Featured Article (June 2008)

For years, the American public’s tolerance for risk in sports has been decreasing and their standards for the safety and welfare of animals have been increasing. As a result, equestrian sports, particularly sports such as flat racing, steeplechase and eventing have been moving closer and closer to the limits of generally acceptable safety practices. This year, they unwittingly crossed the line.

During the Kentucky Derby and the Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event, flat racing and eventing inflicted unwanted emotional pain on thousands of spectators who watched in person and on TV. Predictably, spectators and the media recoiled, making equestrian sports part of the 24-hour news cycle, and, as a result, the sports lost the right of self-determination for the foreseeable future. Now, the best course of action is to measure all equestrian activities against the current and likely future generally acceptable standards of safety and welfare, engage the animal advocacy groups in the dialogue for reform and make changes where appropriate.

The animal advocacy groups are making it clear that they expect to impact the sports’ practices, and they are unlikely to change their minds. On May 9, Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), stated in his blog, "there is a national debate over horse racing and the safety and welfare of the animals." He continued, "…we feel an obligation to weigh in and work with the industry to improve the treatment of horses. There are very obvious and identifiable problems in the industry, and no responsible voice can deny these deficiencies."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) seized Eight Belles’s death as an opportunity to spring into action. As of the date of this piece, PETA’s website featured a foal with the headline, "Thoroughbreds: Drugged, Whipped and Run to Death," along with a variety of articles and blog entries and an invitation to join their protest at the Preakness.

Animal advocacy groups like HSUS and PETA used Eight Belles’s death to move the issue of horse welfare high on their agendas because it is:

Since the animal advocacy groups are unlikely to fade away, the horse community will be better served by including them in the dialogue on reform than opposing them. It is true that many members of the animal advocacy groups and the public are naïve about horses and sometimes take positions that sound completely off base to a horse person. Nevertheless, they may be able to offer a useful perspective from 40,000 feet that is invisible from inside the forest. More importantly, based on the equestrian community’s historical support for animal welfare reform, we owe the animal advocacy groups and the general public the same respect that we expect when we support reforms in areas in which we are not the experts – for example, whaling, seal hunting and downer cows.

The alternative to willingly including the animal advocacy groups in the reform process is to oppose them. Equestrian sports are not likely to win this fight. The animal advocacy groups are well funded, powerful groups who are expert at swaying public opinion and legislators. The combination of a naïve public and a few skeletons in the closet of equestrian sports are likely more than enough to enable the animal advocacy groups to paint horse people as villains. A fight is likely to drain the sports of participants and millions of dollars, leaving us with sports that are a shadow of the ones we know today.