Thanks to Karen Krizanovich for sending me this New York Times piece on the use of drugs in US horse racing in the run up to the Breeders’ Cup championship day. I’ve bolded for emphasis… I do not know how any true horseman or horsewoman could send injured horses into competition.
“A Jockey Club study released last March determined that racehorses died at the rate of 2.04 per 1,000 starts in the United States and Canada, a rate twice as deadly as in any other country. The Jockey Club has pointed to multiple studies that show permissive drug rules are part of the cause of the high mortality rates. It has gotten the Association of Racing Commissioners International, or R.C.I., to lower the allowable level of phenylbutazone, which can be used to mask injuries to horses.”
I suppose it’s a start…