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| No | 42% | 27 votes | Total: 64 votes | |
| Yes | 58% | 37 votes |
No
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Add to FavoritesAlthough I long for the day when both Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing are banned, the fastest way to get this accomplished is to not get Congress involved. Congressional hearings tend not to bring any kind of resolution to a problem it only gives the "problem du jour" a moment in the press, and then it's business as usual. The best way to investigate the horse racing industry is for the public to look into it themselves.
Both state and federal governments do get some funding for projects from taxes placed on horse racing bets through pari-mutual taxes. Also, quite a lot of campaign contributors also have race horses or have a stake in the horse racing industry. The reason many of the very wealthy have race horses is because they become galloping tax shelters. However, after the horses can no longer race (due to injury, age, or lack of ability), they cease to become a tax shelter.
Congress does not see animal rights as any king of priority, which in one sense is good news for animals, considering how badly Congress has been treating humans for the last couple of hundred years. Congress has shown time and time again that they can't get anything accomplished especially not in the time frame of a horse's life span. And humans have the power to vote.
Also, although this writer personally would like to see the true light of racing drug out into the spotlight, there are more pressing concerns that Congress needs to address. It is very difficult for the public to find much sympathy with racehorses destined for death when they cannot feed themselves, make a living wage or go to a doctor when they are sick.
When these problems of basic living conditions for voters are settled, then Congress can be asked to hold a hearing, for whatever good that will accomplish.
There may still be a Congressional hearing on the cruelties inherent in Thoroughbred horse racing, but they will be at least ten years into the future. If Thoroughbreds continue their rapid genetic decline as they have been for the last one hundred years, then there will be so many deaths at the track and during workouts, that the problems within the industry will finally be hard to ignore.
If and when there ever is a Congressional hearing on the horse racing industry, this writer hopes they would not only take into account the physical degeneration of these increasingly inbred animals and that they are asked to perform before their skeletal structure matures at age five, but that they also see the harm horse racing does to the families of gamblers and to the terrible working conditions of racehorse employees.
Learn more about this author, Rena Sherwood.
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Yes
I believe Congress should investigate the race horse industry for a number of reasons. I would like to see uniform guidelines for the racing industry applied uniformly throughout the United States on a number of key issues. I certainly don't want to see the Federal Government passing any more laws or creating any more ineffective bureaucracies. I would just like them to find one sheet of music for all 50 states to read from. Currently, racing laws and enforcement vary from state to state, with each state in control and charged with regulating the industry. I'd like to touch on some of the more critical issues on why it's time for some collaboration in this industry.
My chief complaint has to do with the way we care for our equine athletes. Performance enhancing drugs are injuring and killing horses. Lax enforcement and ridiculous penalties for drug use have been generally accepted for years and vary from state to state. It is time to identify what is acceptable and what is not in terms of drug applications. Uniform drug testing and mandatory fines and punishment should be applied and carried out in a serious fashion across all states that engage in horse racing. Polytrack and rubberized tracks have cut down on the amount of injuries and fatalities to horses and thus the injuries to jockeys. Uniform racing surface policy should be adopted. Slaughtering racehorses is absolutely unacceptable and the practice of sending them to slaughter, in the U.S., Canada, or Mexico has got to stop. We need uniform guidelines.
I have purposefully left out my opinions on racing horses as two year-olds. There are a number of people who believe juvenile racing leads to a lot of unnecessary injuries and deaths. I'd like to see the best minds collaborate and settle this issue-decide whether this is a legitimate concern or not and make the proper recommendations.
The gambling angles in horse racing are vast and unresolved. Track take outs are excessive and vary widely from track to track and from state to state. In some places, such as Philadelphia Park, they are withholding 30% of winning trifecta bets. This is absolutely unsustainable and commits players to higher losses. I generally urge fellow horse players to avoid venues like Philadelphia Park and Turf Paradise in Arizona. Off shore betting is another concern as is the transmission of racing signals and TV broadcasts which by itself, might be reason enough to investigate racing venues who refuse to sell signals or even provide them. Casino style gambling is allowed at many venues and there is no uniform percentages of revenue applied to offset the costs of horse racing. Like everything else in this industry, it is done in a "willy nilly" fashion and left for the states to decide and enforce.
Horse racing competes with other forms of gambling for a shrinking market share. It is time for Congress to take a look at this fractured and fragmented industry that is spread all over the country, operating by different sets of rules. Often, I hear fans proclaim that horse racing is a dying sport. If in fact, racehorses are abused and slaughtered and the bettors who support the industry are stripped of any chance to win by greedy operators, I hope horse racing does indeed die an unceremonious death. Or find one sheet of music that we can all live with and read from. It's time.
Learn more about this author, Garrett Anderson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
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