The trainer of this year’s Kentucky Derby winner has been accused multiple times of giving his horses a “milkshake”, a performance-enhancing drench that is associated with additional risk of breakdown.
Over 14 years and in four different states, O’Neill received more than a dozen violations for giving his horses improper drugs. O’Neill’s horses also have had a tendency to break down. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the horses he trains break down or show signs of injury at more than twice the rate of the national average.
We kill a lot of horses in this country:
At a rate of 2.00 fatalities per 1,000 starts, two Thoroughbred racehorses die (on average) every day in North America. That incidence rate is also higher than it was in 1992, when it was 1.60 fatalities per 1,000 starts. Neither of those rates include training fatalities either. In states that track training fatalities, training accounts for nearly a third of the total fatalities. That would mean three Thoroughbred racehorses die every day from both training and racing combined.
I seem to have missed the part of the hagiographic, syncophantic pre-Derby telecast where they talked about this, but I admit I didn’t watch every minute of the show.
ornery_curmudgeon
I know, right, like there are people in this world who abuse things and need to be regulated. Most folks in racing are not that way, only some of them.
The thing is, horses are like people and most work for a living … and racing is one of the engines of the equestrian economy.
It’s like the carriage horse protests that ban city use of horses: the ‘welfare’ activists go home and feel self-righteous, and the horses lose employment and are shipped to slaughter.
ornery_curmudgeon
“hagiographic, syncophantic pre-Derby telecast…”
Wait, I missed this on first reading. Maybe I don’t understand the point you’re making.
Do you hate horses, hate their sports … or love them so much you can’t stand the idea they may be abused?
Yevgraf
Simple regs can fix this – the dude is prolly doing the meds to enhance training performance, then stopping them at some point in the weeks prior to a race.
Just prohibit doing training during the effective use of the concoctions, and rigidly check veterinary dispensaries.
c u n d gulag
Hell, a few years ago, if they saddled-up Barry Bonds or A-Rod, they might have won The Derby!
One of them might have captured ‘The Double-Triple Crown:’
BA.
RBI.
HR’s.
And, The Derby, the Preakness, and Belmont.
geg6
And it’s just as bad in harness racing. And don’t get me started on dog racing. Since there are both harness and dog tracks very nearby, I know some thoroughbred and greyhound rescuers. And my cousin Barbara breeds thoroughbreds (not for racing, but for equestrian events). They all have told me horror stories. Bad enough to make grown men cry in public.
the fugitive uterus
OT, but Romney spokeswoman says on CNN this moring that if we had to look back at some things we did in HS, we would be embarrassed, too.
I was bullied off and on since I was about 8 years old. I never had any inclination to do the same or to turn on an individual in order to fit into or please a group.
It certainly sounds to me like Mitt was the leader of this attack.
I’m not ashamed of the fact that I never tried to harm anyone and did not project my pain onto others through violence, name-calling and harrassment.
I have nothing to feel embarrassed about other than being a nerd with no friends by the time I graduated HS.
the fugitive uterus
um, and might I add, fuck her, apologist tool.
debit
What do people expect when the horses are started under saddle at one year old? It’s like having a first grader in training for a full marathon. Why can’t people understand that it’s not normal for an animal’s leg to just snap. The entire industry makes me sick.
mistermix
@ornery_curmudgeon: My point is that the pre-Derby telecast was all about the trainers and owners and didn’t mention how brutal the sport was for horses. I don’t have a problem with horse racing if they clean up their act.
Schlemizel
come on mixy – we need a steady supply of horse meat to satisfy world demand! Why can’t we enjoy a little animal cruelty along the way? I mean would would want to bet on cow or chicken races?
Keith
This reminds me of what was, IMO, the most surreal part of the 2008 primaries: the ’08 Derby in which there was an “Obama” horse (Big Brown) and a “Hillary” horse (Eight Belles), and the big deal was this was one of the first fillies with a chance. And it was supposed to be a metaphor for the primaries. Eight Belles broke down during the race and had to be euthanized on the track.
ornery_curmudgeon
@geg6: And my cousin Barbara breeds thoroughbreds (not for racing, but for equestrian events). They all have told me horror stories. Bad enough to make grown men cry in public.
Incredibly, mankind even used horses in WAR … killed millions in just the last century, often didn’t even bother shipping ’em back home after the conflict.
Most people involved today are doing it for the love of the animal and have taken amazing strides in transforming what was an exploitative situation for all of history … into a humane regulated industry. It’s not perfect, but the focus IS on finding solutions.
debit
@the fugitive uterus: I don’t know how they think they can spin this. He assembled a gang and held another guy down to cut his hair. There is no way that isn’t creepy and wrong.
MikeJ
Also too, the RSPCA want to remove the jump at Becher’s Brook. Two horses killed there this year. And of course that’s where Liz Taylor went ass over teakettle in National Velvet.
freelancer (iPhone)
Could give 2 shits. I just wanted a second season of Luck or a 4th season of Deadwood.
I guess HBO has a deal with Milch to adapt Faulkner, but how do we know we won’t end up getting “The Sound and the-“// HBO has announced the have cancelled production of David Milch’s adaptation of William Faulkner’s literary works. Please follow Milch’s website for updates about how Season 2 aka “The Fury” would’ve turned out.
debit
@ornery_curmudgeon: We also used to ride horses to work and beat our children with sticks lest we spoil them. Horses haven’t seen active combat since the cavalry started riding tanks.
And I’m sorry, but I’ll repeat my point above: as long as they are training and racing immature animals, the entire industry is to blame for the break down and early death of these horses. There is no reason they can’t wait until 3 years old (the bare minimum) except they want the fastest results soonest.
ornery_curmudgeon
@mistermix: The sport isn’t inherently ‘brutal for horses’ … but they start the horses too young, and breed for speed without enough emphasis on soundness.
Both problems are economically driven: it costs money to wait until a horse matures an extra year, and blind money wants speeeed not boring soundness. And there are shady characters in there too, and guess who has the money?
This is America, land of the Almighty dollar where money is king … horsemanship is a reflection of our society. Many folks are trying to make things better, positive expressions about horses are also needed, not simply tut-tutting and outrage.
ornery_curmudgeon
@debit: I’ll repeat my point above: as long as they are training and racing immature animals, the entire industry is to blame for the break down and early death of these horses.
We are in agreement that racing should ‘wait’ and let horses mature another year … but HOW do you make that happen? Attacking without differentiation just drives support away from reformers into the open arms of wealthy gambling interests, who don’t care. So this kind of blind all-are-guilty attack is also responsible for the situation. Funny world we live in.
So I reject the idea of collective guilt on the whole industry. Many folks are trying: they don’t get support though, and are instead lumped in as ‘abusers.’ If people really do care there are organizations and initiatives working on solutions.
brantl
It’s like football for horses.
debit
Here. Have some more tut-tutting and outrage. I don’t know how anyone can find anything worthwhile in this sport. Money is the point, the only point.
@ornery_curmudgeon: I don’t think the industry can be saved. As I said, money is the only reason it exists, and when safety and soundness get in the way of profit, we all know what will win. There are other sports horses can participate in that don’t wind up with the animal dead as a result. There haven’t been an deaths in the dressage ring that I’m aware of, anyway.
middlewest
@ornery_curmudgeon:
You’re a really bad apologist.
the fugitive uterus
@debit: not only that, he is just floundering on the whole issue, I thought Rachel Maddow made an excellent point last night about how Mitt’s first response to such things is laughter (dog on car, dad moving jobs to Wisconsin) and how disturbing is that?
Also, if you google Romney, first thing that comes up is “Romney dog”
And, “I don’t remember that”?? Again, is that supposed to mean that you have committed so many act of cruelty that you can’t keep them all straight? I’m not saying he has, but if that is the case, you’d think such an incident would stand out in his mind.
JPL
@the fugitive uterus: I’m listening to Rachel now. Romney still thinks it is funny.
debit
@the fugitive uterus: He probably says he doesn’t remember because if he did, then he’d have to explain why he felt the need to hold another guy down and cut his hair. My bet? He was turned on the entire time.
Schlemizel
@the fugitive uterus:
The definition of a sociopath – they feel no pain but their own. He probably can recount the time that snooty bitch from Kingswood shot him down because he was not really a Christian in intimate detail. But the pain he inflicted on others? Well that really does not register as a problem in his world.
the fugitive uterus
@JPL: it’s very disturbing bordering on sociopathic and, as we know, not all sociopaths are pariahs in society and can be quite successful(see Wall Street bankers). when i heard the dog story years ago, it told me all i needed to know about the man. dog “loved” it and yet he ran away at the end of the trip, never to be seen again. seriously, that pic of the dog with the kittens, how sweet is that?! good God , wtf is wrong with you?? i shudder to think how the cats were treated.
and i canNOT believe Melissa Harris Perry shrugged that shit off a couple of weeks ago. Chris Wallace was genuinely disturbed and good on him in this instance, at least, for not letting Romney off the hook on this
Bex
What is it they advertise on that endless Kentucky Derby TV coverage? Hats? Don’t know, don’t care. I would never watch any of it.
the fugitive uterus
and while this does not apply to all conservatives, LOTS of them may be assholes in other ways, but positively dote on their animals and would find this extremely disturbing. i can’t expect them to have compassion for the dude that got his hair chopped against his will, they are “conservatives” after all, but this is different.
mistermix
@ornery_curmudgeon: If you get off your soapbox for a moment, you’ll see that we’re basically in agreement. I accept that horse racing will kill horses, occasionally. But it’s happening a hell of a lot more than it needs to.
Jack
As a former breeder and owner of thoroughbred horses, this industry no different from the rest in that quick profit is the primary goal. Horses start their careers earlier than before, are bred to be speedy and precocious (and therefore brittle), and like all big league sport, the competitors are looking for an edge, legal or otherwise. Dough O’Neil, believe it or not, is one of the good guys.
NancyDarling
I recall that the 1986 Derby winner was sold for stud to a breeder in Japan. He eventually was headed for the slaughter house when he was no longer useful for stud. I can’t remember the out come, but I think someone saved him.
Does anyone know what percentage of race horses make the transition to saddle horses, jumpers, dressage, etc. if they don’t make it on the tracks.
WereBear
I don’t want a planet without animal/human contact. Especially since it’s a little late in the game to un-domesticate a lot of the ones we have now.
The solution is to maintain rules, penalties, and social pressures so that the quick money turns elsewhere, like spam email. AKC dog breeding and selling tropical fish are also places where sick things happen; it’s not supposed to be the norm, and there are supposed to be penalties.
Applying Stalin’s No man, no problem rules to other living things is simply as wrong as the original problem, capisce?
schrodinger's cat
OT: Krugthulu does it again.
In this morning’s NYT he drinks Raghuram Rajan’s milkshake and steals his MSM toady’s (Bobo)’s lunch money.
sb
Fixed.
/English teacher; forgive me
gex
My roommate’s parent’s love horse racing. One time she came home from the tracks with them and told of how they had to shoot a horse that day and how upset it made her mother. Which really pissed me off. If she’s not there making it profitable to abuse horses, this horse doesn’t get shot. They didn’t much like my opinion on that. But then, I don’t much like them making horse abuse a profitable industry.
Raven
Just got an update from Charlie’s Angels on Tiffany the little poodle with the leg deformation that was dumped. Lot’s of people here helped out and she is doing great!
ericblair
@debit:
Besides being a grade A entitled asshole, Rmoney has to be the worst national politician to come down the pike in a while just in terms of political skills. I mean, you can deny this incident ever happened (I guess there’s too much evidence), or you can apologize profusely, say you were young and stupid, and everyone will forget in a week. But to say you don’t remember means that this incident was so unremarkable it didn’t stay in your memory. Really? Just another day another dollar at Big Bux Prep School? There’s no way to make this answer look good.
This presidential race is between the best national politician I have seen in my lifetime and the worst. However, Both Sides Do It (Whatever It Is).
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
the only horserace worth watching
martha
@the fugitive uterus: Yes, there are many things I’m embarrassed about doing in HS. But I wasn’t a bully. I watched bullies in action and was on the receiving end of tons of taunting and verbal harassment (the usual–too smart and not perfectly thin…a lethal combo). He’s pathological. I saw that interview and I kept yelling at the screen: WHAT ABOUT THE DOG???? There’s a great ad there somewhere (clips of the Wapo story, her rebuttal, and the dog on the roof) but I’m too tired to script it out right now.
ericblair
@sb:
Pendantic, aren’t you?
SW
The drugs are bad, but the main thing that kills them is a blind stupid worship of tradition. It should be against the law to race three year olds. They are babies. And worse, the only way you can race babies is to start virtual infants on a grueling training regime. It’s insane. Cartilage hasn’t turned to bone yet and you are stressing it beyond reason. All of these stakes races for three year olds should be moved up a year to four year olds. They should be worked from the ground as two year olds.
gex
Wow. So mix denounces a guy with an injury record double the industry average, and some dude gets pissy about it. Apparently if you criticize a repeat offender with a casualty rate that backs up the assertion that he’s abusive to horses, suddenly you are attacking the entire industry and all the good people in it.
Someone has some excess outrage juice to work off today.
I have to ask why someone with so many violations is still allowed into the big events. You want to fix it, you make it so a guy’s horses can’t get into the derby if he’s proven to be dirty. Hell, you could allow a DOZEN violations before banning and this guy would still be banned.
But I’ll make the case for the industry being somewhat culpable. If the industry doesn’t have any penalties to apply to people who appear to be abusing horses, then the entire industry is responsible. They provide the incentives.
But obviously mix is the asshole here.
Cheap Jim
Horse racing, huh? I can’t be bothered to care much. Now the Electoral College, that’s my favorite pointless anachronism.
Redshift
@the fugitive uterus: The incompetence of Romney spokesbots continues to amaze me. How tone-deaf do you have to be not to get that saying “everybody does it, right?” reaffirms the story again and basically retracts the “apology”?
I believe that the more competent GOP candidates sat out this year because they didn’t want to waste their chance by losing to Obama. But have all the competent *staff* decided to suit it out, too (despite Romney’s money), or do they just not have any left?
AnnaN
I can’t stand horse racing for this very reason. As long as gambling runs the “equestrian economy” this will never stop.
Miki
An alternative way of racing can be found across the pond – http://www.gallopfrance.com/blog/
don
Dave Davies interviewed Walt Bogdanich and Joe Drape (the authors of the NYT article) on Fresh Air. Here’s the link:
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/10/152363564/horse-racing-americas-most-dangerous-game
Interrobang
@NancyDarling: I couldn’t tell you a percentage, but I rode (dressage and jumping) for 20 years and saw only a very few retired racehorses. A lot of them are not suitable for dressage because they’re bred to be high-strung and not necessarily good movers, and you certainly don’t want to put a racing-quality Thoroughbred (with their thin, brittle legs) over jumps, mostly. The exceptions are usually the racehorses who washed out because they weren’t fast enough.
They really should try to enforce breeding racehorses for soundness, for sure. And I definitely agree with gex, that known corrupt owners should be blackballed. Dressage competitions have rules about things like dyeing horses’ coats, and you can be booted for rules violations, so why not?
shortstop
I intended to mock the OMIGOD WHY DO YOU HATE HORSES crowd, but they’re already self-parodying.
shortstop
@ericblair: And it’s a beautiful necklace.
Capri
@NancyDarling: In the horse world in general, a ex-race horse is a good, athletic horse. Even one that is not fast enough to win or has a lameness that prevents it from racing but not being ridden at a slower pace.
When the American Association of Equine Practitioners did a survey a few years back – they found that the make-up of horses going to slaughter pretty much reflected the horse population in general. The vast majority were Quarter Horse type riding horses. A horse that was obviously a race horse was rare.
Ferdinand (the KY Derby winner that was sent to Japan) was slaughtered for meat. A group that opposes eating horse – “Friends of Ferdinand” was galvanized by this and is now active in the US.
As a large animal practitioner who happens to work for the Indiana Racing Commission drug testing horses I’d say that anyone who states Standardbreds are just like Thoroughbreds in regards drug abuse and break-down rates doesn’t know what they are talking about.
Starting horses as 3-year-olds rather than 2-year-olds sounds like a great idea to prevent breakdowns, but is an untested hypothesis at this point. Track conditions and composition matter as much or more than anything else.
I take care of (primarily) goats, sheep, cows, and horses. I like them all, it’s hard for me to understand why eating 3 of those species is OK while eating the 4th is beyond the pale.
Tractarian
Truly the sport of kings.
And, just like hereditary patriarchal monarchies, horse racing is relic of the distant past.
NancyDarling
@Capri: I think it’s because sheep, cows, and goats are not generally companion animals. If people have any one of them for a pet, they aren’t likely to butcher and eat it.
slippy
I live right here in Kentucky. Actually southern Indiana, but I work less than 3 miles from where this profit-gasm takes place every year.
Given how corrupt local politics are, it’s safe to assume that the “good” people are in cahoots with the “good old boy” club, and that as far as they are concerned, anything goes as long as it’s good for the good ole boys.
In other words, fragile young animals will continue to die for our amusement. I’m pretty fucking over it.
Capri
@NancyDarling: But many horses aren’t companion animals either. Race horses certainly are not.
pseudonymous in nc
@Miki:
I don’t think European racing lacks its problems: the big flat races are still for 3-y-os, the big jump races still have safety issues. But it feels like a healthier sport.
The rampant doping of horses in American racing shocks me, and that’s partly the product of it being confined to a few states with a willingness to tolerate whatever the owners and trainers and course-owners want in exchange for the revenue.
Brachiator
@mistermix: The industry is dying. Here is Southern California, the racetrack at Santa Anita is struggling, even though it is an absolutely beuatiful venue.
The additional issue is the use of synthetic tracks, which also contributes to leg injuries. The strange thing is that despite the research and money poured into this, no one seems to know how to consistently develop a synthetic track that works well and is safe.
@ornery_curmudgeon:
Horse racing is a world wide industry, and is still more popular in the UK, Ireland and Hong Kong than it is here.
And the issue of abuse of horses similarly is not just a US problem.
LanceThruster
@ornery_curmudgeon: Reminds me of something that I read once but didn’t understand at the time.
Q: At the battle of Waterloo, how many of the horses in Napoleon’s army died.
A: All of them.
Capri
@Brachiator:
Not sure where you heard that synthetic tracks cause more injuries. Everything I’ve heard or read indicates that they are much, much safer.
TooManyJens
@Brachiator:
The irony, of course, being that synthetic tracks were brought in because they were supposedly safer. And they may be if they’re consistent, but they turn out to be incredibly hard to maintain properly.
I was a huge racing fan from the time I was seven (Genuine Risk was my first Derby winner, so I’m dating myself here) until about three years ago, when I pretty much quit cold turkey. The problem is not that there aren’t huge numbers of people involved in racing who genuinely care about horse welfare, because there are. The problem is that those people have no ability to make any useful change. It’s easier to make money in the short term with practices that are detrimental to horse welfare, and that’s part of the problem. But another big problem is the way people in racing, even the ones with the best intentions in the world, go about trying to fix things. Horse racing doesn’t embrace science; it’s not evidence-based. People make decisions based on tradition or their gut feelings about what *should* work. So you get things like untested synthetic tracks that behave unpredictably instead of incentives for breeding sounder horses. You get people proposing to ban fillies from racing against colts, which is a stupid fucking idea that solves nothing, instead of funding scientific research into injury prevention and then actually putting the results of that research into practice. And these are the people who really want to make the sport better for horses. I just decided that it was never going to get better and got the hell out, and despite having been a fan for decades, I’ve barely looked back. It’s a travesty.
blahblah
I don’t have a problem with them doing this to a horse, I just wish they would put down retired football players too.
Brachiator
@Capri:
A little more complicated than that. Just using Santa Anita as an example, racing officials had problems getting the track to behave well even though they supposedly used a method and formulation similar to one used at Hollywood Park, in the city of Los Angeles proper. Even though the tracks were in the same region, you could not ensure uniformity of track condition.
And a LA Times story noted the following.
There are efforts in California particularly to try to understand and reduce horse deaths. The LA Times story goes on to note that
Still, many former fans, as another poster notes, are abandoning the sport because they cannot bear to see the injuries and fatalities.
SW
@Capri: Certainly works with our ranch horses and the stress level isn’t anywhere near what it is in ‘the industry’. I don’t think it (starting them at 3) will ever be tested because of the blind adherence to tradition. But if you are a vet you must understand the physiological basis for not starting them at two. That is simply nuts.
cdmarine
I don’t disagree with the main thrust of this post, but I wanted to point out that there was, in fact, a segment of the pre-derby telecast devoted to this issue. I didn’t watch it closely, because I was in the middle of doing other things (getting drunk on mint juleps), so I can’t speak to the quality of the reporting, but I remember it because I remember thinking, Wow, I’m pleasantly suprised they’re even talking about this at all.
shano
Sign the petition to clean up horse racing:
http://cleanhorseracing.org/
Lasix and Bute have been over used for decades now. Time to end this practice in all racing.
shano
@Interrobang: Dressage causes a lot of problems for horses too. those 3rd level and higher moves cause many horses to break down. I see the abuse even in the Olympics when a top dressage horse is wringing its tail.
TBs are bred for soundness. I think the diet of modern horses leaves a lot to be desired, although the limestone soils in Ky or Ireland make up for this. Thoroughbreds are still the best jumpers and the best steeplechasers, not all of them have “thin brittle’ bone. Certain pedigrees of TBs have substantial bone & stay sound in the care of a good trainer.
Retraining them for another career when they age out of racing is the problem. It takes at at least 2 years, requires the skill of a professional rider and is rarely ever profitable.
Jethro Troll
I’m told horsemeat is quite tasty, but nowhere near as delicious as whale.
Unfortunately, i can’t find either around here in California.
Nicole
I’m really late to this, but there are some inaccuracies in what mistermix wrote.
“Milkshakes” are sodium bicarbonate, mixed with electrolytes and sugar. They aren’t banned because they’re bad for the horse; all they do is neutralize the lactic acid that builds up during exertion so the horse doesn’t tire as quickly. They are banned because it’s believed they can help mask illegal drugs, and, because in some horses, they are considered enough of a performance enhancer that it’s unfair to the horses that may not respond in the same way. They don’t make horses break down. Mistermix was taking two independent facts- O’Neill is guilty of milkshaking and O’Neill’s horses break down and assuming they were related. They’re not.
Mind you, I’m not defending Doug O’Neill. Most racing fans are not pleased that he won, as he’s one of the trainers considered to be a big cheater. Though I’ll Have Another’s victory, I’m sure, was honest (and mostly due to Trinniburg pushing Bodemeister through extraordinarily fast fractions).
As for three other misconceptions not in the main article, but that I saw in the comments:
Lasix is a therapeutic drug administered because a majority of horses bleed in their lungs when they exert. It’s used in Europe when training, just not on raceday. It’s not cruel, and it has a protective effect on the lungs, as scarring from bleeding in the lungs is cumulative. The main concern non-horse people seem to have about it is that it is mildly dehydrating. In days before Lasix, trainers would remove water from a horse for 24 to 48 hours before a race to get the same effect (apparently that mild dehydration offers some protective benefit to equine lungs). It’s kinder to give them a shot administered by an on-track veterinarian (not one hired by the trainer) 4 hours before a race and let them drink all the water they want, in my opinion. (There has been a very angry discussion about Lasix going on for weeks now on one of the horse racing boards I frequent, and the equine veterinarians are very firm in their stance that it is of benefit to horses)
It’s also not bad to race two-year-olds. It enables young race horses to develop a frame that will withstand the rigors of racing. Starting horses later would lead to more breakdowns. Racing is the women’s gymnastics and ice skating of the equine world- it’s a young horse’s sport. In fact, there’s been a trend the past few decades to start two-year-olds later and later in the year, and the general consensus is that Thoroughbreds are much more fragile than in decades past. Seabiscuit ran over 80 races in his career, 35 of them as a 2-year-old. And the last time a horse won the Kentucky Derby without having at least one race as a 2-year-old was in 1882. And that was due to conspiratorial riding on the part of the black jockeys, as the white rider on the favorite acted like a total racist dick prior to the race and insulted their riding ability in the papers.
And the synthetic tracks weren’t introduced to protect the horses; they were introduced to save the tracks money by reducing maintenance costs (I was recently corrected on that one). In the case of Santa Anita, it wasn’t saving money and so they went back to conventional dirt.
Sorry to rant; as I’ve said before, horse racing has a lot of problems, but the Times is doing an extraordinary job lying and manipulating facts to present arguments against racing which don’t actually stand up to the facts, while ignoring actual issues. Which of course, they’ve done before. Cough Judith Miller cough.