Horse racing is all about the thrill. It’s about the speed, the rush, the adrenaline,
the challenge, the sound of hooves pounding the track, the sight of extreme physical exertion,
the pushing of boundaries human and horse alike. And more than anything else,
it’s about the money.
Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. Above all else, horse
racing is a business and a multi-billion dollar one at that. It’s not for the love of the
sport and certainly not for the love of the horse, it’s for the love of money. This
video is the third in my series on horse ethics. In the first, we looked at horse riding in
general and the musculoskeletal damage that it causes and in the second took a closer
look at the effects of the bit in particular. Now, not everyone can agree on the ethical
nature of horse riding itself, including many vegans. But horse racing takes the commodification
of horses to a whole other level that should even give the most staunch non-vegan pause.
With money as the priority, horses are treated as no more than cash machines. This so-called
sport is rife with cruelty on so many levels and I’ll do my best to touch on as many
of them as possible. Please reference the blog post for this video linked here and in
the video description for further articles and resources. The cruelty of horse racing
begins long before the track. Racehorses are genetically manipulated and bred to run as
fast as possible. Their lives begin at a stud farm where mother horses are forced to be
pregnant 90% of their shortened lives through the use of drugs like prostaglandins and the
alteration of their environment in order to manipulate their natural cycles. Once born,
potential racehorses are ripped from their mothers, who are immediately impregnated again
until they can no longer produce foals and are sent to slaughter. Having been separated
from their mothers, these newborn foals need sustenance and are nurse by what are called
“nurse mares”- horses with lower pedigrees who are impregnated simply to produce milk
for the racehorse foals. The children of the nurse mares are of no use to the industry
and because it’s illegal to send horses under six months to slaughter, many are killed
by a brutal clubbing or are simply left to starve to death. They are then skinned to
produce high-end leather products, known as cordovan leather, and their meat often sold
for human consumption. A 2009 report from The Jockey Club stated that approximately
49,817 mares were bred that year, meaning approximately 49,817 by-product nurse foals
were needlessly slaughtered. And that’s only in the United States. This horrific cycle
of forced pregnancies, stolen children and premature death closely mirrors the dairy
industry, wherein mother cows have their calves taken at birth and slaughtered for veal so
that humans may consume their milk.
Unfortunately, being bred as a potential racehorse does not save the other foals from a similar
fate. Out of the hundreds of thousands of potential racehorses bred in multiple countries
every year, only 5-40% will go on to race. The remainder are either sent to slaughter
for human consumption or pet food, re-entered into the breeding industry, or sold for lower-tier
racing, which has even less safeguards and regulations. While the consumption of horse
meat is taboo in many societies with even regular consumers of other animal products
balking at the idea of eating horses, what many people don’t realize is that horse
slaughter is simply the back-end of horse racing. Just as the egg industry has no use
for male chicks and grinds them up alive or gasses them, so too are the horses not deemed
fit enough for racing discarded as industry waste.
For those horses who do make the cut to race, it’s just the beginning of a tortured existence.
Race horses typically begin rigorous training when they are around 1.5 years old, long before
their bodies are fully developed and their skeletons mature. According to the text Practical
Anatomy and Propaedeutic of the Horse, the length of time for complete growth of the
epiphyseal plates, or cartilage, is not until they are (on average) between 6 and 9 years
old. The extreme training demands put on these vulnerable young horses leads to a tragic
preponderance of fractures and breakdowns, leaving them finished by the age of 4-6. This
footage of a young filly in a speed trial shows the audible crack [loud crack] of her
cannon bone as her body is pushed beyond its natural limits. These injuries, more often
than not, seal a horse’s fate as they are deemed to expensive and troublesome to treat.
On average 24 horses die per week on racetracks across the United states, with numbers in
Australia as high as 68/day or 25,000 a year. The injuries aren’t all external breaks-
the demands of racing cause a large proportion of horses to bleed into their lungs and windpipe,
called Exercise-Induced Pulmonary Hemorrhage, with a University of Melbourne study finding
that 50% of race horses had blood in their windpipe and 90% have blood deeper in the
lungs. Their high concentrate diets of grains also leads to gastric ulcers with a study
in the Veterinarian finding them present in 89% of horses with many of them developing
deep, bleeding ulcers just within 8 weeks of the commencement of their training.
When not tossed aside as too expensive to treat, injured horses are pushed to keep racing
with the aid of dangerous drugs. Pain medication can mask injury, allowing wounded horse to
run harder, further endangering their lives- as many as 90% of horses that break down have
pre-existing injuries. Journalist Max Watman explains that because “thoroughbreds are
bred for flashy speed and to look good in the sales ring … the animal itself has become
more fragile” and that “to keep the horses going,” they’re all given Lasix (which
controls bleeding in the lungs), phenylbutazone (an anti-inflammatory), and corticosteroids
(for pain and inflammation). Injured horses aren’t the only ones drugged, however. Former
public relations manager for Churchill downs Alex Straus says, “There are trainers pumping
horses full of illegal drugs every day. With so much money on the line, people will do
anything to make their horses run faster.” This includes chemicals that are made to bulk
up pigs and cattle before slaughter, as well as blood doping agents, thyroid medications,
stimulants, Viagra, cobra venom, and cancer drugs, among others.
In addition to being chemically pushed to perform, horses are brutally whipped during
races in what is probably the most public and societally endorsed form of animal abuse
today. The racing industry assures that whips must be padded and when used properly only
stimulate a horse, not cause pain. However, according to a study by professor and veterinarian
Dr. Paul McGreevy, the padding failed to protect horses in 64% of strikes and 83% of whip impacts
showed visible indentation of the skin, with some 75% of strikes hitting the horse’s
flank even though that’s against the International Agreement On Breeding, Racing, and Wagering.
Dr. McGreevy also found that 70% of strikes were delivered “backhand” and were thus
not counted under the rules limiting the number of strikes. In many countries, the number
of times a horse may be struck during a race is only limited up till the last 100 meters,
at which point horses may be whipped ceaselessly. This piece of ballistic plastic consistent
with a horse’s flesh, shows the impact of a standard single whip strike. Dr. McGreevy
himself took this further and did a thermograhpic study of his own leg after delivering a standard
blow to his thigh. These white areas show inflammation 30 minutes after the single blow.
Whip proponents argue that horses are much larger animals and have thicker skin and a
higher pain tolerance. There is nothing to support this claim and McGreevy points out
that horses can feel even a single fly landing on their skin as evidenced by the characteristic
shake called the “manniculus reflex.” It is rather naïve to assume being beaten
repeatedly with a blunt object is a pain free experience. Racehorses are also subjected
to the use of metal bits, the impact of which I’ve extensively detailed in this video.
It’s important to note, however, that the bits used in racing are even more severe than
those used for equine sports. Horse whisperer Frank Bell states that, “Racehorses have
bits in their mouths pretty much their whole lives... A lot of jockeys actually balance
on the horse’s mouth so often [its mouth is] destroyed...”
When off the track, horses in training are stabled for the majority of the day. This
is the most practical way to “store” a horse, however, this isolation robs them of
social and environmental stimulation. Stabled horses can developed a number of neurotic
behaviors such as crib-biting, where they bite on fences and other fixed objects, as
well as swaying back and forth and self mutilation.
After all of this pain and suffering, you’d think that racehorses would be rewarded in
the end, especially the champions. But these animals are treated as disposable commodities,
regardless of their achievements. When a horse is no longer able to perform or his or her
performance is no longer deemed adequate, he or she tossed aside like so much garbage.
Those who break down on the track are euthanized on the spot and sent off to rendering plants
for pet food and byproducts or simply dumped in a junkyard like this horse. Those who don’t
die or are killed on the track are sometimes downgraded to lower-level racing, like jumps
racing, which caries up to 20 times more fatalities than flat racing and has far less regulations
and standards. The final destination for most failed racing horses is slaughter, where captive
bolts are often sloppily and ineffectively used, prolonging the painful and terrifying
death of these long-abused animals. Even champions who won their owners hundreds of thousands
of dollars are sold for a pittance.
From cradle to grave, racehorses live tortured, terrifying, brutal, and completely thankless
lives. This is what happens when money is placed above the lives of sentient beings.
And this is the true face of the so-called “Sport of Kings.”
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first and second video in the horse ethics series. Now go live vegan and I’ll see you
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Subtitles by the Amara.org community