LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The star of the 2019 Kentucky Derby prep season has been death. Horse racing news has been dominated not with talk of any individual thoroughbred or rising stars.
Instead, racing has taken a back seat to what has been happening in California -- horse deaths at Santa Anita Park, which was compelled to shut down its operations in the wake of 21 deaths in a little more than two months. An unusually cold and rainy winter might’ve been the culprit in changing track conditions. Undoubtedly, there are other factors.
While the track was closed for racing, a 22nd horse died during training. And after taking most of March off, when the track did resume racing on March 29, a 5-year-old gelding suffered fatal injuries during a racing collision just two days later.
On Tuesday, California Sen. Diane Feinstein sent a letter to the chairman of the California Horse Racing Board asking him to suspend all racing at Santa Anita Park, which this weekend is scheduled to hold its signature event – the $1 million Santa Anita Derby.
“The death of a single horse is a tragedy, but as a lifelong lover of horses, I'm appalled that almost two dozen horses have died in just four months," she wrote.
Her call came one day after California Rep. Judy Chu called for a congressional inquiry into the horse deaths in California.
PETA has long campaigned against the sport, and while deaths in horse racing are nothing new, the recent attention on Santa Anita’s struggles has put a brighter spotlight on this dark corner of the sport just as its period of highest national publicity is turning toward its home stretch.
But it's not just a California issue. Equine deaths happen wherever there is horse racing, and their threat to the sport is real.
“This is our March Madness,” trainer Bob Baffert said on a national media teleconference on Tuesday. “But we’re having the wrong kind of madness. We feel like we’re all under the gun. We should be under the gun. You can’t defend a horse getting hurt.”
Baffert and others understand that this is a bit different from past questions the sport has faced. Medications in racing have long been an area of concern. Occasionally there’s controversy over the use of whips.
Santa Anita has banned race day medications and limiting the use of whips has been proposed to address its recent issues.
The seriousness with which some of the sport’s biggest names and tracks are discussing these topics now belies a scary truth for all of them: This is an issue that threatens the sport.
It’s not PETA or animal rights groups that are the primary concern of those within the sport. It’s the general public itself, and racing fans in general.
The message to racing from a changing society, from fans to the halls of congress, is, “Enough is enough.” And these disparate groups are finding their voice just as the Kentucky Derby comes into view.
Horse racing has several problems. First and foremost is the safety of its stars. From medications to track conditions to breeding practices that have valued speed over stability, so many things feed into the fragility of these animals that there is no easy step to take to fix the issue of horse fatalities.
Second, the sport has no central voice. It has many voices, some which resonate more than others, but there is no unified authority, no league office, no one to speak for the sport besides people like Baffert, its most visible trainer, who would be viewed by critics as part of the problem.
As someone who has spent time around trainers, I believe most are sincere when they talk about their love for the animals. I’ve seen them struggle with a horse being fatally injured.
“These horses, they’re not our livelihood, they’re our way of life,” Baffert said Tuesday. “There are a lot of people back here that are employees, and we have to make this work. I worry about the families. I have a lot of employees. . . . They’re worried. Racing needs to do well. This last month has been a little stressful."
But things are not going well for racing right now. And it’s going to take more than a sunny sky and “My Old Kentucky Home” to drown out the concerns as Derby Day approaches.
“It’s like we’ve been under a dark cloud,” Baffert said. “Hopefully we can move forward.”
They will try with three significant Derby preps this weekend. In a lot of ways, people around the sport will be holding their breath in the hopes that those pass without further incident.
Copyright 2019 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
