With the Belmont Stakes offering the promise of the first Triple Crown winner in over 30 years, all eyes were focused on the so-called “Sport of Kings.” Horse racing is considered one of the oldest sports in the world, with the first known written account coming from the Iliad. Since horse racing is one of the most popular venues for legalized gambling and therefore a source of tax revenue for state governments, its existence as a “sport” is rarely questioned. On occasion, like in an earlier race at this year’s Belmont, where a horse loses its life during or immediately after a race, some ask questions about their treatment and the price they pay but, particularly with the glamour and excitement of a Triple Crown winner at hand, those questions fade quickly.
There are several aspects of horse racing that should give people pause. The vast majority of horses bred for racing don’t end up anywhere near Churchill Downs. To put things in perspective, of the tens of thousands of racehorses born each year, only 60 to 65 percent actually make it to the racetrack, only 5 percent will win any significant purse and only 0.2 percent will win a high-stakes race. The fate of the remaining 99.8 percent is at best uncertain. In the United States, horse racing is regulated at the state level resulting in a tremendous lack of uniformity of rules. In terms of economic impact, in 2012, the total purse for all races held in the United States was in excess of $1.1 billion and analysts have placed the direct economic impact of horse racing at approximately $39 billion. Consequently, states and the horse racing industry have economic incentives to keep the public in the dark about some of the negative impacts of horse racing on the animals involved.
Breeding and Training
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