Broken Hearts and Fatalities: Letter to the Editor

I have been following with interest the past week's articles, letters and commentaries in the TDN and while I agree that track surfaces need to be looked at, I feel like it's all a bit deja-vu and that if racing had stayed the course and adapted following the initial introduction of synthetic surfaces 20 years ago, we might be in a better position today. But anyway…

The truth is that everything in the modern “thoroughbred industry” needs to change if racing is to survive as a sport. But still people complain about HISA and fight against any kind of change.

So, more and more, it looks like nothing significant will change because nobody wants to get off the commercial juggernaut…I mean, It's easy to shout and scream about track surfaces because it distracts from addressing the wider issues:

Racing and breeding have become so commercialized that horses are now almost exclusively bred, raised, sold, resold, resold again, trained, run and maybe resold yet again, not as athletes but as financial commodities and nearly everybody is playing the numbers game.

Furthermore, in the last 30 years, the Overton Window for use of PMs (I'm not even going to mention PEDs) has shifted so much that medications are considered standard and necessary and alarmingly often, the reasons for administering tend to be more about our plans, deadlines and expectations than the welfare of the horse. As Bart Cummings was wont to say, “Patience is the cheapest and least used thing in racing.”

It breaks my heart to say that I think in another 30 years, racing will either be banned or reduced to a behind-closed-doors, ultra-niche activity like polo, show-jumping or eventing.

Eric Ward grew up in Ireland and spent nearly 30 years in stud farming all over the world including a decade with Coolmore. He managed studs in Ireland, China and Turkey. Now based in Gaillac, France he assists his winemaker wife, writes novels and is also a volunteer fire-fighter/first responder.