In 2006, I watched on live TV as Barbaro pulled up short with a shattered right hind leg. He was euthanized months later, after six operations. Two years later it was Eight Belles, who fractured both front ankles after the 2008 Kentucky Derby and was euthanized right there on the track. I had been riding horses since I was a toddler, and had been a fan of horse racing for nearly that long, but I could not watch anymore. Since then, I have not watched a single race.
Last month, 11.4 million viewers tuned in from across the country for the 141st running of the Preakness Stakes. A crowd of 135,256 was in the stands of Pimlico Race Course to see it in person. Some were at the Budweiser InfieldFest, including many of my fellow Baltimore area high school students. While the entire field survived the 1 and 3/16 miles, the day was overshadowed by the deaths of two horses in the undercard races. Homeboykris suffered a cardiovascular collapse after winning his race, the first of the day. Pramedya was euthanized on the track after breaking her left front leg.
Most casual fans in attendance in Baltimore or watching from home did not know that their dollars spent on tickets or their contributions to TV ratings underwrote a reckless and dangerous industry, which exploits horses and puts both the animals and their jockeys at risk. In 2012, the New York Times reported that 24 horses died each week at racetracks in the United States.
The trainers and owners of America's racehorses overmedicate and overbreed. Eight Belles was, in part, inbred to death. Raise a Native, a racehorse famous for both his success and his weak ankles, appeared three times in her pedigree. He also appeared in the pedigree of the 19 other horses that raced against Eight Belles that Saturday afternoon.
There is nothing to prevent breeders from continuously crossing horses that may be talented but also flawed. But it is irresponsible to breed horses that cannot support their own weight. The blood of Raise a Native and other medically unsound ancestors can be found in nearly every successful thoroughbred today. Their bones are genetically primed to snap.
In other words, racehorses are becoming more fragile. In 1960, horses ran on average twelve races a year. Today? That number is closer to six.
This is to say nothing of drugs, legal and illegal, that horses are pumped full of prior to racing. These medications, like bronchodilators, steroids and steroid imitations, and painkillers, enable horses that are sore, tired, or injured — in short, more likely to break down and be euthanized — to race.
And the laws that regulate what can and can't be given to a racehorse are an embarrassing patchwork. What's banned in one state is legal in another, and this in a business where horses frequently cross state lines to race. Horse racing lacks a strong regulatory organization to standardize what is and isn't acceptable, and the power to enforce rules and sanction breeders, trainers and others in the industry who harm horses for massive profit.
I don't have a moral objection to horse racing, or to using animals to make money. But most in attendance at Preakness were casual fans who know little about the sport's dark underbelly. Until American horse racing is properly regulated, until inbreeding is controlled and medication is limited, I don't want my money lining the pockets of trainers, breeders and an industry that willingly lets its athletes die.
Leah Smith is a senior at the Park School of Baltimore. Her email is leah.smith598@gmail.com.