NYT Series: "Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys"

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by Kasept

As discussed and speculated upon on ATR this week and 'Loose on the Lead' this morning, plenty of recrimination in the initial installment. We'll see where the subsequent pieces in this series go, but for starters, lumping Quarter Horse racing in with Thoroughbred racing muddles any coherent conversation. There are contradictions within some of the claims and the cherry picking of certain vet quotes is obvious for effect.

Just the initial sub headings are a joke. "Some say a culture of drugs and lax regulation are behind the nations high horse fatility rate"? Yeah some say bullshit too. And the "high horse fatility rate" as compared to what?

Horse racing deserves **** like this for all the morons within the industry who provide fodder for these types of attacks. Keep giving hacks like Joe Drape awards for the rubbish he writes. Keep making public breakdown rates like the public (or most anyone really including myself) will have any idea how to process the information and almost assuredly will misinterpret it. Keep calling into question the integrity of vets and trainers to try to make your point about subjects that are far from black and white while failing to understand that in doing so you are helping form public opinion against the entire industry which is a course not easily changed. Keep using raw data to prove points because it fits your opinion regardless that those same stats will be misused against us by enemies of the game.

Are there issues? Absolutely. Are answers going to be found by backtracking and appeasing the groups who wish harm on the industry (including some hypocrites from within)? Only ones which will further serve to ruin the sport beyond the shell of itself that it has become. There are those who will celebrate the tarnishing of the sport just as there are those that defend trainers who win 47%, because in their minds this will help "clean up the sport" yet none will offer any real solutions. Of course there is no solution to greed, there is no solution to heartlessness and there is no solution to stubborn ignorance. But the continued attacks on the sport will eventually wear down even the hardy souls that inhabit it.