I have been championing calls to ban horse racing for over a decade for all manner of reasons. Here, for example, is what I wrote in “Sadly, the Bell Tolled for Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby,” May 6, 2008:
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The sport of kings? Indeed. But so is the barbarism of fox hunting. …
[J]ust like Barbaro, Eight Belles pulled up lame, after breaking both front ankles, at the Kentucky Derby. However, unlike Barbaro, she was put out of her misery right on the spot!
Why? The reason, I submit, is that she did not have the potential to generate much income for her owners off the track. Therefore, they had no vested interest in trying to save her. …
[I]t’s one thing to race horses in their natural state. It’s quite another, however, to inject them with so many pharmaceuticals to make them bigger, stronger and faster that their skinny legs cannot support their unnatural body mass [especially when all half-ton of it is pounding the ground at 40 miles an hour, one foot at a time].
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This is why I was so heartened late last year when no less an authority than Arthur Hancock III chimed in. After all, his Stone Farm stables in Kentucky has fielded 14 international champions.
[Hancock] believes American horses are entirely over-medicated, and many drugs mask underlying issues, putting perhaps slightly injured horses on the path to a fatal injury.
‘I contend that if a horse needs drugs to run he doesn’t need to be running. He needs to run on his natural ability … not some chemically induced ability,’ Hancock said.
(CBS This Morning Saturday, November 30, 2019)
I duly cheered in “Horse Racing Is to America What Fox Hunting Is to England. So Ban It!” December 2, 2019. But just imagine my schadenfreude upon reading this:
More than two dozen racehorse trainers, veterinarians and drug distributors were charged in a wide-ranging scheme to secretly dope horses and cheat the betting public, according to federal indictments unsealed on Monday in Manhattan.
Among the 27 people charged was Jason Servis, the trainer of Maximum Security, one of the best racehorses in the world and one who benefited from a doping regimen, according to one of the indictments.
(The New York Times, March 9, 2020)
Interestingly enough, Maximum Security won last year’s famed Kentucky Derby only to be disqualified – not for the real crime of doping but for some spurious claim of interference. What a farce!
Mind you, when you think about it, ever since they discovered how to, men have been doping themselves to enhance performance. Therefore, is it any wonder that they’ve been doping their horses tenfold to do the same…?
Moreover, chances are that, at some point in your life, you have directed scorn at inner-city kids for pushing drugs onto wholly complicit, suburban kids. Well, I hope you make a point of directing similar scorn at these suburban dads who have been injecting drugs into these wholly innocent, domesticated horses.
Frankly, it’s arguable that drug kingpins like Servis – who lorded over the world of horse racing – should be even greater social pariahs than those like El Chapo – who lorded over the world of cocaine trafficking.
That said, with all due respect to Servis, not only is horse racing’s biggest fish getting away; he’s being rewarded. His name is Bob Baffert, the man who trained both the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh and the 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify. Bear that in mind as you read this:
Maximum Security has a new trainer. The horse’s owner Gary West removed Jason Servis after he was indicted and charged on Monday in connection with a widespread international scheme to administer performance-enhancing drugs to the animals in order to make them run faster and boost their endurance. Maximum Security’s new trainer is Bob Baffert.
(CBS Sports, March 10, 2020)
At the risk of offending many of you, this conjures up my lingering suspicion about Usain Bolt reigning over the open and notorious doping era of track and field without getting caught.
Things that make you go, hmmmm, no?
Related commentaries:
the bell tolled…
horse racing to fox hunting…
Triple Crown…
Usain Bolt…
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