Hawthorne is now officially closed. This from BloodHorse: “The last three horses were vanned off the Hawthorne Race Course backstretch on the rainy Aug 31 morning…paving the way for the finalization of the sale of the property for redevelopment.” (Technically, the finale for Hawthorne came when training hours were concluded Aug 28.)
Hawthorne, as we previously reported, went bankrupt. Its closure leaves the whole of the Chicago area, once a thriving circuit, without a single track (previous closures this century: Sportsman’s, Maywood, Balmoral, Arlington), and the state itself with just one (Fairmount). In short, Illinois now joins the likes of Massachusetts, Michigan, Idaho, Oregon, and others as dead or moribund racing states.
While it may not always feel like it, folks, we are winning. Outside of Kentucky, two tracks in NY, two in California, and one in Arkansas, U.S. horseracing is a failed business being kept alive by taxpayer dollars. So today, let’s savor another victory. After abusing and killing horses for over a century, Hawthorne Race Course is no more – and the list grows.
Very well said, Sue!
For me, it was the outright animal cruelty that turned me off racing. Then I learned the rest of the story-how few people get good jobs at a track, that most people are paid low wages for the work they do, whether it’s in food services, general maintenance or working in the stables. I learned that for decades, tracks have been magnets for illegal workers, who make even less than documented workers, and are abused financially and live in fear that if they displease someone, or get sick or injured, immigration will be called. I learned how our tax dollars are being used to keep this “sport” alive with glitzy renovations of tracks, adding fancy restaurants, putting on concerts, and adding other forms of gambling to draw people-and how all these things have failed. And how our politicians think racing is worthy of being saved-no doubt the donations of the few wealthy horse owners to political campaigns have a lot to do with tax incentives and breaks to tracks, as well as the billions of dollars shelled out in grants to tracks each year.
I’m a die hard Union member, and I have seen the improvement to my life, a Union job has brought. I’m very sensitive to workers being abused by bosses, threatened, discriminated against, not paid what they’re worth and having no benefit, no protections against being injured on the job. I read how many jockeys, exercise riders and stable workers have traditionally been illegals, in this country escaping political persecution, or trying to provide for families back home who’d starve but for the money being sent. Jockeys nowadays may be citizens, or have permits to work there, but that’s reserved for the best, who get sponsored by rich trainers and owners. And jockeys are still considered self employed contractors, so if they get injured, they don’t qualify for workman’s compensation. That’s fair? Stable work still attracts illegals; it’s a transient life, moving from track to track all year long, so immigration has a hard time tracking these people.
But, it’s the fact that our state and federal governments sustain racing with grants and tax breaks. Governors appear on tv to award winners of big stakes races valuable trophies, and extol the virtues of a horse’s “connections.” Where are the politicians when a horse is put into a broken down trailer and dragged to its death over 8 miles? When a horse whose skeletal and muscular systems are not nearly mature enough for work breaks down on a track? When a horse whose skeletal is confined to a stall all day long, is fed on our schedule, not its body’s, not allowed to walk about and graze as nature designed it to, screams in agony as it dies of colic? Racing is government sponsored animal-and people-abuse.
Please save them.
Yes,I believe it is a dying business so
much non care cruelty to the animals, corruption all about the money, race fixing , money laundering and who knows what else
Sadly, Oregon racing is still going on at the county bull ring tracks & Grants Pass commercial meet. Wish it all would go away! As long as these tracks have HUB tax $$ provided to them for purses the county type tracks will keep going. We have ridden for many of the trainers now running at Grants Pass. Most are the bottom of the barrel type trainers. That`s why there at Grants Pass.
Spot-on, Sue. Thank you.
If people who didn’t see any harm in placing bets on racehorses had their eyes opened because they found out that hundreds and thousands of horses were being injured and many of those injuries turned out to be fatal injuries resulting in death to the horses by reading Horseracing Wrongs, then, yes, that is definitely a win.
If people became aware of the every day cruelty to the horses by reading Horseracing Wrongs, mission accomplished.
If people realized they were being duped by the industry and chose to stop being a sucker, more power to those people!
Yay!! And of course, the pro-racing folks are challenging us on social media on how WE are going to rehome and save their former racing horses with each closure, and as racing contracts.
Well, folks, WE have already been trying to rehome and rescue them for years. WE have already been stepping up to save horses we didn’t make money on, we didn’t create, we didn’t break down. But WE will keep doing what we can. In the meantime, the racing folks will continue to create, break down, and dump horses to slaughter, all the while expecting US to clean up their messes.