I have always held a special disdain for racing fans who, doubling as journalists, are gifted tremendous forums for spewing their deceptions, and thus are extremely influential in the court of public opinion. Exhibit A has always been Joe Drape of The New York Times. A close second for a long time was the LA Times’ John Cherwa. But with the latter, I’ve noticed a gradual shift over the past few years – indicating, perhaps, a growing internal conflict on his long-beloved sport. Last Friday, Cherwa wrote a column ahead of the Breeders’ Cup (BC). In the piece, Cherwa starts with the premise that rules implemented after the Santa Anita spring of ’19 made California racing safer. But, admits Cherwa:
“Without the intense public and media scrutiny, it’s unclear what safety improvements would have been implemented. In a tragic sort of way, without the crisis, the sport may not have moved so quickly to address the problem.”
Exactly. They acted only out of self-interest as their business was facing a public reckoning. As horses were being killed by the boatloads for decades, however, they did nothing. If that doesn’t do it, if that doesn’t damn this industry and the people who have made their livings off it, I’m not sure what will.
But even as Cherwa claims improvement – I have no doubt that deaths are being hidden, both in Cal and nationally – he notes recent backsliding:
“But with all the progress being made, and a true effort to fix this problem that generally repels people from the sport, the numbers are starting to go back up in California. According to statistics provided by the CHRB, the state had 128 fatalities in 2019, 96 in 2020, 71 in 2021, 64 in 2022 and 82 last year.”
Yes, and we’re at 91 this year – with almost two months to go. (Note: Although we shouldn’t, even if we removed the 12 who died from anemia at Los Alamitos, we’d still be on pace to far surpass last year – indeed, there have already been more deaths this year than in ’21 and ’22.) Then this:
“It raises the question: Has horse racing plateaued in its effort to make the sport safer? One fact you can’t escape is that horses will die in racing, despite all efforts.” Again, exactly. Even Lisa Lazarus, the shameful head of HISA, concedes that point: “Will we be able to reduce to the levels we did this year? Probably not. Will we have some years that are better than others? Probably.”
Cherwa then points out that HISA’s (and the Jockey Club’s) “metrics” include racing kills only, conspicuously ignoring training and stall. In short, he concludes, “Racing is not above trying to play with statistics to present a misleading view of deaths.”
Only at the end do Cherwa and I diverge. As he rightly points out that “some animal rights groups would like to see horse racing go away permanently,” he laments what this would mean for Thoroughbreds: “If that were to happen, the thoroughbred breed would be gone in the United States, as thoroughbreds are foaled almost exclusively for racing.”
He then adds, “But, being a race horse is a lot safer than horses that live in the wild, or even on farms.” For support on this, he quotes Lazarus again: “One thing that is difficult to get across from a public relations standpoint is the veterinary care that thoroughbred horses receive is far superior to what horses would get if in the wild. They get the best possible care. It’s not like they are in the wild suffering for six hours if they are injured. There is no good way to say that publicly.”
Listen, and “there is no good way to say this publicly,” a good life is more than having the bare necessities met, and existence is not necessarily better than nonexistence. If I were to tell you that after death you could be reborn to a life with zero autonomy, that you would be kept in solitary confinement for the vast majority of your days, that you would be drugged and doped without consent, that you would almost surely suffer from chronic ulcers and other painful maladies, that you would be regularly beaten with a whip, that, in short, you would be chattel, would you do it? Not I. I’ll take the nonexistence, thank you.
Love it when you single out specific members of the highly-journalistic, dead-horse-revealing racing press, Patrick. Cherwa’s one of my favorites (haha), mainly because he led the charge of the Blind Brigade during the SADT’s “Disaster Season” of 2019. He decided to start systematically reporting all Santa Anita kills in his stupidly-named (and since-flushed) “Racing!” column. But this was only after the real press took a deep dive into the SADT horse-killing topic. Cherwa’s since gone back to mentioning only a tiny percentage of all SoCal racehorse fatalities. And, of course, he still refers to 2019 as an outlier. It wasn’t, as you’ve pointed out all along.
So I think any changes he’s exhibited in coverage have less to do with his own moral reckoning than with a renewed understanding of how freaking ridiculous he appears when trying to toe the industry line about “Horse Safety” — while California continues its horse fatalities INCREASE.
Still, he deserves a couple bonus points for publicly admitting racing HAS TO kill horses.
So, bravo, Cherwa! (Maybe now they’ll give you your stupid column back;)
Every horse of whatever breed deserves to be protected from the vicious and the vile who not only do injury to thoroughbreds with malignant drugs, but those who terrorize and murder mustangs with helicopter chases resulting in mares aborting their foals while trying to escape from buzzing helicopters terrorizing them.
Foals who break their legs trying to catch up to the herd, etc. etc. In the 1960s, bum cowboys used to chase mustangs in trucks and run them to exhaustion so wild horses could be roped and captured (sold to be used as dog food ingredients). The Misfits (1961) exposed the despicability of how wild horses were treated for the exclusive purpose of selling for slaughter.
The film starred Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach. It is a revolting and graphic look at what happened to horses then and how America has not rectified its attitude towards horses — they are still commodities to be abused, tortured and murdered. Tennessee Walkers are another breed who are treated with repugnant violence by their breeders, buyers and trainers, deliberately laming them so their gait will be altered. All horses irrespective of breed must be protected from sociopaths who enjoy the torture and murder of horses.
In the case of the mustangs, the criminal politicians are cooperating with trans-global conglomerates to gain control of the American West…remove the mustangs and they have land for development, grazing, water, and mineral rates and the horses despite being declared Heritage animals lose their lives and |Americans in the end will be controlled by nations seeking world domination. There are 2 America’s in these contemporary times – The America that was built and cherished by people of integrity and values and the America that has been sold off to foreign investors with intentions to ruin and destroy not only America, but the world.
I think there are a lot of Mustangs roaming free on public lands that live many more years than the thousands of Thoroughbreds that are killed by the racing industry before they reach full maturity at the age of 6 years old. I believe there are a lot of BLM Mustangs that are older than 6 years old grazing on public lands. The Bureau of Land Management wants people to think that the horses are bad for the sage grouse but that’s because they want cattle grazing on public lands. The Bureau of Land Management sells grazing permits to cattle ranchers.
Isn’t it special that they didn’t do a study on how cattle grazing on public lands affects sage grouse???
They only did a study on the the Mustangs as to how they allegedly affect the sage grouse in order to justify the roundups of Mustangs from public lands.
Horses are not better off at racetracks. The people who exploit them for “a living” and don’t care that they (the people) are the ones causing the hideous injuries to these colts and fillies in training and racing are heartless and proud of it.
There are billions of dollars tied up in the racing industry and nothing gets the attention of a greedy person more than huge amounts of money.
I just HATE that specious argument that if we don’t breed Thoroughbreds to race, we won’t have Thoroughbreds. And? It’s better to breed horses to make them suffer and die, just to have them? No it’s not. And wild horses may have shorter lives, but they enjoy a freedom and the companionship of other horses that poor race horses will never know. I bet a Thoroughbred would trade 10 years of his life in confinement for a life of freedom.
No one could ever hope to improve upon Patrick’s words today. Just a masterpiece of writing that says it all…
Seems the government turn a blind eye to the cruelty and lack of welfare needs of the horse for the financial benefit they gain in taxes. If killing the horses is indicative of the industry it’s base is looking corrupt.