Earlier in the month, the Long Island Herald ran a piece on Belmont’s grand reopening today. In response, I submitted the following LTE. (Note: At the time of writing, 82 horses had perished during the rebuild. With the two reported this week, it is now 84.)
Lost in your Sep 4 article on the reopening of the “new and improved Belmont Park” – “expanded fan spaces, new dining and hospitality options, live entertainment,” etc. – this week are the moral considerations, starting with this: horses die at American racetracks every single day – in fact, on average about five. And Belmont leads the way.
Based on data from the past five full calendar years (’21-’25), and accounting for the extra dates Belmont will absorb from the now-closed Aqueduct, the new Belmont Park will instantly become the deadliest racetrack in America – with an average of 50 kills per year at Belmont/Aqueduct since 2021. (In fact, although Belmont has been closed for racing during the rebuild that started in 2023, horses have still been training and, as was inevitable, dying there – 82 to be exact.) But it’s so much more than death.
The typical racehorse is torn from his mother as a mere babe, thrust into an intensive training regimen at 18 months – long before his body is even remotely mature – and first raced at two, the rough equivalent of a first-grader. From there, the incessant grinding – again, on an unformed skeleton – begins, because if he’s not racing, he’s not earning. He is confined (alone – to a tiny 12×12 stall for over 23 hours a day), commodified (auctions, “claiming races”), controlled (nose chains, lip chains, tongue ties, eye blinders, mouth bits), and cowed (whips). Bought and sold multiple times over the course of his so-called career, he lives a stressful, tenuous existence that in and of itself causes pain: studies show that upward of 90% of active racehorses suffer from chronic ulcers.
Worse still, all the above – the killing, the cruelty – is made possible by NYS taxpayers. First, because the New York Racing Association (NYRA) could not secure private financing for the Belmont rebuild, it had to turn to the state, where Governor Hochul was only too happy to authorize almost a half-billion dollars in a state-backed loan. What’s more, that loan will be repaid through the state subsidies NYRA already receives. So to what extent, exactly, is horseracing subsidized in NY? All told, the 10 remaining tracks are gifted roughly $250 million annually – almost $4 billion since the subsidies began in 2004.
In short, horseracing is cruel; horseracing is deadly. Not only should we not be subsidizing it, horseracing, like its animal-racing cousin, dogracing, should be consigned to the trash heap of history.
Thank you, Lisa. Indeed a horse killed at Belmont yesterday.
Thank you, Steve.
You said a mouthful and then some. You hammered home all the points that make it obvious to thinking people how depraved and deviating-from-normal these money grubbing people of the horse racing industry actually are and you have the Freedom Of Information Act reports from the racing commissioners of New York State to back it up that when you say the number of horses killed by racing, it’s a fact.
Very true statement. Just look at the charts for today at Belmont Park. Some of the horses barely finished their races . As the weekend progresses the worse is yet to come for the horses that have no choice but to run to their death.
The brutal reality of horse racing perfectly stated. Impossible to argue with the facts.
Thanks Patrick.
Great letter, Patrick !!!