horse racing

When It Comes to Horse Racing, No Horse Is a Winner

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , , ,

Here I am at the age of 4 or 5 up on a very large horse!! I might be smiling but, boy, was I scared. I didn’t have to be; horses, like many large mammals, are gentle giants. But maybe because I was so tiny, I felt really frightened. I was able to cover up my fear because at 6 I got a part where I rode one on an episode of “Branded,” starring Chuck Connors. I was around horses while filming the movie “The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band,” as well as the Walt Disney TV movie, “Smoke,” starring Ronny Howard. When filming the series “Lassie,” I rode a horse regularly; by that time I was pretty much over my fear of riding.

As an adult, I completely overcame my fear of horses and learned a lot about them in the process. Horses are herd animals. They naturally want to be around other horses, graze in meadows, trot great distances, play and court, but they suffer greatly when used to pull carriages around busy city streets, as in New York, or are made to race around tracks.

Behind the romanticized façade of thoroughbred horse racing is a world of injuries, drug abuse, gruesome breakdowns, and slaughter. Horses who weigh at least 1,000 pounds are supported by ankles the size of a human’s, and are forced to run around dirt tracks at speeds of more than 30 miles an hour while carrying a rider on their backs. Celebrated filly Eight Belles was euthanized on the track after breaking both front ankles during the 2008 Kentucky Derby; her poor ankles couldn’t sustain her running that fast. At another race, a horse named Appeal to the City hemorrhaged around her eye when jockey Jeremy Rose “engaged in extreme misuse of the whip.” In his Kentucky Derby win, American Pharaoh was struck with a whip at least 32 times by jockey Victor Espinoza. Pushed beyond their limits, most horses are subjected to cocktails of legal and illegal drugs intended to mask injuries and artificially enhance performance.

Racehorses are the victims of a multi-billion-dollar industry that is rife with drug abuse, injuries, and race fixing, and many horses’ careers end in slaughterhouses. Horses used for racing are forced to sprint — often under the threat of whips and even illegal electric-shocking devices — at speeds so fast that they frequently sustain injuries and even hemorrhage from the lungs. While spectators show off their fancy outfits and sip mint juleps, horses are running for their lives.

I hope all who read these posts learn something they didn’t know about animals and share them with their friends and co-workers. We all need to stand up and be a voice for the voiceless.

Peace for ALL the animals with whom we share this planet!

In Horse Racing, the Horse Always Loses

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , , ,

In a 1974 episode of “Shazam,” I played a girl determined to save the life of a horse sentenced to die by an evil and heartless man. The lesson of the story was that all life has meaning and that living beings are entitled to justice and mercy. Between shows like “Shazam” and all those westerns, I worked with a lot of horses. I know them to be beautiful, gentle, and intelligent animals, which is why horse racing makes me both sad and angry, and why I’ve written this brief essay.

 

They perform for our entertainment behind a glamorous façade of fancy dress, cocktails, floral wreaths, and glittering trophies. At weights greater than 1,000 pounds, they are supported by ankles no bigger than those of a human. Carrying 126 pounds of jockey and tack on their slender backs, they are whipped and forced to race with blinkered vision at speeds over 30 miles an hour on tracks of cement-hard dirt, slippery turf, or sometimes thick, spattering mud. They are the victims of a multi-billion-dollar industry rife with drug abuse, catastrophic injuries, and race fixing, and many will end their days at the slaughterhouse. They are racehorses.

 

Today is the running of the 142nd Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the celebrated Triple Crown of horse racing. Millions of dollars will change hands at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, where this week a two-year-old horse was killed after breaking his leg in a race, marking the second time in three years a horse was killed on the track at Pimlico during Preakness week.

 

On one recent Preakness Day, five horses took to starting gates across the United States for their final races. One died of a heart attack, while three others were killed after fracturing legs; another suffered a fatal injury falling over a jump in a steeplechase race. In 2015, 953 horses lost their lives on racetracks across the United States, meaning every day of the year we are killing two or three horses for two-dollar bets.

 

Many racehorses are doped and drugged. Trainers and veterinarians keep injured horses racing when they should be healing by giving them a variety of legal drugs to mask pain and control inflammation. Running with pain dulled by drugs leads to breakdowns, further injuries, and often death.

 

Not all drugs used are legal. “There are trainers pumping horses full of illegal drugs every day,” says a former Churchill Downs public relations director. “With so much money on the line, people will do anything to make their horses run faster.” One trainer was suspended for “treating” five horses with a drug similar to Ecstasy, and another was banned from racetracks for using the stimulant clenbuterol.

 

Few injured or aged horses or those not fast enough to finish “in the money” are retired to pasture, because owners don’t want to feed and stable a horse who doesn’t pay for his or her upkeep. Many of those horses are sold to slaughterhouses in Canada, Mexico, or Japan, where they are killed and processed into dog food and glue. Their flesh is also exported to countries such as France and Japan, where horse meat is considered a delicacy. Horses sent to slaughter spend their last days in cramped trailers with no access to food or water. Injuries during transport are common. Upon arrival they are herded into corrals where they thrash about in fear and panic to avoid the shot of the captive-bolt gun intended to render them unconscious before their throats are cut. It’s a sad and horrifying end to the life of such a beautiful and majestic animal.

 

Please join me in opposition to horse racing by refusing to attend or bet on races and by lobbying against the construction of new racetracks.

 

Peace for ALL the animals with whom we share the planet!

 

Racehorses Never Win

Pamelyn Ferdin Essays by Pamelyn , , , ,

Here I am at the age of 4 or 5 up on a very large horse!! I might be smiling but, boy, was I scared. I didn’t have to be; horses, like many large mammals, are gentle giants. But maybe because I was so tiny, I felt really frightened. I was able to cover up my fear because at 6 I got a part where I rode one on an episode of “Branded,” starring Chuck Connors. I was around horses while filming the movie “The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band,” as well as the Walt Disney TV movie, “Smoke,” starring Ronny Howard. When filming the series “Lassie,” I rode a horse regularly; by that time I was pretty much over my fear of riding.

As an adult, I completely overcame my fear of horses and learned a lot about them in the process. Horses are herd animals. They naturally want to be around other horses, graze in meadows, trot great distances, play and court, but they suffer greatly when used to pull carriages around busy city streets, as in New York, or are made to race around tracks.

Behind the romanticized façade of thoroughbred horse racing is a world of injuries, drug abuse, gruesome breakdowns, and slaughter. Horses who weigh at least 1,000 pounds are supported by ankles the size of a human’s, and are forced to run around dirt tracks at speeds of more than 30 miles an hour while carrying a rider on their backs. Celebrated filly Eight Belles was euthanized on the track after breaking both front ankles during the 2008 Kentucky Derby; her poor ankles couldn’t sustain her running that fast. At another race, a horse named Appeal to the City hemorrhaged around her eye when jockey Jeremy Rose “engaged in extreme misuse of the whip.” In his Kentucky Derby win, American Pharaoh was struck with a whip at least 32 times by jockey Victor Espinoza. Pushed beyond their limits, most horses are subjected to cocktails of legal and illegal drugs intended to mask injuries and artificially enhance performance.

Racehorses are the victims of a multi-billion-dollar industry that is rife with drug abuse, injuries, and race fixing, and many horses’ careers end in slaughterhouses. Horses used for racing are forced to sprint — often under the threat of whips and even illegal electric-shocking devices — at speeds so fast that they frequently sustain injuries and even hemorrhage from the lungs. While spectators show off their fancy outfits and sip mint juleps, horses are running for their lives.
Coming up soon: me in another riding role and the horribly sad and lonely life of carriage horses. I hope all who read these posts learn something they didn’t know about animals, and share them with their friends and co-workers. We all need to stand up and be a voice for the voiceless.

Peace for ALL the animals with whom we share the planet!