This is what happens when a sport becomes big business.
In this regard anyway, not much has changed since an ancient Greek philosopher pointed it out: People believe what they want to believe. It’s normal; it’s human nature. Facts be damned, people will believe whatever’s necessary for their own comfort and, as it frequently turns out, profit.
Monstrous home runs, head-popping, concussion-inducing tackles and cheers for the home team, rah-rah-rah; boys will be boys (if not gentlemen), ain’t la-di-da sneakers grand, go team go and please ring the register along the way. It’s quite extraordinary, really, how much acquiescent belief sports require once they become big business.
Maybe that’s what happened at Santa Anita in Arcadia, Calif., the legendary racetrack that over the years has illuminated many legendary performers, including Alysheba, Affirmed, Seabiscuit and Swaps. But how? With the stirring San Gabriel Mountains as a backdrop and a long glittering history as a backstory, how could this have happened at Santa Anita?
Since the traditional day-after-Christmas opening of the racing season there, 21 horses have been euthanized because of what the sport euphemistically calls catastrophic breakdowns. That’s more than in all of 2017, according to The Jockey Club, and an especially jolting number since breakdowns have steadily and dramatically declined over the last decade.
Most of the breakdowns occurred during the morning training hours, but many during the afternoon races. The horses were of different ages and classes; they included the millionaire multiple stakes winner Battle of Midway, as well as lightly raced horses, such as the filly Lets Light the Way, who died after four races. The horses represented 19 different stables. And so only one commonality linked them: the Santa Anita surface, which had been pummeled by 13 inches of rain.
Like sharks, media circled around the story once it splashed into the mainstream water — NPR, the New York Times, even CNBC. Protestors lined up outside the racetrack’s front gate brandishing their placards: “This is Animal Cruelty,” “Santa Anita Kills Horses,” and “Horse Racing Kills Horses.” And, of course, PETA called for a criminal investigation, as if this were an Agatha Christie mystery and only the culprit had to be identified to put all right with the world.
(And now let’s pause for a soapbox moment. Of all the organizations that prey on the weak-minded, PETA, whose leadership seems to depend for its power and revenue on fomenting anger and even hatred, must be one of the most reprehensible. One of the most hypocritical, too. FOX News in a 2017 story called the PETA headquarters and animal shelter in Norfolk, Va., a “slaughterhouse” because it euthanized 72 percent of the animals there, or more than 1,000 a year. An earlier story in the New York Times put the number at 1,800. Either way, the number towers over Santa Anita’s like the San Gabriel Mountains.)
At the end of February, Santa Anita brought in Mick Peterson, a track specialist from Kentucky, to evaluate the surface. He pronounced it safe and good to go. But after two more breakdowns, last week Santa Anita announced it would suspend racing indefinitely. The track could hardly do anything else, even though that meant cancelling the San Felipe Stakes, which was expected to attract two unbeaten colts who just happen to be the leading candidates for the Kentucky Derby, Game Winner and Improbable. (They have been redirected to Oaklawn Park for Saturday’s Rebel Stakes.) It also meant rescheduling one of the track’s showcase events, the Santa Anita Handicap.
Dennis Moore, the recently retired track superintendent, returned to evaluate the surface, make recommendations and supervise its maintenance. Tim Ritvo, the chief operating officer of the Stronach Group, which owns the racetrack, said Moore believes the track is “perfect.” And on Saturday, the track announced it would resume racing March 22, with the Santa Anita Handicap rescheduled for April 6.
But all is not right with the racing world. This is a stain on the sport generally and on Santa Anita especially, a stain so severe that only time can diminish it. And it’s going to require much time.
In the wake of the injuries — and all the negative publicity — Santa Anita has made many changes, including the hiring of a director of equine health and welfare. It also has introduced a new protocol for workouts; essentially, trainers will have to apply to work their horses in the morning. The surface will continually be evaluated and re-evaluated. And, after necropsies, everything about the euthanized horses will be analyzed, from pre-existing injuries to medication to conditioning.
This much is already evident: Because, as Albert Hammond once sang, there’s a widespread assumption that “It never rains in Southern California,” the Santa Anita surface simply wasn’t designed to handle, and can’t, inordinate rainfall. The rain over the last two months, most observers agree, was a factor in the breakdowns. It’s time — no, it’s late, too late for some of these horses — to acknowledge that excessive rain in some areas of the country creates unsafe conditions that demand cancellation.
And beyond the rain, is there somebody to blame for all this? Assigning blame generally involves a pointless expense of energy, but in this case, since it might save a horse’s life, doing so could be useful: And so, from this perspective, everyone’s to blame: Ritvo, owners, trainers, jockeys, bettors and even fans. They no doubt cared for these horses, cared sincerely, maybe even loved them, as horse-people often do. But they’re only human, and there was an economic imperative to race. And so with the rain still falling, they all believed what they wanted to believe and what was necessary for their own comfort. And profit.
One of the things that separates horse racing from other sports is that the competition defines the competitors. Racing defines these horses, or rather they define themselves by racing. It’s what they do, what they were born to do. They have been bred since the late 17th century to race, and without racing they never would have been born. Even a group of yearlings, if placed in a large paddock and left to themselves, will race. And in doing so, they’ll sometimes discover deep within themselves their virtues and talents. It’s our great privilege to watch these magnificent creatures discover and define themselves, to see them thoroughly dedicate themselves to purpose and fulfillment and self-realization. But to be worthy of that privilege, we must ensure their safety.
