Among a slew of whipping “violations” (for “excessive or indiscriminate use” and the like) reported by the U.S. Trotting Association last week, were these (all emphases mine):
Yonkers, May 13: “Driver Jason Bartlett, while driving #7 Ayr Corleon Gb, did cause injury to the horse with his whip. Bartlett is hereby suspended from driving for three days and fined the sum of $250.” They added: “This is his 2nd whipping offense in 365 days. Future violations will result in increased penalties.”
Plainridge, Jun 12: “Driver Drew Campbell did leave welts on #4 Alex Having Fun. Mr. Campbell is hereby fined the sum of $300.” Campbell, the regulators say, also “used the whip more than three times in succession without allowing the horse time to respond to the urging.” Yes, “urging.” And again, because leaving welts once apparently wasn’t enough: “Subsequent violations of this nature will result in increased penalties.”
Circleville Fair (Ohio), Jun 14: “Charles Bolen continued to use the whip in an excessive manner on #4 Kefiro after the finish and into the barn area. Mr. Bolen is fined $500, or [amount not legible] if not appealed.”
In other news, it’s now official: There will be no horseracing in Northern California this year, as the CHRB voted down bids from the Ferndale and Fresno fairs for 2025 dates. Fabulous, of course. Even better is this excerpt from the Thoroughbred Daily News’ take, published yesterday:
“Looking at the bigger picture, there’s no escaping that Thoroughbred racing in America is mired in an era of contraction in which tracks, many of them corporately controlled, are either slashing race dates or attempting to completely get out from under the burden of subsidizing horses running around in circles.
“Just last week, 48 hours before the CHRB votes on Ferndale and Fresno, the sport’s headlines were dominated by the news that the gaming company Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI) had fairly quickly wrangled concessions out of Louisiana horsemen that included purse cuts for the upcoming 2025-26 meet at Fair Grounds.
“Those clawbacks were the result of CDI, on June 9, threatening to abandon racing at the historic New Orleans track because a series of recent gaming-related decisions in the Louisiana courts and legislature didn’t go its way.
“Considering that CDI, in the past decade, has made good on threats to pull out of racing at two other high-profile tracks over alleged profitability issues, its intimidating tactics have become a familiar page out of the gaming company’s corporate playbook that come with very real follow-through consequences.
“The chief takeaway is that at a time when corporations and conglomerates like CDI (which in the past 20 years has closed Arlington and Calder and unloaded Hollywood Park to the land developer that later razed it) and TSG (which has ended racing at Golden Gate and Portland Meadows and this year threatened to do the same at Gulfstream), are putting into place exit strategies, it’s amazing that there are still individuals out there who want to make a go of running racetracks.
“You think there are problems now with the Ferndales and Fresnos of our racing ecosystem practically begging for a handful of race dates? What do you think it will be like when no one is willing to step up and take on the daunting gamble of giving horses a place to race?”
One person’s handwringing is another’s satisfaction.
Yes, it is very telling when pro-racing and pro-slaughter people ask — What about the horses? — as if it is someone else’s responsibility to provide actual love and proper care for their disposable horses that they claim to love so much when they are on the verge of having no public support for their daily routine mistreatment and killings of their “beloved” horses.
Isn’t it so obvious that if the appropriate answer was a horse, these self-proclaimed horsemen and horsewomen who say they love their horses so much would have been kicked in the face already!!??!!
Oh, woe is me, who if I can’t race my horse that I love so much, at someone else’s financial expense via taxpayers subsidies of various sorts, etc. then it’s someone else’s fault that I refuse to provide proper care for my horse. Boo hoo! Boo hoo! Oh, woe is me! Boo hoo! (Call the meat man, whats his name…) It’s all someone else’s fault. Boo hoo.
No handwringing here – rather, vigorous applause.
As always, the general public will work hard to provide homes & sanctuary for the horses the industry will dump while it continues on the path to its long-overdue demise – that, for the tired (and telling) question the industry & its supporters *always* ask in their weak response to our exposing the facts of racehorse-crippling, killing & dumping into the slaughter pipeline.