Speciesism

Four Ways to End Horse Racing as Recommended by the Horse Racing Industry

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The Horse Racing industry in California is feeling the heat - or "battle cry" as BloodHorse call it, from a growing animal rights backlash to the growing number of horses being raced to death.

"There is a real risk that in California, the fifth-largest economy in the world, and, in many ways, an international trend-setter, racing could end", said Dr. Rick Arthur, equine medical director of the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB).

Chuck Winner, who recently ended his tenure as CHRB chairman, was asked to describe how a ban of horse racing in California could be achieved.

A constitutional initiative, but since this requires more qualifying signatures, nearly a million, it would be expensive and likely take the backing of a group like PETA and other animal rights groups. The legislature could pass legislation to stop racing, temporarily, or in some way, which would require the governor's support. The state, could withhold racing dates, which, in fact, belong to the state, not the various racing associations. Finally, the Stronach Group could sell its valuable land to developers and leave California with only Del Mar, Los Alamitos Race Course, and a handful of county fairs, which Winner says would is hardly the ingredients of a viable circuit.

Horses are fragile, sentient, intelligent animals that the race horse industry breeds for speed to be raced for profit, for gambling, for cruel entertainment.

Over the last five years, Patrick Battuello of HorseracingWrongs has documented more than 5,000 racetrack deaths (he calls them â€œkillsâ€), mostly thoroughbreds. Almost every dayâ€”sometimes twice a dayâ€”a new post is documented on his website HorseracingWrongs.org in what amounts to a news service for horse racing carnage. In 2018 alone, 1,122 racehorses kills were documented complete with horse names, dates, and locations.