Industry Voices: A Bargain Cast in Deep and Abiding Love

Note from the publisher: If you're like many of us, you have been assailed by friends, family and members of your community as you have gone about your daily life for the past two weeks. “Was the horse drugged? Was it the cream?” I never thought I'd be discussing picograms at pickleball, but here we are. Sunday brought a new wave of texts and emails with the publication of an op/ed from the New York Times editorial board, and a devastating article in the New Yorker. People I haven't heard from in years sent me the latter, and as I asked others in the industry how they were explaining this to people, my friend Bob Duncan forwarded me his response to a friend. Bob is one of the smartest people I know, and for years has been an advocate for change in the way horses are handled in racing. As such, I thought his response was not only unique, but a perspective that should be shared. -Sue Finley

Our back is against the wall. How do you explain to people the relationship, the partnership that has evolved over thousands of years? Our relationship with the horse isn't about dominance and subjugation. It's about mutual understanding and cooperation. It's one of the purist symbiotic relationships on earth. It's about two species adapting to survive. Without each other it's conceivable neither would exist to this day. Is racing essential? Of course not. But think of what we lose by allowing these magnificent, majestic creatures to fade into extinction. We have lived, breathed and died alongside each other in service of our long-term survival. We live in an environment with the horse that places us in trust of our mutual existence. It's a bargain cast in deep and abiding love.
I guess it's inevitable, as the world “advances” to more high-tech, sanitized pleasures, that our relationship with these beings will seem trivial, possibly cruel and self-serving, but I feel blessed to have had the relationship, the knowing, including the scars of learning that brought me to realize what love truly is.