https://www.horseracingnation.com/news/TOC_board_member_Im_for_animal_rights_and_horse_racing_123#
I wonder if he is a bit confused?
Animal rights, if we humans should even have animals and what I think he means, animal welfare, are two hugely different things.
Until he understands that, well, he won’t understand where animal rights extremists are coming from, why there is no meeting of the minds there.
While emotion has some to do with how people feel about animal rights and welfare, that is by far not the only place animal rights extremist propaganda comes from.
They use emotion to push their agenda, that is giving animals total rights to the point of making them off limits to humans.
Don’t kid yourself, the untold millions they have amassed is one important driver also, it is a very lucrative field.
Their efforts are not to be dismissed so easily as “just emotional folks”.
Animal rights extremists and other such non-profits pushing the cause of the moment have hit on a horn of plenty with their emotional pleas to the public, but don’t think that is what determines how the ones running those shows dance.
The past several years animal rights groups stated they were focusing on changing animal rights thru the legal process, have thousands of focus groups not doing any but working against any and all we may do with animals and lawyers employed for that.
They are using some of those riches for international drives, recently hitting countries that are easier to get laws passed in their interest, like Switzerland and Spain, to then use those as precedents for their demands in other countries.
This is way too complicated a topic to dismiss, as he seems to do, as just a bunch of clueless, emotional people that don’t really know what all we do with our animals, here race horses, let me tell them how much we love them.
He better not assume that and miss what the real issue is, animal rights, not just animal welfare.
Been at this a whole lifetime and know that is the score, that he seems to not have realized yet.
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I would agree with Pronzini, interesting perspective.
I also agree with Bluey that the writer is a bit confused over animal welfare vs animal rights. I doubt he will ever get animal rights organizations to ever dial down the emotional as that is what drives their financial bus.
I did snicker a bit at his comment that TBs need constant care and supervision. What on earth does he think happens to OTTBs (including horses like my mare who technically was never on the track to be an OTTB 
). She got the same care as non TBs in the barn. She got pretty dang expensive colic surgery when it was needed (and lived another 15 or so years). She lived out her days in pasture bordered by barbed wire and simple shelter surrounded by people who loved her.
To expand the issue and not to minimize what the author composed, what good does it do to write an op-ed to a friendly audience? One of the most disturbing trends in the Santa Anita debacle and the progress made by anti-racing activists is that individual industry participants have been pretty much left to fight the fight on their own. Aside from a couple of issued statements by the NTRA and Jockey Club, there’s been no push back or guidance from industry leadership.
Good point. The NTRA has been useless IMO and the Jockey Club, which ostensibly is the registry organ we all must use, seems hellbent on fighting turf wars and picking sides. Someone please tell Janney that the 50s aren’t coming back any time soon and the next time that a hit piece wants a comment from you criticizing the sport, please decline.
At the same time, someone get the Keeneland people to construct the sport’s PR campaign because their ad called “Life’s work” struck exactly the right note.
But of course, the sport’s journalism is abysmal. I know that Paulick Report is essentially an aggregator and it lives and dies by engagement in the form of clicks but it just throws these heartfelt articles from individual owners out there to its rabid audience who hates the sport and wants it to go away. As I speak, there are over 300 responses to a similar piece from a small owner and the bulk of the comments are breathtakingly nasty like the man drowns kittens or something in his spare time away from abusing his horses. It is unbelievable how self righteous these people are so I am not sure if these little owner vignettes will move any needle. But Paulick himself could step in and cool the commentary. I’ve certainly seen it when someone gets too close to his advertisers. The problem is that every segment of the industry seems to be in it for themselves. Racing is a carcass they are all feeding off of and no one has that vision thing.
Sometimes noting how other sports have dealt with existential crises can be illustrative. Years ago, Formula One had the well earned reputation for being a bloodsport. A combination of apathy, greed, and sheer ignorance set up a situation where 10 - 20 % of the participants would die every year in front of spectators and in horrible ways generally not seen outside of warfare. Safety became more of a priority in the 70s-80s and it did get better but the moment came in the 90s where everything had to change because two people died in a weekend (from about 20 drivers) and one of those, Aryton Senna, was an international legend. It was the equivalent of Secretariat going wrong.
Then, miracle of miracles, the sport did something right. The governing body went to their Larry Bramlage, a onscene doctor called Sid Watkins and said “Your word is law. Fix it.” They recognized that the sport can’t make demi gods of the drivers, gear its marketing to their images, and then send them out and kill them for an audience. Modern sensibilities won’t stand for it.
Watkins and others did just that and the death rate in F1 went from 1-2 every year to none in 20 years after Senna died. There was a freak accident in 2015 when a car hit a tractor moving a disabled car and none since. Drivers are walking away from accidents that absolutely would have killed them a generation earlier. Tracks that couldn’t comply were closed. Cars adapted technology from fighter jets and civilian crash tests so they fly apart and maintain a survivable space. It’s truly remarkable what can happen when all oars pull together.
Horse racing is in its Senna moment. It needs people to step up and that can’t be individual owners.
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Pronzini, you make some good points that the sport needs to work together to address both the safety issues along with all the negative PR.
Along with F1, you could add in NASCAR. After Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001 which was preceded by a few other notable drivers in the year leading up to his death, NASCAR cracked down on safety after turning a blind eye to it for a long time.
Since his death, has not been one at any of the top 3 national touring series. I am not that familiar with F1 and it’s governing structure but NASCAR is a privately owned organization and governs the sport at a national level. IMO, that helps in ensuring that there is consistency in rules and in enforcement which is unlike, ATM, racing where every state can make their own laws. Don’t think that helps with getting everyone to toe the line and march along to the same drummer.
Keep in mind that those state regulators do just that–regulate. They don’t get involved in advocacy or promotion. That has hurt TB racing tremendously because if NYRA, or any other track owner, wants to make a change (such as twilight racing) that could benefit their product, that change has to be approved by the regulators. That has never been a rubber stamp process, particularly in NY. Just this past year, NYRA wanted to add a graphic to their wagering pool breakdowns that would have displayed the amount of money bet on each horse in the trifecta pool to provide more extensive info for bettors. The regulators said “no.”
If NASCAR, on the other hand, sees that interest is waning because of the domination of a particular make of car (Ford vs Chevy,) they can (and have) made mid-season adjustments to the rules to balance competition.
