The box score for the 7th at Laurel yesterday includes this incidental: “Camulus…was injured leaving the 5/16 and lost the rider; after being evaluated by the track vet it was determined that injury was not repairable and horse was euthanized on the track.” Camulus was four years old. The complicit: Six Pack Stables, Mark Salvaggio, Tyler Conner, and all who support the U.S. horseracing industry, anywhere, in any way.
Staying in Maryland, our very own Bailey Chapman had a “Reader Commentary” published – both online and in the Sunday print edition – in The Baltimore Sun. Here is the link (I encourage you to support The Sun as it has afforded our side several opportunities over the years). And the text below. Thank you, Bailey. Great writing, wonderful activism (note: print circulation alone for the Sunday Sun is around 125,000).
Maryland First Lady Dawn Moore recently said the following about the Preakness Festival: “It’s ‘not just about honoring a storied tradition, it’s about building an inclusive future'” (“Preakness Festival to be headlined by downtown concert featuring DJ D-Nice and BSO,” March 14). At what point will we retire this “storied tradition” and leave animal cruelty in the past, allowing us to truly move towards an inclusive future in which we invest in our people and community?
What will the breaking point be? When people notice the hundreds of horse deaths (specifically, 369 racehorse deaths at Maryland tracks since 2014), $400 million (including taxpayer subsidies) funneled to decrepit tracks or perhaps the decreasing attendance, allowances, starts, purses, and foal crop? Does the dwindling track attendance not equate to a lack of interest, one that shouldn’t have our scant resources thrown at it in an attempt at resurrection?
Rather than bail out the dying horse racing industry, I implore Gov. Wes Moore, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Maryland’s first lady to invest in the future of our struggling Baltimore communities. Let us lay this “tradition” to rest, in hopes of birthing a new, brighter future for Baltimore, one without the costly and unnecessary abuse of horses.
– Bailey Chapman, Baldwin
So well said, Bailey!! Well done!
Great article, Bailey!
What makes the blood, the guts and the gore of killing horses glamorous?
Is it that most of the death and killing of racehorses is swept under the rug in order to keep people ignorant of the reality of racing?
Is it the enticement of winning bets on horses (that are most likely doped as much as the trainers can get away with and therefore have a higher probability of breaking down sooner)?
Is it the owners and trainers wearing suits that makes horseracing seem glamorous? Is it the women wearing fancy dresses and hats? Is it the parties and the drinks?
Is it the public relations playbook of the horseracing industry that keeps the general public as ignorant as possible about the reality of the pain and suffering and death inflicted on the horses?
People of normal intelligence ought to feel insulted by the horseracing industry’s deliberate use of a public relations playbook that relies heavily on falsehoods and half-truths.
Would it be glamorous to have a Memorial Service to Remember the Thousands of Horses that are KILLED by HORSERACING??? The racing industry will never be that respectful to the horses.
To have a public acknowledgement of the thousands of horses killed by racing would be completely contradictory to sweeping the killings under the rug. Without the names and sometimes ‘no names’ and vital statistics of horses killed by racing reported here, there would be more people walking around with their eyes figuratively closed to the outrageous numbers of horses killed by racing every day, week, month, year.
I submitted a letter to The Sun Paper too, as a non-subscriber. I doubt they will print more than one on this subject since so much is going on out here, so I’m sharing it here. I will send it to some other papers too, since it’s not published:
LTE: I was sad to read that Maryland’s first lady believes that horseracing is a “storied tradition” to be “honored.” To many Marylanders, horseracing is a shameful industry that causes great harm to countless numbers of horses who are bred, broken, brutalized and then discarded. The facts are in. One only needs to scratch the surface. All the veneer comes off and the storied tradition becomes a distressing nightmare. No Preakness festival can bring honor to animal abuse, which horseracing clearly is. There is nothing festive to celebrate and I regret that so much time and effort is being spent to prop up a ruthless industry masquerading as sport and entertainment. I hope Marylanders will do the right thing and boycott this festival.
Bravo, Bailey! Maryland is one of those “old world” racing states, like Kentucky and New York, where people are falsely sentimental about horse racing, equating it with nineteenth century elegance and wealth. Time to debunk the myths. Thank you, Bailey.