Letter to the Editor

The horse...inquisitive, sensitive, totally aware, much smarter than you think, fearful, and a creature of habit. When my daughter returns to our family barn after training in Florida for six months, her retired horses greet her with a whinny. An old friend has returned. The horse is a fabric of historical Texas. The horse represents how we all arrived here, and how we survived in the earliest days. Some horses are bred to run--that's their job. All animals need a job and thrive when working. The thoroughbred's instinct is to...

The "Quick Fix" of Synthetics is Not the Answer Horse racing has been down the path of synthetics before at Santa Anita, Del Mar, Keeneland, etc. Much time was lost, approximately a decade ago, with a focus on changing surfaces as a panacea for horse racing breakdowns. We now know there are other causes for horse breakdowns that are more prevailing. The greatest single cause of racing deaths has to do with pre-existing conditions of the horse, and only in particular instances is the surface itself the primary reason for...

There are a lot of opinions about the Triple Crown. Most of them center on the Preakness and the spacing of the three races. In my opinion, the Preakness is the victim of the Kentucky Derby's success, or as T.D. Thornton said so well in his article June 12: "Underscoring how the Derby itself is devolving into a be-all/end-all, one-shot endeavor at the expense of the Triple Crown race that follows it, for the first time in 75 years, Mage was the only horse out of the Derby to enter...

Editor's note: Bill Casner, a long-time participant in many facets of racing, is probably best known for founding WinStar Farm with Kenny Troutt and winning the 2010 GI Kentucky Derby with Super Saver. Among Casner's many roles in the sport have been founding director of the Race for Education and Kentucky Equine Education Program (KEEP). He has sold his interest in WinStar to Troutt and currently operates as Casner Racing. Horse racing is in a firestorm. We are at survival tipping point. The decisions that are made in the short...

It was with great interest that I read Earle Mack's recent TDN Letter to the Editor and Bill Finley's Week in Review piece supporting Mr. Mack's opinion that a major switch to synthetic racing surfaces is called for to save the Thoroughbred Industry. Although I do not know either of these men personally, I respect their accomplishments in our business, their intentions, opinions and intellect. With that said, as much as I agree that training and racing surfaces are critical to horse safety and synthetic tracks have lower catastrophic injury...

Bill Finley (If Baseball Can Change, So Can the Triple Crown, TDN, Tuesday, May 16, 2023) has hit the nail on the head. As one who was and now is again a baseball fan, I agree that baseball's changes have been dramatic and effective. Some traditions are great, but when traditions are barriers to one's existence they need to be rethought. The truth is that only our sport's diehards would even know the difference if we spread our Triple Crown races out a month apart. The reality is that the...

by Janet del Castillo When you train with the vet, you'll notice horses can't run every two weeks, like they did for years. They get pumped up with various meds--legal if given in a particular time frame--but which can be detrimental long term. Horses that run clean can take care of themselves. The trainer knows how his horse comes out of the race because he's not masking anything. For years, horses ran in all three Triple Crown races--not so much today. Here's a thought! HISA is supposed to stop the...

by Edd Roggenkamp, Versailles, Kentucky Racehorse owners are the lifeblood of this industry. Without owners, there is no need for breeding farms, sales companies, consigners, vets, feed companies, et al. But the number of licensed racehorse owners is declining in most states, which is a seriously negative trend for the horseracing industry. Over the nearly 30 years that I have owned and raced Thoroughbreds, I have always found it most interesting to sit down and have a candid conversation with another racehorse owner. It lets me find out how they...

Horse racing is an honourable sport that is steeped in tradition; built by generations of hardworking and passionate individuals and families. It's an industry that brings people together from all walks of life, and is critically dependent on everyone's contribution to its stability and success. While this diversity of roles and shared passion is racing's greatest strength, it exists within a very complex and challenging business environment that results in constant pressure to plan, adapt, and aggressively fight to secure our future. At Woodbine Entertainment, we own and operate two...

I grew up in the 'Golden Age' of Canadian racing and breeding. Windfields, Sam Son and Stafford Farms are a few great breeders that come to mind. Thriving yearling sales and horses like Deputy Minister, Kennedy Road and Kamar also come to mind. Founded by the great E.P. Taylor, the consistent goal was a thriving industry with stewards of the turf to elevate Woodbine to the highest standards of thoroughbred racing. Secretariat made his final start at Woodbine and the most influential sire of my lifetime, Northern Dancer, was born...

On March 9, Thoroughbred Daily News published a letter to the editor that lambasted the Thoroughbred industry's media as biased while hiding his or her identity under the cloak of anonymity. To which I answer without anonymity, nonsense. I don't really know the motivation of this anonymous toxic waste, although it fits into the pattern of blaming the media for just about everything that goes wrong in an industry or a society, whether characterized as "fake news" or not. The anonymous writer must have some beef with the industry and...

Editor's Note: the author of this letter is known to the publishers of the TDN, but has asked to remain anonymous.  At this point, we have to be skeptical of any news story about the horse business. Most journalists have an agenda, and there are a lot of angry, envious people ready to feed publications what they want to hear. There are also a lot of readers eager to consume such negative stories. It's a perfect storm of bogusness, with dishonesty at each stage of the pipeline, from the sources...