I just saw they will be looking at racing in this week’s episode.
I hope they don’t drag in Joe “Horse Racing Sucks” Drape to showcase his opinions. I’m honestly surprised when anyone actively involved in racing agrees to speak to him.
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looks like they will be talking about racing reform and the recent convictions in the sport that are driving change
I just hope that they do not use any graphic video of injuries. 
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you can bet they will. If they are looking at the seamy side, they will want to make a case. I must say, as a casual follower of over 50 years, it is hard for me to watch anymore. Too many breakdowns.
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Inside the FBI’s horse doping investigation.
https://x.com/60Minutes/status/1723732624437285312?s=20
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The teaser they showed at the start of the hour did not look too promising.
Awful.
That was freaking brutal. I think it was in poor taste
Was the gentleman they spoke to who owns the Meadowlands the same person who owns Tioga Downs?
Tioga Downs posted that their owner was interviewed for the story. And then posted a reminder that 60 Minutes is filmed well in advance. And then still had people commenting about “why didn’t they talk about the fire???”.
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I agree it was brutal to show those breakdowns. I, too, do not believe it was necessary to show horses breaking their legs, running on broken limbs, attempting to get up and run, etc.
However, while not all trainers are cheaters, we have a gruesome side to our sport that must be addressed. I know people here do not like me, but I am glad that 60 Minutes showed the horror of our sport. We do not need to sugarcoat the truth… we need to work towards fixing the problem. The truth is what it is.
I had no idea that the family that bred and raced Ruffian was at the forefront in leading this action. I think 60 Minutes did a disservice to the viewer by not emphasizing more that ethical members of the racing industry/breeding community really love our TBs and were also working to resolve the problem. That seemed to have been overlooked in this evening’s show. But, that was not the purpose of this show,
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I suspected they would show the breakdowns, hard to convince the nonracing public without showing them. I went into the kitchen as I did not want to see it. I know it happens. Since I didn’t see the footage of the breakdowns, I thought it was a decent program. It was better than I expected. Breakdowns are a problem and it must be dealt with or PETA will take the ball and run with it.
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One of those particular breakdowns I saw live and in person so it was especially hard seeing that one again. I do agree that carnage is an effective means of grabbing attention I just think it was in poor taste. They could have blurred it or at least warned people ahead of time. They don’t show those at all during the race broadcasts.
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I looked away as soon as I realized they were going to show it. Did they show three different breakdowns? It seems like one would have been enough to get the idea across, if you ask me. But they did not ask me.
The show seemed to imply that most breakdowns and/or horse fatalities are a result of doping.
While I fully agree that use of drugs is abhorrent and needs to be rooted out, my impression is that there are likely a lot of other factors contributing to horse breakdowns–whether it be overwork, track footing, starting horses too young, or ???
So I feel like the show would potentially leave viewers with a misimpression that the main cause of racehorse injuries is drug use.
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Good point. And even if you 100% eliminated illegal drug use and reduced to zero all the other factors, there would still be breakdowns. Because, horses. This is a tough sport. All aspects of horses are tough. For tough reads, check out some of the entries in Sport Horse Breeding or Horse Care.
Hard to take sometimes, but I still love it.
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You will never remove breakdowns from the sport any more than you will remove head injuries from
football, but that doesn’t mean you don’t take every single precaution possible to try to avoid them. And I completely agree that not every breakdown is caused by illegal drug use. I know this for a fact because I trained race horses for more than two decades and never doped a single one of them but that didn’t prevent one of them from breaking down and having to be euthanized.
The breakdown I saw in person that was showed last night is an interesting case. For Preakness week starters they take their normal vet pre-race vet checks which have increased by literally a thousand percent since I last raced a horse and crank it up even more. So that horse had not only had several hands on exams he also had pre-race blood tests. And passed everything. So then how is it his necropsy showed several pre-existing conditions that should have caused at least some minor symptoms during flexions for example? Was he just really stoic or was his pain numbed in some way?
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I had a feeling that they were going to show that stuff, so I did not watch. I hope that something useful comes from showing that horror show to the general public.
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yes it was. He owns both tracks.
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