When Eight Belles suffered a fatal injury at the 2008 Kentucky Derby, everyone gasped in horror. When Big Brown blew away the field at the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, only to finish in dead last at the Belmont Stakes (and effectively killing all hopes of ever seeing another Triple Crown winner anytime soon), horse racing fans everywhere went numb in disbelief. What was happening to our beloved horses? Where did we go wrong?
Those questions and more will be answered soon when US Congress begins its hearings on the ethics of horse racing.
"When you talk about the Kentucky Derby, Belmont, Preakness, the whole country focuses on those, they attract stars from Hollywood, and it's all pretty romantic and wonderful," says US Rep. Ed Whitfield (R) of Kentucky, who holds hearings Thursday. "But in everyday racing, there are horses going down, and then the horses unable to fulfill their promise going to slaughter. The greed has trumped the concern for the horse, it's trumped the safety of the jockeys, and it's trumped the integrity of the sport."
It will be interesting to see what Congress will learn and take action on as a result of these hearings. Considering the horse racing industry brings in a whopping $40 billion annually, doing away with the sport entirely is an unlikely option.
Read more on "Horse Racing Under New Congressional Scrutiny" here.
2 comments:
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