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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Guilty by Inaction

Remington Park has made it known if any horse who raced at Remington and ends up being slaughtered it will result in the trainer being denied stalls and thus not allowed to race there.  This is on top of the industry creating the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance.

For all the talk the standardbred industry makes regarding unwanted race horses, the standardbred industry fails miserably.  True, Freehold Raceway, being part of Penn National, has a potential ban in place due to management's implementing bans at its thoroughbred tracks.  After a story broke that Monticello had kill buyer on the grounds on qualifying days, Monticello banned kill buyers from the backstretch but sources have suggested kill buyers have managed to get horses despite those efforts.  Other than these two tracks, it seems standardbred industry has turned its gaze away from this or has tacitly accepted the need of kill buyers (oops, horse buyers) to move out those who can no longer race and make room for new horses.

This is a stand the general public rejects.  The race tracks need to make it clear, disposing of horses by selling or giving them to kill buyers is not acceptable and will get you run out of the business.  As Remington Park has allocated $30,000 a year to have people at horse sales checking tattoo numbers of horses ending up at auctions feeding the slaughterhouses, tracks need to get together and hire people to check tattoos of standardbreds and when one shows up at the auction, follow the chain of custody to see who sent these horses to slaughter.  Tracks need to ban these horse dealers from the backstretches on qualifying days.   Racing commissions must make rules requiring horse dealers to be licensed and not license those who supply the meat market and follow it up with a rule requiring the only horse dealers allowed at training facilities are licensed ones.

Will this solve the entire problem?  One would have to be naive to say so but you don't need to make it easy to feed the slaughter pipeline or look the other way with a wink.  The American public demands it, and they will be the ones attacking purse supplements as well as favoring decoupling in order to put 'cruel' industries out of business.


Speaking of decoupling, the Paulick Report has another story on decoupling and the impact it may be having in Florida.  With the exception of Gulfstream Park, all racing facilities, including Isle of Capri are openly calling for decoupling calling the licenses which allowed them to open poker rooms or slot parlors a burden.

1 comment:

Marv said...

That's a nice action by Remington Park, but what happens when the owner sends the horse to slaughter and the trainer has nothing to do with it? I'm not sure their program deals with that. Hopefully, owners will face similar consequences. Or what happens when someone down the sales chain sells the horse for slaughter? Sometimes the devil is in the details.

I'm not sure that all racing commissions have jurisdiction to regulate off-track horse sales. That might depend on how their establishing law was written, with most laws written to protect bettors.