What’s at Stake in a Horse Race?
There are few experiences more thrilling than watching a horse race. The hooves thunder down the track, shaking the earth. The crowd roars. The horses are beautiful, their coats gleaming in the sun. The whole thing feels magical. But what’s behind the scenes? This week in our series, “Why We Should All Care About,” we take a closer look at horse racing and what’s at stake for the sport and its animals.
The Piazza del Campo, the central square in Siena, Italy, is transformed beyond recognition in the days leading up to a horse race. A gritty mixture of clay and earth is packed onto the square’s golden cobbles, creating a compact and level track for the horses. Where lively restaurants and cafes usually spill out into the square like leaves from a vine, bleachers are assembled for thousands of fans and barriers erected to mark the perimeter of the circuit.
As the eleven horse began their long sprint down the backstretch, the sun was beginning to set and the track was drenched in pinkish light. War of Will, that year’s Preakness champion, broke cleanly from the gate and held his lead around the clubhouse turn. McKinzie and Mongolian Groom were a nose behind. It was clear, from where I stood, that the horses were getting tired.
They’re not used to running this far. In the wild, horses—who are prey animals—prefer to run as a pack and keep each other safe, not go for individual glory. So the long stretches of hard running at races can be dangerous for them and they tend to get thirsty. That’s why for decades almost every thoroughbred in the United States gets a shot of Lasix, a diuretic marked on the racing form with a boldface “L.” Besides its purposeful function to help them urinate, Lasix reduces pulmonary bleeding that can result from hard running.
While these drugs and the unnatural training of racehorses can allow them to run fast, they can also cause a great deal of suffering for the animals. The mental and emotional distress can be manifested in repetitive, compulsive behavior—like biting on their gates or cribbing.
So much so that animal rights activists are holding a vigil at the Piazza this weekend to honor 168 horses killed in the 22-23 season and the tens of thousands more who disappear without trace. Since 2018, Jennifer Sully and other members of Maryland’s anti-racing group Horseracing Wrongs have held a similar vigil each weekend at either Laurel or Pimlico. I asked Annie Aguiar, who recently wrote a piece for Poynter on this topic and does horse-race reporting as part of her beat, to share some of her findings.