OPINION | About 20 horses die each season at Austintown’s racino. Horse racing must end

[Editor’s note: Patrick Battuello, founder of anti-horse racing nonprofit Horseracing Wrongs, provided Mahoning Matters with Ohio State Racing Commission records of racehorse deaths at Austintown’s Mahoning Valley Race Course racino in 2020 and 2021. Mahoning Matters’ independent review of those records found the racino reported 22 horse deaths in 2020 and 26 deaths in 2021. Opinions published here do not necessarily reflect the views of Mahoning Matters.]

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Mahoning Matters has of late been reporting deaths at Hollywood Gaming Mahoning Valley Race Course, and for that we are grateful. But we do object, most vociferously, to Ohio State Racing Commission Executive Director Chris Dragone’s characterization of four horse deaths in two months as “unusual,” and his claim that this is “a higher rate compared to 2020 and 2021.” It’s not, and it’s not. And Mr. Dragone knows it.

Over the past five years, 103 racehorses have lost their lives at Mahoning — an average of more than 20 annually. But, two things: First, these are only the ones we have been able to confirm through public records requests. Surely, there were others who fell through the cracks. Second, MVRC only runs six months out of the year. In other words, that average actually comes out to roughly seven deaths every two months, which is higher than the four-in-two that has suddenly caught Mr. Dragone’s attention. In addition, the kill totals for 2020 and 2021 were 22 and 28, respectively – again, higher rates than this year’s (so far, that is).

Statewide, the five-year toll comes in at 273. That’s 273 (that we know about) beautiful, intelligent creatures sacrificed for $2 bets. Nationally, the numbers are simply staggering. Since 2014, Horseracing Wrongs has documented more than 8,000 deaths at U.S. tracks. We estimate that more than 2,000 horses are killed racing or training across America every year. More than 2,000 — that’s nearly six every single day.

And just to be clear: Death at the track is neither clean nor tranquil.

Death at the track is cardiovascular collapse, or a failed heart, in animals who are mostly still in puberty. Death at the track is pulmonary hemorrhage, or bleeding out from the lungs. Death at the track is blunt-force head trauma from collisions with other horses or the track itself. Death at the track is broken necks, severed spines, ruptured ligaments and shattered legs — occasionally shattered so severely that the limb remains attached to the rest of the body by skin or tendons only.

But the on-track kills tell only part of the story. Each year, hundreds more die back in their stalls from things like: Colic, a painful, terrifying abdominal affliction; laminitis, an excruciating inflammation in the feet; infections; neurological disorders; the proverbial “barn accidents”; or, as we often see in the public records, they are simply “found dead in the morning.” These, mind you, were still very much active racehorses who were in between races. And again, most of them were mere adolescents.

Then, too: Slaughter. While the industry desperately tries to downplay the extent of the problem by touting its utterly hollow zero-tolerance policies and drop-in-the-bucket aftercare initiatives, the prevailing wisdom backed by two independent studies is that most spent or simply no longer wanted racehorses are brutally bled out and butchered at “career’s” end — some 10,000 to 15,000 annually.

But, of course, the wrongs do not stop at the killing. To wit:

Forced separation: Would-be racehorses are forever torn from their mothers, families and herds as mere babies. They are sold, usually, at the tender age of 1, and broken — an industry term meaning to be made pliant and submissive. Alone and terrified, their servitude begins.

Grinding of unformed bodies: The typical horse does not reach full musculoskeletal maturity until around the age of 6, meaning their bones are not done growing; their plates are not done fusing. And the higher up on their bodies, the slower the process. So the bones in the spine and neck, of all places, are the last to finish. The typical racehorse is thrust into intensive training at 18 months, and raced at 2. On the maturation chart, that’s the rough equivalent of a first-grader. The necropsies we receive show time and again 4-, 3- or even 2-year-old horses dying with chronic conditions like osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease — clear evidence of the incessant pounding these pubescent bodies are forced to absorb.

Confinement and isolation: In perhaps the worst of it, racehorses are kept locked — alone — in tiny 12-foot by 12-foot stalls for more than 23 hours a day, making a mockery of the industry claim that horses are “born to run, love to run,” and a cruelty all the worse for being inflicted on naturally social, herd animals like horses. At a 2019 New York State Senate hearing, prominent equine veterinarian Dr. Kraig Kulikowski likened this cruelty to keeping a child locked in a 4-foot by 4-foot closet for more than 23 hours a day. Imagine that.

Negation: Relatedly, practically all the horse’s natural instincts and desires are thwarted, creating an emotional and mental suffering that is brought home with crystal clarity in the stereotypies commonly seen in confined racehorses — things like cribbing, wind-sucking, bobbing, weaving, pacing, digging, kicking and even self-mutilation.

Control and subjugation: The racing people thoroughly control every moment of their assets’ lives – control that is often effected through force and intimidation, and through the tools of their trade: cribbing collars, nose chains, lip chains, tongue ties, eye blinders, mouth bits, and, of course, whips. On that, the very public flogging administered to racehorses would land a person in jail if done to his dog in the park. But at the track, it’s all just part of the tradition.

Drugging and doping: Racehorses are injected — legally and otherwise — with myriad performance-enhancing, injury-masking and pain-numbing chemicals. The horseman’s credo: Keep ’em out on the track, keep ’em earning by whatever means necessary.

Commodification: By law, racehorses are literal chattel — pieces of property to be bought, sold, traded and dumped whenever and however their people decide. To make matters worse, they are not even afforded the protections — woefully inadequate as most are — of animal cruelty statutes, meaning an owner or trainer can run his horse into the ground — yes, even to death — with virtual impunity. What’s more, the average racehorse will change hands multiple times over the course of its so-called career, adding anxiety and stress to an already anxious, stressful existence. This near-constant shuffling among trainers, grooms, vets, barns, tracks and states is a primary reason why almost all active racehorses suffer from ulcers.

Sensibilities toward animal exploitation, most especially regarding entertainment, are rapidly evolving. In just the past few years:

• Ringling Bros. has closed its doors for good, ending over a century of animal abuse;
• SeaWorld, after being exposed by the film “Blackfish,” has ended its captive breeding of orcas and remains in slow, steady decline;
• There are rodeo bans in cities as diverse as Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Petersburg and Fort Wayne;
• Both New York and Illinois have outlawed the use of elephants in any form of entertainment. New Jersey, Hawaii and California have forbidden all wild animal acts;
• And most relevant to the issue at hand: Dog racing in America is all but dead. By the end of this year, there will be but two tracks left in the entire country. More telling: Dog racing is outright prohibited on moral grounds in 41 states.

So the question becomes: Why should horse racing be exempt? Why do we continue to give it cover under the banner of “sport”? In a landscape that abounds with other gambling options — casinos, lotteries, real sports involving autonomous human beings (sports betting was legalized in Ohio in December and it’s set to launch this year) — the time has long last arrived to let these majestic animals be.

Horse racing is cruel. Horse racing is deadly. Horse racing must end.

— Patrick Battuello founded anti-horse racing organization Horseracing Wrongs in 2013. The nonprofit’s work has been featured in The Baltimore Sun, the Boston Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, The Guardian, and The New Yorker. In addition to testifying before the New York State Senate and speaking at numerous colleges, Battuello has appeared on CNN, ESPN and HBO’s “Real Sports,” and has written an op-ed for The Washington Post.

This story was originally published March 23, 2022 at 11:35 AM.