I’m not sure what you mean by “excess horses”. The number of TBs being bred has dropped markedly in the last decade. In 2008, the Jockey Club registered 36,000 foals. Last year, the total was 20,500. That’s more than a 40% decrease. It’s also the reason why some tracks are having trouble filling their races.
If you want to look for excess horses, check out the AQHA stats. They registered just under 60,000 horses last year.
By the way, I’m a “smaller operation” when it comes to breeding TBs. Why do you think things would improve if small breeders like me were forced out of business?
@Virginia Horse Mom - euthanizing the sound but poor sport horse prospects would cause more of a public outcry than the fatalities. The general public would not allow it. Vets will euthanize a horse that is not sound that does not have a good prognosis of ever being sound enough to ride, but they hesitate to euthanize a sound, healthy horse just because it’s not earning much at the track and the owner has no use for it. All of the horses coming through the legitimate TB rescue organizations have had a vet eval. Not sure where you are seeing all these unsound horses that you say are coming off the track.
I personally see a lack of horsemanship at the amateur/local level. Fewer people growing up around horses, fewer people with horses in their backyards, and fewer people riding regularly. They all want a horse that is like a bicycle - just hop on and enjoy the ride, then walk away for however long and it’s exactly the same when you get back. Oh, and that horse has to be able to win at an upper level.
A rare chime-in from me, only because I was just having this conversation. I’d have to go back and dredge up the interesting stuff explained to me about the USDA, FDA and food safety issues, on top of the usual arguments we have about slaughter being humane. – And frankly, I became completely confused about who was responsible for what when the discussion turned to exporting horse meat. I was also railing that the AQHA really needed to take a turn in the proverbial woodshed, when it comes to horses in the pipeline. So nice to see those stats pointed out.
Apologies for rehashing the same old stuff but, since we don’t raise horses as a food source and they don’t have the same relationship with humans, handled and treated along the way as a food source, slaughter would require a massive and expensive sea change to be safe and humane.
”¢ How long would a horse have to sit on a feed lot for a lifetime of meds, pest and parasite control products, and whatnot to leave his system? Would it all leave his system even? Who is going to pay for that? In this era of grain-free pet food and raw diets, that would take a hell of a marketing job to sell the average PetSmart shopper. Which may just leave zoos and other niche markets (and even then, same challenges). If you even can clear the food safety hurdle for beast, let alone man. Every day I’m getting a heads up for some pet food recall or other. Also, again, I don’t have the stats handy, but I believe horse meat consumption is on the wane, even in cultures where it’s accepted practice.
Ӣ Humane slaughter for horses would require re-tooling or building new plants and systems specific to it, as opposed to designed-for-cattle systems doing double duty. Again, not efficient enough to be worth it for commercial processors, economically speaking.
You might see boutique operations doing this, such as one I recently read about for small sheep farms raising high-end lamb, but that’s not close to a comprehensive answer to the problem.
There may be an outcry about euthanasia but that, to me, like many things related to racing – and that the industry is struggling with – is about education, messaging and communication.
On a regular basis, while lurking about COTH, I see many of you making kind and compelling cases for euthanasia, to the point that I will regret to my dying day not insisting I had one of my own put down. When you couple that with smaller foal crops (and banging the drum of responsible breeding), I don’t see euthanasia as being that much more challenging than slaughter to explain to the general public.
@Virginia Horse Mom Thanks for taking the time to so thoroughly share your thoughts. That makes things a lot more clear to me.
An idea I’ve ruminated on since I was a teenager is racetracks becoming responsible for in-house retraining and rehoming of retired horses. I know most tracks have adopted this idea in some form, but usually through third party not-for-profits. I don’t know why “we” (meaning The Jockey Club, NTRA, etc.) don’t just take it on ourselves. Of course, I don’t have an answer for the economic logistics of such a program. And the lack of unified national governance makes it hard say who exactly should absorb the responsibility. The potential for mismanagement is huge. But it seems logical that if we want to bring these horses into the world to race, then we should be directly responsible for placing them afterwards.
I’ve wrestled with the reduction of the thoroughbred industry my entire adult life. I am of two minds on the topic. Undoubtedly, I believe it would be easier to improve and enforce welfare of horses if we dramatically “cut the fat” so to speak and got rid of “cheap” racing. I feel we have too many racetracks and too many races. I think we breed too many horses (even in the post recession crash), especially ones of little to no value. I don’t see how racing at its lowest levels can be economically viable in the future; it costs just as much to properly care for a cheap horse as it does to care for a top horse.
At the same time, there is a lot to lose by eliminating lower-end racing. Access, for starters-- look how many of our industry pillars began their careers as horsemen, riders, and owners at their local tracks. Much of my own involvement in the industry would have been impossible if we didn’t have regional, less competitive markets. These tracks also provide exposure; if racing was confined to top-tier boutique meetings, most of the country would never be in a position to see a horse race. Regional breeding programs are bastions for genetic diversity, perpetuating bloodlines that are no longer competitive at the highest levels of the sport, but still offer favorable traits to be reintroduced into the mainstream population at later dates. People complain about inbreeding in this country, but our thoroughbreds are veritable mutts compared to countries with more economically exclusive breeding programs.
And there I go… rambling again… obviously I have a lot of thoughts on these things. :lol:
@Texarkana - I only race in the Mid-Atlantic area, but us owners are charged a fee per start by many of the tracks in the area and the fee goes into a racehorse retirement program. It’s $10-$15 per start. Since racing is regulated at the state level, then the Jockey Club and the NTRA have no regulatory authority and can’t mandate anything, and there will never be unified national governance unless the federal government takes on the job of regulating racing, or the states all together decide to give up their authority to one central organization. Not gonna happen.
WRT getting rid of "cheap’ racing, not sure how that would happen either. “Cheap” racing is defined by the purse, which is set by a combination of the handle and possible state funding. You can’t raise the purses without raising the claiming prices, that puts the horse in jeopardy. You can breed the best to the best and still come up with a “cheap” horse that can’t run. So what do you do with that horse? It’s gambling that makes the horse racing world go round. The horse is secondary.
Having too many track or too few horses is the same thing. Stronach acknowledges the problem and wants to close Pimlico. I’m sure you are well aware of the uproar over closing Pimlico.
Thanks for reading through my totally rambling post Tex!
@Palm Beach - I also want to thank you for responding to some of what I had to say, and challenging me on a few things. I do enjoy reading your comments, because I feel I learn things.
Both of you, as well as others, have brought up the fact that the TB industry in North America has DRAMATICALLY shrunk in recent decades. I looked up numbers. I don’t have them EXACTLY correct… but the Thoroughbred Foal crop was close to 40,000 back in 2000, which was pre-recession. It’s hovering just about at, or slightly below 20,000 as of 2018, I believe. The year over year shrinkage in the foal crop looks actually pretty consistent and balanced.
So… when I speak about “reform” - I want to take note that from the raw numbers, it looks like basic economics and the TB industry is doing a rather decent job of reforming when it comes to e evasive breeding of low end racehorses. Prices are still good at auctions. Recent figures show that as high as 7 or 8 percent of a given year’s TB prospects that are just started 2 year olds are purchased by VERY wealthy foreign buyers at auction, and taken to other countries to race. All horses are a total crap shoot regardless of great breeding (right you are about that Palm Beach!) but international players with major money do not buy 2 year olds at auction at statistically significant percentages if we only produce garbage low end racehorses in the US.
Whether you love racing or hate it, maintaining or improving quality and value, while reducing quantity in terms of the size of the entire population of racing TBs means that fewer will go to slaughter.
as for reforms when it comes to safety… I have looked st the EID. And some other data. Data is problematic in general though, and inconsistently collected. What I do gather is true, however, is that when you look at rates of breakdowns and deaths in horses of racing age in a given year as a PERCENTAGE of the total population of Thoroughbreds racing in the US in a given year… the trend is headed in a direction we all can agree is good. Fewer horses are breaking down than used to. The EID does reveal that during certain years, there are slight “upticks” at certain tracks. But some of that data seems to be in conflict with other data recently published about Santa Anita specifically in the local paper article someone linked too. Maybe someone with more knowledge from the inside can explain why that is to me.
I absolutely empathize with comments from folks on the inside of racing in terms of frustration with the media coverage this year. The more I read, the more frustrated I am. In particular, the “death count” articles at Santa Anita are REALLY frustrating. Statistics, such as the rate of breakdowns per 1000 starters on a track by track basis, and on a national basis, are a much better thing to look at. That’s what the EID seems to try and measure. I’m tired of lazy journalists who put zero effort into real analysis when it comes to a variety of topics though (I’m an economics person… I see stupid journalism with respect to national economic metrics literally every single time I turn on the TV)…
So what safety reforms should be examined in depth after the situation this year with Santa Anita? A lot of things have been discussed. I don’t know enough to know what will or won’t help horses, except that it does seem that most people would like the sales which involve breezing two year olds under tack to stop. But that practice has next to nothing to do with the crisis at Santa Anita, and I suspect would not have a significant impact on breakdown statistics related to racing age Thoroughbreds. Correct me if I’m wrong though. Other reforms have talked about Lasix extensively… and I remain unconvinced that mounting a big effort to eliminate Lasix from racing right now is a really effective way to spend energy at this time. People on the inside of racing will fight such an effort like crazy. People on the outside who want to eliminate Lasix make a lot of arguments that intuitively seem logical… but there does not seem to be much in the way of data to support them. Lasix use is WIDESPREAD and has increased over the last 40 years, and at the same time the statistical rate of TBs breaking down in racing and training has been DECREASING. So it does not seem to me like there is evidence that Lasix leads to calcium and bone quality problems in TBs, and more breakdowns. I understand why it’s intuitive to argue that, but the data does not support this argument.
So that gets us back to the REAL elephant in the room. What to do with the population of horses who come off the track, and who were not successful as racehorses? That’s the real welfare problem. Breakdowns are really sad… but the number of 5 year old TBs coming off the track who need to find something to do for the next 20 years separate and apart from the world of TB racing DWARFS the number of breakdowns nationwide.
But the media being what they are (incapable of solid numerical analysis)… well… there is little talk about this. Frankly… that’s a fortunate thing for the future of horse racing right now. But I saw a lengthy article in Deadspin recently (May of 2029) looking into numbers in depth, following the story of a few horses who went to Korea (Koreans send everything to slaughter. I don’t like it, but it’s their country and their rules)… and the Deadspun article got me thinking that sooner or later, national coverage could very well zero in on the issue of all the failed racehorses, and how they spend their retirement years.
From what data I can see online, one way or another, about 10,000 Thoroughbreds still ship to Mexico or Canada each and every year.
Frankly, I don’t think further reducing the foal crop is going to shift the overall percentage of horses who just are not viable prospects for any sort of 2nd career. It may reduce the raw number… but my guess s that 50% will still ship eventually. I will admit that I initially took offense to your comment about no more back yard breeding or amateur sport horse breeding Palm Beach, and how people engaged in those pursuits should take on more OTTBs. But I am coming from the perspective of folks who use AI, and breed quality, performance tested and registry inspected approved mares to licensed, performance tested, and registry inspected and approved stallions (most of whom have international competition records). This sort of sport horse breeding often is done by amateurs for personal horses at considerable expense for personal mounts. The annual registered Warmblood crop of foals in the US (across multiple registries) is 7000 or fewer the last time I looked. The amateur people breeding on a small scale in this world by and large are not going to stop doing what they are doing, and absorb all the OTTBs who are slow, difficult or lame. Even in the case of sound, nice moving Thoroughbreds coming off the track, most are built for speed at shorter distances because they were purpose bred for American racing, and are simply not well suited for sports like dressage.
Bottom line, I think the current effort going on with good third party groups like New Vocations, Canter, RRP, etc, is about as good as it is going to get.
However… someone else brought up Quarter Horses. We all know that the overwhelming majority of unwanted horses shipping to Mexico and Canada each year comes from overbreeding of quarter horses. I do think there might be the possibility to push more of the current population of failed OTTBs coming off the track into second careers in terms of western sports dominated by quarter horses. It seems worthy of a coordinated effort. However… obviously folks in that world who have horses that are unsound or undesirable for one reason or another fo routinely dispose of these horses at auctions, and the horses do ship to either Mexico or Canada in significant numbers. So putting effort into getting OTTBs into 2nd careers in this world may just eventually lead to the same end result.
As for my personal experiences in terms of either riding, or coming across horses who others have gotten off the track, and there being issues in terms of soundness or a lack of suitability for a second career? It definitely is an issue. One person I know - a feast young rider of limited means - spent 12 months on a cute little OTTB gelding she got for a bargain basement price who did have a cannon bone fracture when he came off the track. It had been “rehabbed” when my friend got him, and he was “sound.” But guess what? Once she started jumping routinely and trying to prepare him for competitions… he didn’t stay sound. After s full years worth of money and effort, she found a family home to give him away too. Then she went out and got another nice little OTTB gelding who was 7 m, and I believe had come through a decent national program initially when he came off the track. But after 12 months of riding and work… this guy is lame as well. They suspect some sort of arthritis, or even an old fracture (I think). The horse does toe in quite a bit… and regardless of what it is and how they treat it, the vets think it is unlikely he will stay sound for a career involving anything significant in the way of jumping and cross country. He’s an 8 year old gelding. So my friend is giving him time off on pasture, will check his soundness again in a few more months, and if he’s ok for a low level, non jumping home, try and find someone to give him too.
She is pretty fun shy about taking on a 3rd OTTB project at this point. And resigned to the fact that if her current horse is not sound (an 8 year old gelding) after an extended rest out on pasture… she should probably put him down.
I can’t help but feel frustrated on her behalf, and on the behalf of these two serviceable little geldings, that the person who owned them during their racing days (they were totally unsuccessful racehorses) didn’t just go ahead and put at least 1 if not both of them down when they discovered a fracture. Instead, that owner decided that the horse could and should be rehabbed and make its way onto the sporthorse market. Both geldings are lucky they landed with my young friend. It could have been worse. But it’s not great.
I do get the point that many vets won’t put down sound horses. But I have trouble believing a vet would refuse to put down a failed racing gelding with a fractured cannon bone who needed rehab. It would cost the owner a few hundred dollars to arrange for that… and instead it seems they essentially gave this horse to some sort of non-profit second tier group who tried to rehab and retrain this horse. Frankly… I think that’s not a good thing.
I also will share that many moons ago I had my own beautiful bay off the track project - she was actually a racing quarter horse, but 7/8 Tb by pedigree. I was 15 at the time. She was a gift. Well… I spent about 5 months working with that mare. Nice mover, and s good jumper. However… she did rear. Routinely. And not a little rear. STRAIGHT UP. Almost over. A friend who had galloped youngsters on the track and also started a significant number of babies (including this project 3 years before she was given to me) advised that I should just carry a crop at all times, and smack her in between the ears whenever she started to go up. Because that’s how they handled it when she was on the track. So I did. And it worked for 5 months… until I took her out to her first little event. She went straight up and over during the warm up for cross country. I was lucky not to be hurt.
At that point I gave her back to the person who had given her to me. And the local vet did put her down. Because she was dangerous and everyone knew it. Bottom line, beautiful sound horses like this mare can… and do… get retired because they are not successful as racehorses. I was a pretty darn decent 15 year old rider… but no where even REMOTEDLY as good as my adult friend who started babies on the backstretch and galloped horses. Your comment that riders these days want horses who go along like steady “bicycles” is very accurate Palm Beach. And your comment that amateurs these days are not even remotely in the same category of horsemanship and skill as folks who have worked on the backstretch is also quite accurate. Which is why I think failed racehorses that riders and trainers on the backstretch found challenging to handle or sketchy to ride should be put down, and not pushed on to the secondary market. If vets are unwilling to put these horses down… horses dangerous for most people in America to work with… that’s unfortunate to hear.
As for Viney’a comments regarding slaughter… I get it philosophically. But I also cringe in terms of the realities… I have yet to see an example of a humane way of slaughtering a horse. I also wonder about all the meds and wormer that these horses were given being consumed by humans. In Europe, it is my understanding that a significant part of the sporthorse weanlings, yearling and two year old crops go to slaughter. Babies who are crooked or Hs e other significant conformation flaws. Babies who are injured in the field. Babies who were bred to be dressage horses, but are not good movers. They cull. Proactively. Before these horses have meds for years on end, or pass through a number of different hands, and end up neglected and starved. I’m sure older horses and lame horses get sent to slaughter in Europe as well… it’s a different culture. But I do believe the fact that they cull youngsters who are less than perfect is a significant part of the picture.
I understand that PETA and the American Public would flip out and come at the US racing community like a pack of angry coyotes if their was any sort of organized and public policy to simply put down every single lame (even only temporarily so), challenging/outright dangerous, unbreedable from a commercial standpoint TB who came off the track… but I think instituting this particular reform would actually be a positive thing. For the horses. For the industry. I also think it would be ethical. Anyone who wants to argue needs to explain to me why they aren’t zeroing in on the AQHA and taking them to the woodshed. Any “bleeding heart” hunter jumper, dressage, or eventing amateur rider and Warmblood owner also need to explain to me how the way they pro-actively cull Warmblood sporthorse foals in Europe (via slaughter for the most part) is somehow totally ok and not something anyone in the US objects to… but putting down this specific portion of the US TB population is really objectionable, and something many horse living amateur folks in this country are upset by.
Last thing… I 100% agree with you Tex about the notion that it would be healthy to have some sort of program happening on the INSIDE of the TB industry that deals with the real welfare question… all the unsuccessful horses coming off the track each year. Farming it out to all these different groups is a real mixed bag. There are great organizations and feast stories. There are also AWFUL stories. And a lot of scam artists coming along and essentially embezzling donations and starving horses. Google recent news with respect to C.E.R.F. and look at the images of the horses recently pulled from their program. AWFUL. Anyway, it seems like the Jockey Club could play a role here. Collect extra fees upfront each time a horse is registered and issued racing papers, put all fees into a fund that is managed by folks at the JC, and then run some sort of safety net program specifically for horses that owners can’t seem to find a spot for in terms of the secondary market. Owners who DON’T put their horses into this safety net program, but instead retire them from
racing and either fund retirement themselves, or place them in a verified home in which the horse has moved on to a non-racing job, well, those folks can get a refund of the “safety net” fees paid when their horse was initially registered and given racing papers. Everyone else? No refund.
If the Jockey Club charged a $500 fee per foal issued racing papers each year, and the average foal crop is about 20,000 per year, they could collect almost $1,000,000 per year. That money could be used to pay vets to perform fair evaluations on horses with soundness issues coming off the track, and for the expense of putting down these horses. And any media that comes at the Jockey Club outraged and horrified by such a program should be PROMPTLY direct to the AQHA to inquire about what sort of “humane safety net” fund they are collecting and managing year in and year out so that they can take responsibility for ensuring any and all lame quarter horses are provided with a peaceful, painless end.
Yeah… just wishful thinking. It could never succeed in the real world and the Jockey Club wouldn’t want to take on that elephant of a PR nightmare. It seems like it would quite an ethical reform measure though for the entire industry, and ensure fewer lame horses are left standing in s field somewhere, tied to a not for profit “rescue” which decided that they could just pocket donations and starve all these horses until folks caught on. There’s a lot of that going on these days. It’s awful.
Oh well. Enough said. Thanks for anyone who put up with my ignorant pontifications…
And do you think that animals other than horses that are slaughtered for food don’t get medicines and dewormers?
If racing went to water, hay and oats, and kept meticulous records of all “treatments” in the US that would solve the problem of “contaminated” pet food. As to not feeding cats and dogs meat, their owners are going against their pets’ natures. Cats are, unless I’m wrong, obligate carnivores; dogs less so. Both species evolved to require meat in their diets. All of the new distaste for meat for such animals may or may not be the result of Humane Society and PETA and their ilks’ campaigns.
You do realize, don’t you, that dogs and horses were probably domesticated for food for humans.
Thank you all for taking the time to weed through my previous diatribe/essay.
@Palm Beach - you had some solid points that I am in full agreement with. Maybe my repetitious comments regarding wanting to see “reforms” flailed to convey what I was trying to get across. I’ll try again, and try to be brief (which I am terrible at).
I did some basic googling to look at numbers… not the widely publicized “death count” at Santa Anita this year… but at numbers like the size of the TB foal crop in the US. In 2000, it was right around 40,000 foals. Last year it was right around 20,000. Auction prices for young racing prospects last year were high. To me… these numbers indicate that we are breeding FEWER low quality TBs in the US than ever before.
So I am not seeing some sort of need for “reform” when it comes to the Thoroughbred breeding industry in the US. I’m sure there are bad cases involving poorly managed operations… that happens in any industry… but by and large, the numbers seem reasonable and prices decent. One article I found also said that between 7 and 8 percent of two year olds in training at last years (or maybe 2017) auctions were sold to very wealthy international buyers and went on to race in Korea and other countries. So these horses are not part of the dilemma concerning the overpopulation of low value horses here in the US who are a major welfare concern. 7% of 20,000 is 1400 horses.
According to the metrics provided by PETA (don’t mug me - I am only using their numbers because they were the first ones that popped up in my quick search), in recent years, it is estimated that about 10,000 Thoroughbreds still ship from the US to Mexico or Canada, and eventually go to slaughter. This is AFTER the shut down of all horse slaughter within our borders, and with all the current rules in place at tracks across the country prohibiting trainers from selling horses directly to kill buyers, or at auctions known to be frequented by kill buyers. My inference is that there are a SIGNIFICANT number of 8, 9 and 10 year old mares and geldings in that number, who have changed hands a few times after coming off the track, and either failed to be suitable for a second career, or have soundness issues, or both. It happens.
During the same period, the number of Quarter Horses shipping to Mexico or Canada for slaughter was closer to 50,000. The AQHA does not have any anti-slaughter policy that I know of. And over breeding, backyard breeding, as well as breeding of horses with obvious significant soundness issues are all significant known problems within the quarter horse breed. Is what it is.
So as far as needed “reform” in terms of overbreeding and horses going to slaughter in a way that bothers my conscience… I agree with an earlier person who said it’s the AQHA who should be taken to the woodshed.
As far as the raw totals of TB horses of racing age who were lost to breakdowns or other training related accidents in the US racing industry each year, I googled around and found varied numbers and statistics. The EID looks at rates of breakdowns at specific tracks per 1000 starts. Not all tracks report figures. Somewhere else though I saw a figure of somewhere close to 800 fatalities in the US racing industry in 2000 or shortly thereafter, and something in the 400 range last year. So it seems numbers are improving. The maintenance of the EID database itself is something that happened over the course of the last decade. Collection of data is an essential step in terms of putting in place rules that over time, reduce the numbers of breakdowns even further. I know the breakdown rate will never be zero, but everyone wants fewer breakdowns.
Sooo back to Santa Anita and the fervor over what has gone on this year. There has been much media coverage and public outcry over a need for reform in racing because of the deaths at Santa Anita this year. A lot of stuff has been discussed ad nauseum, and rule changes proposed and debated. People who actually do train racehorses for a living and work on the backstretch have been quite consistent that there is an issue with the track itself at Santa Anita. At this point, to my uneducated self, that seems accurate.
But the rallying cry demanding reforms in racing is totally focused on breakdowns. The number of breakdowns is small in comparison to the number of horses that simply do not make their way to a good lifelong home after finishing racing. Something between 400 and 500 each year, vs 10,000.
And frankly, the 10,000 number is much better than what it was in prior years.
So my frustration is that the issue of breakdowns at Santa Anita, and breakdowns in general, is driving all discussion related to reforms. No one is pointing to numbers and statistics that are actually positive. None of the reforms discussed widely in relation to the breakdowns seems like they will have any impact in the short term and reduce breakdowns (banning the whip, various vet sign off measures, and anything related to Lasix). When it comes to the long term, I’m clueless, but skeptical that these things will help much. Breakdowns are part of dirt racing… very sad. They should be reduced in anyway possible. But they happen and will continue to happen.
So I am reading the coverage, reading the comments on this thread, trying to look at statistics and become a better educated observer… and I find it all more and more disheartening. A betting person would bet on racing in California getting shut down entirely at this point in the next few years. And if that happens, the people pushing for that to happen will try and shut it down in other states.
I am seeing things completely incorrectly? Please explain if I am missing something major. But what I see is that the industry has done a lot in terms of contracting, trying to put in place measures to reduce the total number of horses going to slaughter, trying to collect data on breakdowns in an organized manner and reduce them, etc etc. And then this year happens, the media goes crazy, and everyone starts talking about trying to ban use of the whip and Lasix out at Santa Anita just to pacify certain contingencies in the short term… and then May rolls around and a few more horses breakdown, and California politicians get involved… and the train wreck is now getting REALLY close to shutting down all racing in California.
Well, the 10,000 Thoroughbreds that fail at racing and ship either North or South each year. That’s the glaring welfare issue. Breakdowns are tragic, but horses who are still being actively trained and races are still regarded as having economic value. They have people on the backstretch who are caring for them, and get feed and water on a daily basis right up to the day they breakdown.
A significant number of the 10,000 failed racehorses who ship each year have changed hands multiple times before they ship. Many have been living in squalid conditions prior to shipping, because that’s what happens to horses with no value. It’s a long slow, painful inhumane road, which eventually ends in death.
I don’t mean to criticize any number of the great 3rd party groups like New Vocations, CANTER, etc, who try and screen horses coming off the track and then match them up with 2nd career homes. But that is not a solution for the entire 10,000. There are some organizations which run sanctuaries who do a great job of caring for the horses that land there. But there are others who solicit donations all over social media for their “non-profit” Thoroughbred sanctuary or rescue and rehab organization… and then fail to feed or care for horses. I assume these folks essentially embezzle the funds. Some people are being taken to task in our legal system now after multiple high profile cases… but we all know this is a major ongoing issue.
I think responsible folks who have been in the industry, or been around horses a long time need to stop sidestepping this stuff, and start speaking up about why it actually might be a good idea to simply put down any and all horses who retire from racing unsound, or with a history of a fracture, or at high risk for arthritis. The person who owns them when they retire from racing should be the one to make that tough decision, meet with a vet, and pay to have the horse put down and the body disposed of.
I do understand full well that a significant number of horses retiring from racing would be put down immediately each and every year if my view of what is an ethical practice became the industry norm… my guess is it might be in the range of 1000… but 10,000 ship North or South every year anyway. At least the 1000 horses with known soundness issues would never change hands multiple times, then spend months somewhere suffering in squalor, only to eventually make a long journey on a cramped truck and be slaughtered via a method that simply is not a humane way to end a horses life.
As for where I am seeing all these horses with soundness issues who come off the tracks, go through reputable 2nd career programs after being examined by a vet… well… I have a friend who is now dealing with her second OTTB with chronic soundness issues who fits that description. The first one was a very cute bay gelding, age 5 or 6, who came off the track and had a history of a fractured cannon bone. But he was “sound.” My friend invested in him, trained him for 18 months… but guess what? He wasn’t really sound. Couldn’t handle much, if any, jumping. She eventually did pretty much give the horse away to a nice family home. Onto the second cute OTTB gelding who went through a program and was examined by a vet, and declared “sound.” She went ahead and took on this guy and has been riding and training him for a little over a year. But he isn’t holding up either. Her budget after dealing with horse 1 is limited. Horse 2 has obvious conformation flaws (toes in significantly), and the issue is in one of the front legs. Perhaps severe, early arthritis, because of conformation. Perhaps there is some sort of old underlying fracture that was aggravated. Whatever the case, he’s lame. My friend is opting to spend her remaining budget on Osphos and a few months of 24/7 turnout without shoes (vets recommendation). Hopefully she can then slowly bring him back to work so that she can then ethically rehome him for free, with full disclosure, to a good situation like she found for the first gelding. If she can’t get this gelding sound though (he’s only 8 or 9 I think), she will just go ahead and put him down.
I feel horribly for her. Two bad situations in a row, and she’s a great young rider, and quite a good horsewoman. It’s also crossed my mind though, that it would have been more fair to everyone involved if horse number 1, and possibly horse number 2 were BOTH put down upon retirement from racing, and my young friend had gotten a 2nd career project who had ZERO history of fracture. If that makes sense.
When I think about the time and money my friend has spent on these two geldings, and the thousands, possibly millions of dollars donated to legit and illegitimate rescue or sanctuary groups that are supposedly using the money to pay for food and care for lame retired racehorses who simply stand in a paddock… it seems like it would be better to just put all those horses down immediately upon retirement. And make sure the ones going on to 2nd careers are at least sound.
This seems like an ethical reform that is entirely possible. But I agree the media and the general public would freak out. From where I am sitting, there also seems to be no reason owners can’t simply decide to pt down any horse they have who is retiring from racing and has soundness issues or a history of fracture. Yes… that’s tough. But I for one think it’s more ethical than relying on the secondary market to support it for the next 20 years. I hear you in terms of vets not immediately euthanizing any sound horse… but I know first hand of multiple instances of vets euthanizing dangerous horses (I had one who routinely flipped over on people… beautiful mare who was sound… she was euthanized though without objection by our vet. I also had a friend who had a savage kicker euthanized… sound, rideable horse… but dangerous in the barn by ANY objective measure). Anyway… would a vet really refuse to euthanize a 5 year old gelding with a cannon bone fracture retiring from racing who MIGHT be sound in the future after rehab? In this case, it seems like the owner turned the gelding over to some sort of “save everything” group, who “rehabbed” him. Then another vet declared him sound. Then my friend “adopted” him. What a mess…
I think it is great that we are having these discussions and I applaud the high level of the discourse. But I think we need to keep it real. In my opinion, that is the greatest disconnect between the “industry” and the fans. The media doesn’t help because it is fighting its own private death spiral as newspapers become less and less relevant. So the media shouts more, engages in clickbait --I’m sorry “engagement”–and actively stirs the pot in our politics and in other areas far more important than horses and racing. No wonder there is a lot of anger out there which in turn fuels more “engagement.”
First of all, without protestors or banning or politicians putting their thumbs on the scale, horse racing has contracted economically. We can argue why that is but the reason why fewer Thoroughbreds are being bred is that there is a lot of financial blood on the tracks in the last decade. When someone pours $20,000 into creating and raising a yearling that they find out at a sale, they would be lucky to get a $5000, that’s as real as it gets. No one needs to ban anything–people with those experiences self ban pretty quickly.
Secondly there is no such thing as 100% “quality breeding”. Horses are not artisinal bread. There is no recipe to produce the superhorse who is lightning fast and ruggedly sound. In fact, the horse I can think of in the last few years who matches that description is California Chrome, a horse bred by amateurs using a mare which won for maiden eight (the very bottom in Northern California) to a stallion which stood for $2500. That’s not just an outlier–it’s a regular event. That best to the best stuff doesn’t always work. I would argue that it doesn’t even usually work.
Then–I think–the average person or fan has to come to grips with the whole horses as a cog in an industry as opposed to a pet. That is not just a racing thing incidentally. High level horse sports really have more to do with each other than the hobby of back yard pet owners. Racing is not the only horse sport to shed its failures onto the public and for that matter, even the most ardent antis out there seem to concede that horseracing is just one of the offenders and not even the major one with regards to the sad pipeline through low end auctions to foreign meat markets. Our society hasn’t solved the unwanted dog and cat problem-- individual Thoroughbred racetracks, trainers and owners are seriously being tasked with remedying the unwanted horse problem? I pay into CARMA whenever I win a purse. Do backyard warmblood breeders or color purists or [insert breed name here] do anything organized to address the possibility that the horse they have created will be unwanted?
If racing is perceived as insular, it is because of these kind of attitudes. I’ve heard it in fan forums for years–if just half of you racetrackers went away, the sport would be so pure and wonderful. If you breeders would stop breeding cheap horses, we wouldn’t have so many icky claiming races. Why don’t we have a single circuit of just good horses and good trainers and good owners?
There are good reasons why I believe that none of that will work or at best will have unintended consequences. Racing does have to step up --and it is doing so–but it’s hard when horse people who should know better start conversations with “You know what would be good? Just go away.”
That’s a gun that is going to get turned on us all in the end.
My argument isn’t against feeding animals or ourselves meat. My cat is on a meat diet. I eat meat. It isn’t what you feed your animals or what some of my European foodie friends eat themselves. H*ll, if folks want to get in touch with their inner early man and eat Dobbin or Fido on some Bourdain adventure, God bless.
My argument is that, as a larger scale solution, no one is presenting an economically viable plan to do horse slaughter humanely and produce meat that can be sold commercially. I don’t see existing slaughterhouse operators falling over themselves to adapt their operations or volunteering to build new, Temple Grandin-approved ones.
Racing can go to hay-oats-water tomorrow but that’s neither going to address the animals we have now nor does it address other exposure beyond antibiotics and wormers. Granted it’s been years since I’ve been hands-on but I don’t recall very many products in the tack room that didn’t carry specific warnings against use on animals intended for human consumption. Fura ointment and what have you. Good old Bute.
Transparency and vet records (and HOW) are great, too, but only if they apply to all horses in the system, not just race horses.
So what does that part of the process look like? I’m not asking why horses were originally domesticated. I’m asking where, how, who, and how much is it going to cost to care for them til they’re ‘clean’ and can safely enter the food supply? That the meat they yield meets health and safety requirements for export and import? And is there enough of a demand to justify anything more than a small, craft-scale operation?
A small, artisan operation is the best you can hope for (and I could get behind). Commercial operators rely on speed, efficiency and volume which is the other issue that goes largely unaddressed, when talking about what’s humane.
It’s true that the fatality rate on dirt is about double the rate on turf or synthetic. SA tried one type of synthetic but it didn’t hold up and they went back to dirt. Without crunching numbers, it appears they have improved the breakdown rate since implicating the new safety measures.
The synthetic surface has been gone for several years hasn’t it? Do you think there is an issue with the track they have now? I hope whatever changes to the track have been made of late will be enough.
Has there been any study that attempts to tie catastrophic skeletal breakdowns (ie, say excluding cardiac events) to the structure of an individual’s legs prior to breakdown? Say, front and side photo and x-ray images of front legs (since most, not all, skeletal failures seem to be with front legs), both at rest and at stride?
Sometimes when I see the head-on shots of horses coming down the stretch, I see some “straight” moving legs while in other horses, definitely appears to be winging or paddling. Would “wonky” (technical term here :lol: ) movement lead itself to a higher incidence of skeletal failure or is front/side conformation/bone structure along with “straight” or “wonky” front leg stride just a “thing” that would or would not predispose a horse to breakdown?
It’s how the hoof hits the ground and the resulting force travels up the leg, not the way the leg travels through the air. What the necroscopies show are micro fractures as a trend. They need to be given time to heal before the area is stressed again. You can’t see them and the horse may be asymptomatic.
PB, didn’t really answer my question about conformation and structure and can that influence the propensity toward a catastrophic breakdown? I get the micro-fracture part. But, if leg bones are not optimally structured and supported “properly” with tendons and ligaments, does that increase the probability of micro-fractures?
I am not PB but of course conformation is a factor. That is the whole reason we strive for correct conformation when choosing matings. You don’t always get what you were hoping for you when you balanced your mares hopefully very slight flaws against the stallion’s hopefully slight flaws as no horse is perfect but there is a goal.
Just like any structure, the stress has to go somewhere and it will always find the weakest point in whatever that structure happens to be. In a horse that will generally be in the ankle or tendons or ligaments depending on his particular conformation and way of going but can happen anywhere that particular horse’s weakness point is.
@Laurierace Are you aware of any studies (I’d have to look at Grayson’s studies again) or if necropsies attempt to look at pre-breakdown conformation and movement?
Think there would be value in including some sort of still radiographs+photos along with movement photos/videos/imaging of a horse before they start at a track or ??
Just musing to see what more could be done that realistically might be able to highlight horses with a higher predisposition to breakdown before it happens rather than after.
