Date
August 1, 2006
Contact
Elliot M. Katz
(415) 388-9641, ext. 225
Kristie Phelps
(757) 423-0093
In Defense of Animals
3010 Kerner Blvd
San Rafael
CA 94901
IDA is an international, California-based animal advocacy organization dedicated to ending the abuse and exploitation of animals by defending their rights, welfare and habitats.
IDA Calls on Del Mar Thoroughbred Club to End Deadly Horse Races
San Diego, Calif.—International animal rights organization In Defense of Animals (IDA) is calling on the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club to stop racing horses at the new Del Mar Race Track. The call comes on the heels of the deaths of seven horses in the first seven days of the track’s season.
Thoroughbreds used for racing commonly suffer from a host of dangerous afflictions. “(Horse) racing and animal suffering are inextricably linked,” claims Dr. Tim O'Brien. “Horses, which are often raced when less than two years old, endure massively high incidences of stomach ulceration, lung hemorrhaging (even during low-intensity exercise) and bone weakness (sometimes weakening by over 40% during the course of a race).” One group of researchers found that all of the racehorses in their study sample suffered from gastric ulcers, and another study published in the Equine Veterinary Journal showed that 95% of racehorses had lung hemorrhages after racing. The fact that these serious health problems are virtually unknown in non-racing horses is evidence that the rigors of training and racing are unnatural for these animals.
“Racing on a crowded track that can be as hard as concrete at breakneck speed is already an inherently dangerous activity for animals who weigh in at around 1,000 pounds and yet have ankles that are about the same size as a human’s,” said Elliot M. Katz, DVM, President of IDA. “Injuries are part and parcel of these events and Del Mar must immediately stop racing horses to the grave.”
Because thoroughbreds have been selectively bred over the course of many centuries for a single and very specific purpose – to run as fast as possible – their bodies are fragile and easily damaged by even the slightest misstep. Broken leg bones are a common occurrence in horseracing and drugs that mask pain only increase the chances of serious injury because a horse may keep running on a limb that has already been damaged. This can cause the bone to actually poke through the skin, leading to infection and extreme pain.
Studies indicate that approximately 800 thoroughbreds die every year in North America from injuries incurred during racing. This figure would be even higher if horses who died in the course of training were factored in. Because most racehorse “owners” see these animals purely as economic investments, they choose to simply have injured thoroughbreds put down to spare themselves the expense of veterinary services. The least sympathetic investors recover some of their losses by selling injured horses to slaughterhouses. According to the National Horse Protection Coalition (NHPC), as many as 100,000 horses are slaughtered each year in the U.S. and exported for human consumption to European countries. The NHPC estimates that 16% of these are thoroughbred racehorses. Their flesh is exported to foreign countries overseas for human consumption or turned into “pet food.”