SPECIAL REPORTS
H O R S E R A C I N G
EIGHT BELLES
Pictured Above
"She ran with the heart of a locomotive, on champagne-glass ankles." Blaming the breeders and investors, sports writer Sally Jenkins claimed, "thoroughbred racing is in a moral crisis, and everyone now knows it."
THOROUGHBRED RACEHORSES
"Our horses are sick. Our thoroughbreds are thoroughly inbred. They are locomotives sitting atop toothpicks. They are fragile and friable, designed to run but not to recover from running. And each time they break down or wear out, we chalk it up to an individual horse's shortcomings, rather than the decades-long decline of the entire breeding industry".
— Barry Petchesky (Deadspin)
JOHN HETTINGER
JANE ALLIN
Breeding by the Numbers
Part 1: The Statistics
Part 2: In the Shed
Part 3: In the Ring
Breeding for Trouble
Part 1: Breeding for Breakdowns
Part 2: The Rise of the Ill-Fated Gene Pool
Part 3: Commercialization — The Descent of the Thoroughbred
Part 4: On the Brink of Extinction?
Racing Babies: Are Two-Year Olds Too Young?
Milk of Death: The Dark Side of the Nurse Mare Industry
"Perhaps in the 'good old days' of racing prior to the explosion of over breeding this was legitimate and respectful protocol but in today’s frenzy of unregulated breeding and unmitigated overpopulation of horses, it is no longer viable." — JANE ALLIN
Ground Matters: God's Dirt versus Man-Made Synthetic
Part 1: Weighing the Controversy
Part 2: The North American Switch
Part 3: Synthetics versus Dirt - Pros and Cons
Part 4: Statistics and Safety - The Facts?
Part 5: Opposing Forces
Part 6: Today and Beyond
The Chemical Horse
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Historical Aspects
Part 3: The Inception of Drug Testing
Part 4: Drugs and Their Actions
Part 5: Policies and Tactics
Part 6: Class 3 Drugs — Performance Enhancing or Not?
Part 7: Class 4 Drugs — Harmless Therapeutics? » Corticosteroids and Bute
Part 8: The Unclassifieds » Lasix and Milkshakes)
Part 9: The Call for Reform
Part 10: Who Rules?
Forgotten Side of the Salix Debate: The Calcium Connection
"So Salix leaches calcium from the bones and bute aids and abets the outcome. Great combination if you are Gumby’s sidekick Pokey, the talking red horse with rubber legs." — JANE ALLIN
Horse Racing in America: A Spectacle of Cheaters, Liars and Dopers
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Cheaters, Liars and Dopers
Part 3: Drugs, Suffering and Death
Drugs and Horse Racing: Shades of Gray and the Triangle of Deceit
I'll Have Another . . . Shock Wave Therapy Please
Racing Through the Slaughter Pipeline
Part 1: Food for Thought
Part 2: The Racehorse as a Commodity
Part 3: A Convenient Alternative
Part 4: Racehorse Slaughter Knows No Boundaries
Part 5: Darkness at the End of the Pipeline
RACEHORSE MEMORIAL WALL
Remembering the valiant horses who have perished in service to the Sport of Kings — Since 2005. See http://racehorsememorialwall.blogspot.com/ »
PATRICK BATTUELLO / HORSE RACING WRONGS
Consistent reporting of racehorse deaths at U.S. tracks since 2013 »
INSIGHTFUL PERSPECTIVE
"What he liked about horse racing was the minimal investment and the high returns. He didn’t mind horses at all; they were easy on the eyes and exciting to watch."
"The horse industry in general was a zero-waste proposition: this was one animal you could take from birth, exploit all its qualities — speed, strength, tractability — through breeding, racing, eventing, caléche or companion service, and then profit from its flesh when it had outlived its usefulness."
― From the Book, GROUND MANNERS, A NOVEL, by Cynthia D'Errico
If you use this quote, please be sure to give full credit. Thank you!
Get your copy of "Ground Manners" at Amazon.com »