Florida. He wasn’t admired for his brilliant chestnut coat or his striking white blaze. Nor did he win love for his curiosity and fondness for humans. As far as his breeder, his owners and his trainers in the racing industry were concerned, River was a wishbone. He was their hope for money. If the wishbone breaks along the way, they would just make another. It was and is the way horseracing operates.
By 18 months of age if not sooner, River was abruptly taken from his equine friends and his pasture. Gangly, unfamiliar with life off the farm and still holding onto his baby teeth, River Wolf began serious training. No more could he frolic in a pasture, run with his other equine yearlings, bask in the bright Florida sun or take an equine bath in the sandy soil.
Deprived of life as he knew it – a life so critical to a young horse’s development and socialization – River was now confined to a stall 23 hours a day. His only time out was being led in hand, with a painful chain over his nose, or being ridden with a strange cold, metal bit in his mouth, or tethered to a scary walking machine. He could see other horses, but with absolutely no socialization. Like all racehorses, he was not even allowed to smell noses in a traditional equine greeting for fear he might acquire one of the many viruses that infest a racetrack.
Imagine living your life with no other human contact, alone in a closet (our equivalent to a track stall) for 11 long years. For you see, River Wolf made his first racing start at the tender age of two. This sweet gelding tried hard to please his connections, setting a track record at Philadelphia Park as a 4-year-old. By 1996, his tenth year racing, he was dropped into claiming races, laboring there for three years, with his race charts peppered with comments like “outrun,” “dropped back early,” “showed little” and “no factor.”
Bounced around among numerous owners and trainers, River lived at racetracks for 11 years. He was raced a punishing 170 times, earning his connections more than $200K along the way. Deprived of any semblance of a horse’s life, River was only allowed to leave the track when it was deemed he was worth more as a “meat horse” than as a racehorse. In his last race, River still tried his hardest but only brought his owner $59.
Stall confinement for 23 hours a day is standard for a racehorse. These horses are not only prone to ulcers, colic, respiratory problems and displacement behaviors such as pawing, digging, stall walking, self-mutilation, pacing, cribbing, head bobbing, and weaving, but they lose their identity as a horse. Stall confinement for 23 hours a day starting long before the age of two and lasting for 11 years is unconscionably wicked – the effects from which horses never recover. How could they? They have been deprived of life as they should know it.
River Wolf won the race for his life though. He avoided the meat truck and came into the Michigan CANTER racehorse rescue program in 1998. As founder of this program, I was anxious to show this sweet gelding that the green pastures of his early days still existed. No longer would he have to live an isolated life in a stall. He could graze again and actually have equine friends.
Refreshing River’s long ago memories, however, was not easy. You could leave his stall door wide open with a tempting view of freedom and a grass pasture before him, but River would remain there, shaking. It was one of the saddest things I saw in the thousands of horses I had taken off the track. He could be led, in hand, out to the lush open acreage, but immediately upon letting him free he would spin and charge back into his stall. He had spent his life confined for so many years, that was all he knew – or all he remembered.
River was not adoptable in the state he was in, and so the long process of teaching him how to be a horse again began. Incoming rescued racehorses need lay-up to heal from muscle soreness, hoof problems, torn tendons, strained ligaments, surgery, etc., and in addition they need time to heal from a life of depravation.
It took a long time for River to be semi-comfortable alone in a pasture. He was always tense and constantly eyeing the panorama for imagined dangers while alone in a two-acre pasture. It was even a longer time before he was willing to have an equine friend. When a young filly – so timid she was still doing the foal “clacking” to adults – was led into his pasture, River spun and bolted to the furthest corner, trembling in fear.
River was eventually adopted in 1999. This sweet 13-year-old former racehorse was loved and adored by Autumn, a 13-year-old girl (the pair, below). However, it was reported that he did not do well at boarding stables, as he stayed all alone, far away from all the other horses. He had freedom from stall confinement, but in his mind he was still imprisoned.
River was eventually moved to a private barn, and after even more time passed, he developed a mutual fondness with his only other pasture mates – two kind mares. Sadly, River experienced freedom and friends for only a few years of his life. He had to be euthanized at the age of 19. He was comforted by his loving owner, with kind words and soft strokes to his face and neck, until he was gone.
When you see a racehorse, any racehorse, know that they are living that same sad existence today. They are all River Wolf – gambling objects, deprived of the basic essentials of turnout and equine pasture-mates. They are all used and abused. Let us end this depravity.
Jo Anne Normile, a former racing breeder and owner, left the industry in disgust to start the CANTER program in 1997 – the first rescue program to remove horses directly from their stalls at the track. In 2014, her memoir, Saving Baby – How One Woman’s Love for a Racehorse Led to Her Redemption, was published by St. Martin’s Press. It relates her shocking experiences in Thoroughbred racing and the founding of CANTER. Signed hard copies of her book can be purchased through Horseracing Wrongs for $25, including shipping, with a portion of the proceeds donated to HW. Please send your requests to patrick@horseracingwrongs.com.
I love Jo Anne. This a such a profound subject. We are appalled (and rightfully so) by the horrific bodily injuries we read about daily. We also need to be reminded of the psychological damage done to horses who are confined, with every one of their natural instincts thwarted. It’s heart breaking, and there are so few people who are willing to put the time and patience into helping these horses recover. Thank you for publishing this story.
So true, Elizabeth. So true! To call this outrageously unacceptable abuse and neglect of horses “horsemanship” is outrageously wrong. It is sickening that anybody accepts this cruel confinement as acceptable.
Horses should not be confined to a stall longer than ten-hours at a time. Horses should be able to graze peacefully in a pasture/paddock that meets certain requirements for 14-hours per day, seven days a week.
Rebecca – Your perception was absolutely correct. I had similar thoughts visiting a public stables where the horses spent most of their time in their stalls. The owner of the facility was a Thoroughbred horse trainer. It was like a concentration camp, a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, were deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities except the persecuted and imprisoned behind bars were horses.
My off-the-track Arabian was a terrible wood chewer from his days on the track, and he would go ballistic if locked in a stall, pawing and banging on the walls.
One boarding and training barn I visited kept their horses stalled unless being ridden, and the atmosphere in that place was horrible. One horse just stood in the corner of his stall, rocking and banging his head against the wall. Another was aggressively biting the bars until his gums were bleeding. The stall walls were solid so there was no interaction, and the fronts had bars so the horses couldn’t even stick their heads out to look around. The horses were slowly going crazy and nobody but me thought it was wrong.
Thank you, Jo Anne – I remember this gelding but only because of your frequent words of love & concern about him to me – I never did get the opportunity to meet him. As you mentioned in your piece about the cruelty of confinement, there is difficultly in refreshing the memories of the many racehorses your organization, CANTER, rescued – my own tears flowed reading about dear River.
If racing industry members were truly that ignorant about the blatant cruelty of confinement, I could (possibly) forgive them for that; but we *always* read from them and the pro-racing “aftercare” organizations the proof they ARE aware when they toot their horns in pieces about newly-“retired” racehorses – ie, “he’s getting to be a horse and enjoying turnout” and the like. I’ve always wondered why those same folks beg for funds for more land with pastures & paddocks when all they’d need to do is build a simple barn with lots of stalls to continue warehousing the horses. Doesn’t that make sense – to keep providing that “royal treatment”? (forgive my snide disdain of the abusers today – reading about Ramadhaan’s unspeakable death at Laurel – confined IN A STALL – has me feeling especially raw)
Thank you again, Jo Anne…from River Wolf and the many used-up and crippled racehorses who had no chance of a life after racing if not for you.
“… Deprived by the Depraved” is such a perfectly fitting description of the people in this gambling racket who call themselves horsemen and what they do to horses. What the people in this depraved industry do to horses is not horsemanship at all.
My opinion is there needs to be more videos of the abnormal and neurotic behaviors that horses suffer from as a consequence of being deprived of having a normal and healthy life because of the depraved character of the people who engage in this unacceptable form of animal cruelty called horse racing.
The fact that there is money involved makes it “justifiable” to some people. As the saying goes “the love of money is the root of all evil” and this certainly applies to this horse-abusing, horse-doping, horse-killing gambling racket.