Racing kills horses at an alarming rate

Let’s take California horse racing as an example.

As of June 2021, a reported total of 74 horses in the care of trainer Bob Baffert were killed since the year 2000. This is according to records compiled by the Washington Post and released in a lengthy article on Friday, June 18th.

When factoring in the number of races run, Baffert trainees have been killed at the highest rate of the 10 California trainers with the highest number of equine fatalities: 8.30 deaths per 1,000 starters.

This is just in California.

Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, banned from racing at tracks owned by the Stronach Group, including Santa Anita and Golden Gate Fields in California, has a rate of 6.25 racehorse deaths per 1,000 starts, killing 122 racehorses from 19,516 starts, as you can see from the chart above.

Big trainers with big kills make big headlines. But what about the racehorses killed all across the United States whose names never make the headlines? Ever.

Horseracing Wrongs

At HorseracingWrongs.org, Patrick Battuello has been documenting the carnage on U.S. racetracks since 2014. The numbers are dizzying, stomach churning.

AMERICA’S DEAD RACEHORSES

You could be paying for it

Horse racing in the US cannot even support itself, even with the monies they get from betting revenues and on track “racinos”.

Many racetracks are being propped up by the State governments they operate in to the tune of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year to keep them running.

If you have racetracks operating in your State it is worth checking out with your Governor’s Office to find out.

The Fund for Horses are working right now with Governors of the States we know about on this issue.

In the meantime, there are Petitions to end horse racing and racing subsidies on HorseracingWrongs.org.

Please help if you live in any of the States below with your signature, and share with friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Remember Eight Belles.

Related Reading

Is Horse Racing Still Too Big To Fail? Slots aren’t saving racing. Neither are billions in public subsidies. Can anything? Defector.com.

2 thoughts on “Racing kills horses at an alarming rate”

just appalling that such beautiful animals get treated like this for the sake of money making, these trainers say they love horses, they don’t love them, they use them.

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One would think that the death of Eight Belles would’ve brought racing to its senses!
But it didn’t, which speaks volumes.
Innocent horses suffering injuries and then disappearing, horses breaking down and dying in a race or in training.
And if it wasn’t for Patrick Battuello and his team at Horseracing Wrongs, the non high profile horses (being the great majority) would go unnoticed and unrecorded.

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