During this election season, it’s easy to get bogged down in mudslinging, name calling and attack ads. In the midst of all that, it’s easy to lose sight of the issues that matter. That’s why a phrase that gets used frequently in the media is horse race, an analogy for the state of the campaign. With a little bit of imagination, the term can apply to any contest where the outcome is in doubt.
As the horses began running into the last of the sun, a pinkish light filtered through tall trees and shimmered off their bodies. War of Will was on the inside, close to the rail, with McKinzie and Mongolian Groom right behind him. He moved with enormous strides and hypnotic smoothness. On the far turn you could see that he was tiring, but he kept his lead. By the top of the stretch, War of Will was a half length ahead of the field as jockeys snapped their whips.
Behind the romanticized facade of Thoroughbred racing lies a world of drugs, injuries and gruesome breakdowns. Trainers dispense cocktails of legal and illegal substances to mask pain, disguise injuries and artificially enhance performance. Pushed to run faster than their hearts and legs can handle, many horses — fittingly called “bleeders” by the industry — will bleed from their lungs during hard running. In order to avoid bleeders, most racehorses receive a dose of Lasix on race day. The drug’s diuretic function causes the horses to unload epic amounts of urine–twenty or thirty pounds’ worth.
The drug cocktail has gotten even worse as modern medications designed for human use have made their way into the hands of horse trainers. Powerful painkillers, antipsychotics, antiepilepsy products and growth hormones are all part of the mix. Racing officials don’t have the testing capacity to keep up with the new drugs, and penalties for breaking rules are weak. A trainer punished for dirty tests in one jurisdiction is free to go to another.
Several years ago, Patrick Battuello, who runs the activist group Horseracing Wrongs, said that racing was “the Big Lie.” Its athletes are whipped, drugged and forced to sprint — a combination of exploitation and cruelty. And if they don’t die from the sport (PETA estimates that ten thousand American thoroughbreds are slaughtered annually), they will likely be killed by the trainers who force them to compete in such cruel conditions.
With the major sports leagues’ spring training season underway, TVG, an all-racing channel included in many sports cable packages, has found an enthusiastic audience among people looking for a change of pace from baseball. And though it may not be as exciting as an actual horse race, this nascent television market presents a unique opportunity for horse racing to take the next step toward reclaiming its reputation for excellence. The question is whether it will take that step. And if so, how.