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Deaths at Tracks Put Horse Racing Under Scrutiny

Saturday is the 151st running of the Belmont Stakes in New York, a competition between the country’s best 3-year-old thoroughbreds, and the last of the three races in the Triple Crown.

Organizers of Saturday’s race are hoping to avoid the controversy that dogged this year’s Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, the first two races in the series

Luis Saez riding Maximum Security, second from right, goes around turn four with Flavien Prat riding Country House, left, Tyler Gaffalione riding War of Will and John Velazquez riding Code of Honor, right, during the 145th running of the Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs, May 4, 2019, in Louisville, Ky.

Judges disqualified the winner of the Kentucky Derby, Maximum Security, for straying into the path of another horse, a violation of the rules. Maximum Security’s owner is suing, contending the process to disqualify his horse was “bizarre and unconstitutional.”

Two weeks later at the Preakness, the jockey aboard Bodexpress fell off his mount when the starting gate opened.

 

The jockey was unhurt as Bodexpress ran with the other horses, riderless, avoiding efforts to corral him. He crossed the finish line 12th out of 13 horses and continued to jog around the track after the race was over.

John Velazquez tumbles to the turf after falling off Bodexpress at the starting gate during the 144th Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, May 18, 2019, in Baltimore.

The mishaps in this year’s Triple Crown are not the only reasons the sports world is taking a closer look at thoroughbred racing.

Twenty-seven horses at Santa Anita Park in Los Angeles have died since December, prompting California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein to demand the track be shut down until investigators figure out what led to the animals’ deaths.

Animal rights groups are wondering if “The Sport of Kings” has a future in the United States.

Proposed legislation

A bill currently before the U.S. House of Representatives, the Horseracing Integrity Act, would standardize safety rules for horses and jockeys across the industry. Most major U.S. sports have just one regulating body, but with horse racing, there are 38 jurisdictions, each with its own regulations. Those entities oversee about 100 racetracks around the country.

“This is an industry that routinely gives horses five and six injections of painkillers, anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxers, sedatives every week just to calm them down and rev them up to race on a track,” Kathy Guillermo, senior vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), told VOA. “We’ve really worked hard to try to bring improvements that will mean no horses are suffering and dying.”

 

Santa Anita has already banned trainers from giving horses medication on race days. Jockeys are also forbidden to whip horses.