In an LTE to the Paulick Report, Kyle Rothfus, founder of a rescue nonprofit (and also a breeder/owner) writes:
“The recent discovery of two dozen Thoroughbred broodmares in a Texas kill pen has sparked a familiar response. Advocates are identifying horses, rescues are searching for placement options, donors are opening their wallets, and social media is busy trying to determine who should be blamed. Meanwhile, the question that matters most remains largely unanswered: how did this happen?”
He goes on: “[W]hen Thoroughbreds surface in kill pens, the investigation is often left to private citizens, advocates, rescues, and volunteers who are trying to piece together information on their own.
“Too often, the industry mobilizes resources only after horses are standing in a kill pen. … We cannot continue operating in a reactive model.
“What the industry needs is not another round of social media outrage. What it needs is a commitment to finding answers. Because every Thoroughbred that ends up in a kill pen represents more than a horse in danger. It represents a failure we did not fully understand, a lesson we did not fully learn, and another opportunity for our critics to argue that we are unwilling to police ourselves.
“Until we start treating these incidents as systemic failures worthy of investigation and correction, we should not be surprised when they continue to happen. And every time they do, we hand our critics another bullet in the gun aimed at taking down the entire Thoroughbred industry.”
My question: How many of these horseracing-must-do-better pieces do we have to read? This has been going on for decades; hundreds of thousands of industry throwaways have been violently and brutally butchered. And still they haven’t figured it out? That alone should be enough for our 21st Century society to say, no more; horseracing has to go.
Let’s publish the names of the owners and trainers US wide
Write Rep Nick Langworthy ( R NY) about horse racing and the reasons it needs to end. He just got a facility that breeds beagles for research close and the dogs sent to shelters. He’s been blowing his horn about this the past week. I wrote him an email asking that he work to end racing, and the reasons why it should be shut down. He didn’t answer but I didn’t expect him too. He and I have gone round and round in some things, including how he defends trump no matter what. But, if we point out that tax dollars are going to prop up a dead sport few care about, the treatment of the horses, the haven for illegal immigrants, the gambling problem this country has, maybe he’ll at least put a few sides to researching horse racing.
“My question: How many of these horseracing-must-do-better pieces do we have to read? This has been going on for decades; hundreds of thousands of industry throwaways have been violently and brutally butchered. And still they haven’t figured it out?”
Answer: The entire corrupt, evil industry needs to be judged by its outcomes not its intentions. Shut horseracing down!
The first step in getting equine justice established and enforced is getting all horses (not just thoroughbreds, but all equines) as sentient creatures and not “commodities’. At the Fasig- Tipton sales office (late 19709s), I had a vigorous conversation with an ignorant personage who described horses as “commodities”. Horses are not things, they are not crops, energy resources, agricultural products, or precious metals. They are creatures that are made of the same components as Christ the Man: flesh, heart, blood, water, soul, spirit, intelligence. They feel pain and suffering, they know distress and express grief when their young die or they lose a beloved human. They are loyal and faithful when the majority of humans are incapable of such distinctions of character.
In the 70’s the argument against animals rights was they don’t have a soul. When I challenged a member of the clergy on this issue, he couldn’t refute or defeat my contention. Then some determined ministers decided to say animals do not have a spirit because they were not given “The Holy Spirit.” They can’t preach Word. However, they are overlooking what spirit means: Courage, Endurance, Persistence, Intelligence, Faithfulness, the ability to feel sorrow and exhibit grief. Well, animals didn’t need the Holy Spirit to come into their souls because they were not created to evangelize humanity, but to give us joy in their company and to help improve the world with labor and companionship.
Additionally, humans required the efforts of the Apostles to Deliver the Word, animals already had knowledge of God and they obey Him better than humans as recorded in the Book of Genesis. God sent them to the Ark whereas the corrupted population of humanity was not included on the manifest of the Ark.
Unless we do battle to get legislation that will register all animals as living creatures deserving of special rights of compassion and legally recognized under God’s laws their entitlement to enjoy a peaceful and protected existence, we will remain a world of cruelty and violence – a world that is flagrantly contemptible and immoral.
Rebecca, what you said describes Steve Asmussen’s father, Keith Asmussen, perfectly. He sold some broodmares at a livestock auction and after being caught, he wanted everyone to believe that he is a genius horseman who had been in the business for 70 ish years and yet also acted like he’s dumber than a box of rocks.
He claimed he didn’t know that there were still kill buyers attending livestock auctions.
It is so obvious that he was lying. How can he not be embarrassed to death that everyone with an ounce of intelligence knows he lied?
There has to be a factor of humanity in this lousy industry. This is lacking in monumental preportions. I just don’t get it and never will.
Excellent, Rebecca.
This acknowledgement by Kyle Rothfus, an industry insider, that the racing industry is failing to police itself is sort of a clog in the drain for a lack of a better choice of words. As you pointed out, this steady flow of horses from the racing industry to the slaughter pipeline and literally to the slaughterhouses is and has been ongoing for years and years.
By “clog in the drain” I mean that someone inside the industry noticed 24 broodmares in a kill pen which is more than the usual number of horses going through just one horse dealers’ business in a day or a week that I have seen online.
It’s very telling that it takes a person inside the industry to write a letter to the editor of a racing industry publication to call attention to their blatant failures to “police” themselves.
Imagine the people in this industry with earnings of over Ten-Million Dollars a year who would rather be known for getting their pictures taken inside of a cockfighting ring in Puerto Rico and how much they care about what happens to racehorses after the industry has exploited them for racing and breeding. How much money did the Ortiz brothers donate to a bona fide racehorse rescue??? How much money would it take to save the Jockey Club registered horses being sold to kill buyers???
I expect the Breeders’ Sales auctions and the Paulick Report to continue to boast about the high selling young horses in the future as if no billionaire race horse owner in this despicable industry cares about what happens to old broodmares.
The racing industry is so wrapped up in its own propaganda regarding its dependence on slaughterhouses that it still believes if it clutches its pearls and feigns ignorance, people will continue to believe it’s in no way culpable for the brutal butchering of thousands of sentient beings.