Every horse that is born is guaranteed a retirement.
Breeders offer live-foal guarantees so let’s take it a step further. Now that the foal is alive let’s ensure that after it weans, breaks, races, and retires that the horse doesn’t end up in nickel claimers until it kills itself or ends up on a meat hook.
Some people might balk at the expense, even the property to house all the retired horses, but it has to be done. This is the only humane thing to do for these animals that were born so we could watch them run, so that we could bet on them, so we can curse them out and then revel in their glory.
These horses don’t know how much they are worth. They are born horses and most run their guts out. Whether they want to or not, they run as fast as they can for as long as they’re asked. Many times they are asked for too much for too long.
The NFL is finally recognizing that concussions are a real and prevalent cause of worry for current and former players. The NFL is funding research and will hopefully care for the players that made it the richest sport in the country. Players aren’t just meat. The veterans of the sport who went brain-dead from trauma to make a hit or dive for a first down need the support of its employer for the long term.
Why is it that this country fails to see that the here-and-now is only that, the here-and-now? Battles are waged long after careers are done. Just look at the post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide rates of soldiers returning from the Middle East. How often are they left behind?
But this is horse racing and perhaps this sport can get it right because these animals cannot speak for themselves. States must open their land to these animals when their knees are so swollen and their ankles so chipped that another step would be and should be considered murder on the part of its handlers.
Money needs to be set aside from the breeders who deliver the horses, who pay $50 million for Big Brown, $39 million for Smarty Jones, $30 million for Lemon Drop Kid or $60 million for Fusaichi Pegasus. It all starts with them, doesn’t it?
Let’s see a penny from every betting dollar go to retirement, retirement being a new branch of the business the same way racing and breeding are. One Abe Lincoln profile-penny per dollar on the 2009 Travers Day from Saratoga Race Course alone would have put close to $69,000 in the retirement’s coffers. That’s from one day, albeit one of the richer days, but just one day. The money would need to be used to hire extra help since more horses need more hands and more feed and more hay, more everything.
Use the dreaded “T” word, taxes, call it what you want, but “tax” the purses, because if you benefit from a horse in action, a horse out of action should benefit from you.
I’m not smart enough to come up with a plan that appeases all those who have needs and those who would be angry at the prospect of shelling over extra dollars to fund something of this magnitude.
But if you have anything resembling a heart, know that the race doesn’t end at the wire. The wire is out in a field with grass where the seven-year-old winner of one $10,000 claiming race can let his hair grow long the way Bernardini and Curlin can.
They didn’t ask to be born, but they were bred for our entertainment.
People are in this business, largely, because they love the horse. Let’s prove it. We owe that to the horse.
Before you cash another winner and harvest the benefits that its four hooves gave you, keep in mind that his or her retirement, if any, at this point, is from charity and should be mandatory.
26 Dec 2009 at 10:19 am | #
Better yet, purchase two or three or five horses yourself, Brendan. Odds are, you have none; make these all retirees. MOST ex-racehorses do lead second lives of usefulness, as hunters, and other forms of pleasure horses. That some fall through the cracks is inevitable as the wheels of commerce glide along. Of course, anthropomorphism being what it is, identification with the supposed needs of these animals makes this a ripe ground for emotive exploitation. Horses are athletes; have you ever competed and injured yourself?
Anyone advocating the alternative disposition of someone else’s property ought to place their advocacy at home before embarking on quixotic campaigns. Fantastical notions with huge emotional tugs are a staple item, digestible by the naive, and non-horse-owning public. Many televangelists have become hugely rich with many similiar appeals, simply in another arena. Generally, such self-aggrandizement is self evident. Check the mirror.
Swollen knees, and even chipped ankles, heal. How is a horse supposed to “take another step” in order to graze? These things do not constitute “murder”, nor do they indicate neglect. Buy all the damaged racehorses you can, Brendan. Then get back on the hyperbolic soapbox, after you have demonstrated sincere commitment.
26 Dec 2009 at 12:20 pm | #
as an active participant on and off the racetrack i think this is a great idea.so many horses do not get a happy ending.too many are being bred..too many.
26 Dec 2009 at 12:40 pm | #
To MHN-
I think you are taking you disposal of property issue a little too extremely-
The proposal as I understand it is to provide a safe haven for the ones who “fall thru the cracks” as you put it.
I think you will find their numbers to be substantially higher than you realize, and they certainly dwarf the amount of horses rescued for other careers.
I have been in the trenches and can tell you from first hand experience that a majority of bottom level claimers are not fit to use as riding horses or hunter jumpers etc. They are in unusable condition for anything except pasture horses, having been run through the vet/racing injection grinder.
These animals deserve more than being eaten as food.
1% is too high a “tax” on the wagering side-lets make it 1/4% from handle and the same amount from every horse bred and registered.
To the other comment, we need more horses being bred, not less. If you haven’t noticed, Churchill Downs cut back to 4 day weeks and even Del Mar, which had run since 1937 with a 6 day week, cut back to 5 this summer for the first time.
26 Dec 2009 at 06:12 pm | #
i don’t think it is the amount of horses running but rather the economy causing unfilled books at the races.i may be wrong..guess the next couple of years will show us.this year has been a bummer year for breeding.prices are low at the farms as well as at the sales.
i do agree that a tax or whatever they want to call it should be agreed upon.
my local track has a retirement program for the very lucky chosen ones..i wonder what happens to the stallions that are older and are considered unadoptable because of their plumbing?
27 Dec 2009 at 01:11 pm | #
Training horses is all encompassing; we have over thirty in training now, and many of these are being retrained for second careers after some time off to “let down” from the “vet/racing injector grindiner”. Indeed, we have been “in the trenchs” for well over forty years. Thus, the idea of a tax to provide for the retirement of horses which have been throught the racetrack is anathema to what we have trained and stand for. There isn’t a need for it.
There is a great need for more ethical treatment of animals. Some of that ethical treatment would indeed include the slaughterhouse; the effort these animals make for us does not preclude that eventuality for any reason other than emotions and sentiment. Having ranched for these many years, the intelligence of all animals is apparent to me, including cattle,pigs, and sheep. Horses are especially friendly to people, and they are livestock, not pets. The horse also makes intense effort to do its job, to the extent that they will compete through pain and injury while achieving its goal: winning races.
None of our horses has yet made its way to the slaughterhouse. We place them responsibly, and follow their careers, which have included Gran Prix jumping, dressage champions (against the warmbloods!), and numerous other honors. While they are racing, they run “cold”. No drugs, no medications, and time off while injured until they can compete again.
This is the real dilemma of the vet/injection racing grinder: it is expesnsive to hire a trainer, pay the bills, and maintain profitability. There are economic analyses out there that do indicate this can be achieved, and sustained. The problem is that many owners, their veterinarians, and most trainers have to resort to expedient means, returning their charges to the track before the inevitable injuries have healed.
In the past, these horses would have returned to the farm and been given the ticture of time and iodine of neglect which tends to heal most injuries, perhaps with a surgical repair or two. This is similiar to all professional human athletes today. In the racing, and in the show world as well, the pharmaceutical shortcut is taken instead. The result: more horses lame, with less chance of a useful second career.
An additional expense, such as the proposed tax, merely intensifies the pressure to keep horses in training, and decreases the odds of a successful retirement from racing. More horses will then, on the margins, become too lame for anything but pasture ornaments. There oughta be a law, but you can’t legislate ethics. One can forbid raceday medication, institute tighter veterinary scrutiny prerace, and scratch those horses unfit to run. Permanent bans, rather than suspensions, are appropriate for the Patrick Biancones, found with such sophisticated and undetectable pharmaceuticals such as cobrotoxin.
Lastly, it is not a problem of overproduction, nor the current economic situation. These problems and the concurrent concern of retiring racehorses have been with us a long time. As noted by ace, short fields are becoming more common. These represent, in the main, poor value for bettors, and are responsible in part for the decline in handle. Reducing takeout, as wmcorrow will champion, is the key to profitability. Toward that goal, an added tax is likely to work against itself.
28 Dec 2009 at 03:04 pm | #
mhm, if more people used your training methods, you’re right - the horses coming off the track would be more usable and there would be fewer pasture ornaments. It sounds like you have the land which gives you the option of letting a horse take a break and heal. Unfortunately, that seems to be the exception rather than the rule nowadays. It just seems so wrong that horses coming off the tracks have to be weaned into just being a horse since what they’ve known is years of living in a stall and being taken out to train or to race.
As far as your comments to Brendan, most people, myself included, don’t have the land to put horses on or the finances to board 2 or 3. But I do support a rescue organization here and would support a retirement plan for horses that have no other options because I do agree with his points. I’m a fan of horseracing because of the horses. Whether you look at them as livestock or athletes, they were born and raised for a reason and when they can no longer fulfill that purpose, it diminishes us as humans when we allow them to be discarded.
The only way I can see something like a retirement plan happening is to have a national governing body. Otherwise, it will happen piecemeal and the states that support a plan will find themselves overwhelmed by horses from states that don’t.
04 May 2010 at 05:38 am | #
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