Horse racing is a sport that pits one horse against another in a contest of speed and stamina. It has evolved into a spectacular spectacle involving vast fields of runners, sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment, and immense sums of money, but its basic concept remains unchanged.
It’s a brutal sport for horses, and many of them die while running for their lives. Behind the romanticized facade of horse races lies a world of injuries, drug abuse, gruesome breakdowns, and slaughter. Growing awareness of the cruelty in horse racing has fueled improvements, but more needs to be done.
Horses race in the hope of winning large sums of money, but they don’t always win. In fact, the majority of horses that run for a living never win anything at all. In addition to being pushed past their limits, horses used for racing are often subjected to cocktails of legal and illegal drugs intended to mask injuries and boost performance. Some of these drugs include painkillers, diuretics, and sedatives. Many horses also bleed from their lungs while running, a condition known as exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage. This bleeding can be so severe that the horse is unable to breathe, and it can even kill them.
Despite these risks, horse racing is a profitable business for the people who run it. But with fewer and fewer spectators watching the races, it’s obvious that the industry is not sustainable. As a result, horse races are losing fans, revenue, race days, and entries.
While most Thoroughbreds are trained to race and win, they don’t naturally love it. Running fast comes naturally to some, but most horses, which are prey animals, prefer to move as a group, keeping each other safe. They want to run away from harm rather than toward it. To force them to race, horse owners use whips and other devices that inflict discomfort and pain.
The lower legs of horses take the biggest beating while they are running. This is especially true of the hindquarters, where muscles, tendons, and ligaments are stressed. To help them handle this pounding, trainers often use a device called a tongue tie or spurs. These implements, which are inserted into the horses’ lower backs, restrict the movement of the tongue and apply sharp pressure to the sides of the feet, causing pain.
Before a race, many horses are injected with Lasix, a diuretic that is noted on the racing form with a boldface “L.” The drug helps prevent pulmonary bleeding caused by hard running. It also causes the horses to unload epic amounts of urine—twenty or thirty pounds worth. This is the kind of thing that you wouldn’t see in a natural environment, and it’s something that PETA wants to change.
