NY recorded its first official kill of the new year yesterday. This from the Gaming Commission for 2-year-old True Kew: “unraced horse sustained an injury while galloping at Belmont; horse was vanned by ambulance to Cornell [and] subsequently euthanized.”
Killing baby horses every day – this is horseracing.
Another depraved aspect of this inherently cruel industry is the pretense of saving a catastrophically injured horse by transporting said horse to “Cornell” in New York and in other states the various other universities and veterinary clinics or hospitals (such as Rood & Riddle). The billing for emergency veterinary care services whatever that may include whether surgeries, euthanasia, or necropsies is part of “this big money machine” called a sport that also cannot support itself without public taxpayer subsidies.
So there is money to be made in horses that have been injured on purpose. The abuse to the horses is deliberate. It’s a no-brainer that very young and underdeveloped fillies and colts are going to breakdown under this forced exercise and lack of natural development. It is not rocket science. It is PREDICTABLE as Elizabeth said and not only predictable but planned.
This is exactly how the industry always phrases it: “sustained an injury,” “subsequently euthanized,” as if this were some tragic accident instead of the predictable outcome of pushing immature bodies to run at extreme speeds for gambling profits. A 2-year-old is a baby. Their bones aren’t finished developing. Their tendons aren’t ready. But the industry depends on racing them young, so they break and when they break, they’re killed. This isn’t a freak occurrence. It’s the business model. If your sport requires a steady body count of dead horses, the sport is the problem. True Kew was a baby. Two years old. He should have been growing, playing, learning how to be a horse not collapsing on a racetrack and dying for gambling profits. He was scared. He was in pain. He trusted humans and this is what they did to him.
Everything about how this industry operates is fundamentally depraved and inherently cruel. There is no such thing as “cleaning up” this morally depraved industry of exploiting horses from birth to death.
These people who call themselves “horsemen” break the fundamental rules of horsemanship; they start horses when they are still growing and therefore obviously immature and underdeveloped.
The racing commissioners and stewards could call out the brutal exploitation of starting colts and fillies at way too young of an age, but they have not and they will not ever change their behavior or their twisted beliefs as long as there are no extremely serious consequences.
Who do the commissioners answer to? Are they not involved in the crime of ANIMAL CRUELTY themselves? Are they not in a position to gain financially from the cruelty to the horses?
The use of performance enhancing drugs has been a part of horse racing as much as the gambling and the whips and the tongue ties.
The sociopathic greed of human beings who continue to use and abuse horses for racing and gambling no matter what happens is a moral issue that cannot be cleaned up unless the individuals are willing or capable of being anything other than evil.