Bruno Mars is scheduled to perform at the Preakness Stakes post-race party in Baltimore May 20.

Through the force of brilliant marketing, we Americans are conditioned from birth to view horseracing as just another sport – indeed, “The Sport of Kings.” And there is no better manifestation of this than the Triple Crown races each spring. But beneath this well-crafted facade – the horseracing they want, they allow, us to see – lurks a sinister core, one that is ugly and mean, and oh so very deadly.

Since 2014, Horseracing Wrongs has documented almost 10,000 deaths at U.S. racetracks. Our research, however, indicates that over 2,000 "racehorses" are killed across America every year – cardiac arrest, pulmonary hemorrhage, blunt-force head trauma, broken necks, severed spines, ruptured ligaments, shattered legs. Over 2,000 – or about six dead horses a day. In Maryland, the two Thoroughbred tracks – Laurel and Pimlico – have averaged a combined 35 kills annually since 2014; since your last appearance at the Preakness in 2011, almost 500 horses have perished at MD tracks.

And when not dying at the track, they’re dying at the abattoir: Two independent studies (as well as industry admissions) indicate that multiple thousands of spent or simply no-longer-wanted "racehorses" are bled-out and butchered – slaughtered, that is – each year. The whimsical names and cheering crowds a bitter lifetime ago.

But it’s not just the killing. There is, too, the everyday cruelty:

Would-be racehorses are sold away from their mothers and herds as mere babies. They are broken, an industry term meaning to be made pliant and submissive, and then thrust into intensive training years before their bodies are fully mature. This early, incessant grinding leads many to develop chronic conditions like osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease – all while still pubescents.

In perhaps the worst of it, these naturally social, herd animals are, as a rule, kept locked – alone – in tiny 12×12 stalls for over 23 hours a day. When on the track, they are controlled through, among other means, nose chains, lip chains, tongue ties, eye blinders, mouth “bits,” and whips. And, of course, they are commodified, with the average horse changing hands multiple times over the course of his so-called career. This near-constant state of anxiety and stress helps explain why 80-90% of active "racehorses" suffer from chronic ulcers.

Dr. Martin Luther King once famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” We hold that that arc should – must – carry the other sentient beings with whom we share this planet. At a minimum, can we not agree that horses do not deserve to suffer and die for $2 bets and frivolous entertainment?

Please, Mr. Mars, reconsider your participation. If you do, not only will you become an instant hero to these poor animals, but when that final chapter on horseracing is written – and it will be written (see Ringling Bros., SeaWorld, rodeo bans around the nation, and most telling, the imminent demise of dogracing) – your simple yet courageous and compassionate act will stand as one of the seminal moments that hastened its end.