Should today’s horse racing worry about its digital counterpart?

All you have to do is read Jane Allin’s article Gene Doping in the Equine Athlete: The New Normal in the “Art of Cheating”? to see what today’s horse racing is the U.S. is all about — doping and cheating.

Cheating and doping are of course only two of today’s horse racing’s multitude of sins. The most heartbreaking of all are the shocking numbers of fatal breakdowns which have now become a matter of routine. Don’t take our word for it. You can find the names of the racehorses who were killed and how they were killed at Patrick Battuello’s Horseracing Wrongs website. Here is the already tragically long list of dead racehorses for 2021.

No one in today’s horse racing really cares how many horses they abuse, maim or kill. If they did they would move heaven and earth to change it. They do nothing. Talking is not doing. They do nothing.

Here is something that may very well kill it off.

Digital Horse Racing

There is a new and exciting alternative to today’s horse racing — digital horse racing. No, this is not the same as betting on historical horse races on casino style machines. With digital horse racing you buy or breed your own digital horse and race it against other owners. Can you bet on it? You bet you can bet on it.

Is today’s horse racing concerned? They are a pretty cocky bunch. But look at this from one of it major mouthpieces.

Am starting to get questions about Zed Run and crypto-driven digital horse racing. Is this something that could have a positive or negative impact on the real horse business? https://t.co/Ig3BNTOcUG
— Ray Paulick (@raypaulick) May 4, 2021

Yahoo Finance explains the attraction of Zed Run — and why we view it as a serious threat:

“For the average person, owning a thoroughbred racehorse — let alone one that could win the Kentucky Derby — is well beyond the realm of possibility. Even the breeding fee, or so-called “stud fee,” to spawn championship-winning stallions can set prospective owners back $300,000 if they don’t want to fork over millions to buy a proven winner.

“It’s a high price to pay for the promise of acquiring race-winning genes and a lineage of proven dominance on the race track.

“Enter Zed Run, the latest digital collectible company leveraging blockchain technology to create a platform where people can buy, trade, breed and race digital collectible racehorses.

“These horses have their own unique DNA, the parity and randomness of DNA in horse racing is simulated onto the platform,” explained Roman Tirone, head of partnerships for Zed Run’s parent company Virtually Human. “You have people collecting data, seeing how their horse performs in certain races, seeing how it matches up against some of the best horses in competition and evaluating their horses based on how they perform.”

“As ephemeral as it all sounds, the possibility of minting a winning virtual horse is starting to attract some very real money.”

Check it out! See the horses in the starting gate at 6:50 and jump out at 7:20.