Horse racing is a popular sport with a long and storied history, practiced in civilizations across the world from ancient Greece to modern-day Japan. However, a darker side to the sport exists: industry-wide abuses, drug use, and gruesome breakdowns and slaughter are the reality for thousands of racehorses. The plight of these animals is the subject of PETA’s groundbreaking investigations into abusive training practices for young horses, the suffocating “pin firing” (the use of thermocautery to increase blood flow and speed up healing), the transport of unruly racehorses to foreign slaughterhouses, and more.
Horses do not reach full maturity — that is, when the growth plates in their bones fuse to form strong bone structure, and have the ability to handle the stress of intense exercise on hard surfaces at high speeds – until they are around 6 or 7. But the average racehorse is thrust into intensive training at age 2 and pushed to its limit during races, often suffering serious injuries like fractures, tendon tears, spinal fractures, and laminitis.
The term horse race refers to a competition between two or more horses, each carrying a jockey on its back, with the goal of winning the prize money offered by a race track. The first person to cross the finish line with his or her horse wins the contest. The sport has been popular since antiquity, with archeological evidence suggesting that it was enjoyed in ancient Greece and Rome, China, Babylon, Syria, and Arabia. Today, the sport is a global phenomenon with numerous races and betting options.
There are three most common ways to place a bet: bet to win, bet to place, and bet to show. Bets to win are placed on a particular horse finishing in the top spot. Bets to place are placed on the horse to finish in either second or third and bets to show are placed on a horse to finish in any of the first three positions. Win bets are generally more risky than show or place bets, but the payoffs are higher on average.
To be eligible to compete in a horse race, a horse must be a purebred of the desired breed and have a pedigree that includes at least one winning racehorse. The most well-known type of horse race is the Kentucky Derby, held annually on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
While the sport is widely considered a sport of elite athletes, many people don’t realize that horse racing is also a cruel game for the poor, overbred horses who must sprint—often while being forced to run by electric shocks and whips—on hard surfaces at such high speeds that they are constantly injured. After their races are over, most of these horses end up in slaughterhouses in Canada, Mexico, and Japan where they are killed for their meat and glue. This is a dark and hidden side of the horse racing industry, which has largely avoided public scrutiny because it is a profitable business for wealthy investors.
