One of the most spectacular and exhilarating sports on Earth is a horse race. Millions of people around the world love it. But what happens behind the scenes of a race is often overlooked. The horses are not just athletes – they’re animals bred for entertainment and confined from birth to 23 hours a day in small, cramped stalls. Their bodies are under constant pressure and strain, and their lungs, eyes and joints take a beating. Their trainers do not always treat them with the care they need and the horses are pushed harder than their bodies can handle. As the sport changes in our modern society, horse racing continues to evolve, and new rules are being put in place to ensure that the horses remain safe and healthy.
During the Preakness Stakes last year, Pimlico officials were eager to show that they would keep their equine athletes safe and happy. Hundreds of veterinarians had flooded the area, and expensive imaging equipment had been brought in to test for preexisting conditions. On the track, the horses moved with hypnotic smoothness. War of Will was hugging the inside rail, McKinzie and Mongolian Groom were battling for the lead, and Vino Rosso was on the outside. But on the far turn, you could see that all three horses were tiring – they were slowing down and dropping back. Their jockeys hit them with their whips, but it was not enough to stop them from fading.
A few hundred yards from the finish line, the lead changed hands. A horse named Havnameltdown broke a front leg just before the quarter pole, and his rider fell off. A crowd half the size of its pre-pandemic peak watched in disbelief.
In a race, a horse’s chances of winning can be affected by the weight they have to carry (which is calculated from their ability), its position relative to other horses in the starting gate, its sex, age, and training. It is also possible to place a bet on the first two finishers (known as a Quinella) in which case a payout is made regardless of whether either horse wins or runs second.
All of these factors can cause a horse to suffer from what experts call “performance-related issues.” Symptoms may include cribbing – biting on the gate to try to get out of its stall (an act that’s not natural for an animal) and self-mutilation such as kicking, gnawing and gnashing. In Maryland, organizers with the group Horseracing Wrongs have been holding anti-horse-racing demonstrations at Laurel and Pimlico every weekend since 2018. They say that despite these efforts to improve the lives of the horses, they are enduring a system that is still inhumane.
