Horseracing is not a financially sound industry.  38 racetracks have shut down in the last 20 years.  The few racetracks that are left in the US are subsidized by local governments.  There are better ways to bring revenue and jobs into Georgia like a metro rail system that will relieve the congestion.

The reasons to vote against horseracing

1. no ability to care for homeless racehorses the industry discards between 2 and 6 years of age with horse overpopulation already here and the SAFE act on its way making slaughter illegal . There's nowhere for unwanted used up racehorses to go
2. horseracing is an industry that loses money that will become a liability to Georgians
3. increased human trafficking that Georgia is trying to fight
4. millions of other new, innovative, growing industries as alternatives to invest in.

HORSERACING IS A DYING INDUSTRY BECAUSE IT IS NOT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE:

38 AMERICAN RACETRACKS HAVE CLOSED IN THE LAST 20 YEARS. 

26 of those 38 racetracks (68%) closed in just the last 10 years.[i]  

45% OF ALL HORSE RACETRACKS IN THE U.S. HAVE FAILED and CLOSED.

CROWD ATTENDANCE AT RACETRACKS HAS DECLINED STEADILY FOR YEARS AND IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE TO DECLINE. 

The gambling market that horseracing serves is shrinking and is expected to continue to shrink. The younger generation “skill gamer” has many more options to bet on now that are more cost effective than horseracing and consequently, the younger generations’ portion of horseracing gambling revenue is experiencing negative growth.  

INCREASED COSTS TO THE EQUINE DIVISION OF GEORGIA’S DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (GDA) AND GEORGIA’S COUNTY GOVERNMENTS If this bill were to pass, the GDA Equine Division – already underfunded - would be responsible for regulating a larger equine population created by racehorses bred and retired by the industry.

Historically, Georgia Equine Rescue League, LTD (GERL), a private non-profit group, provided vaccinations, hay, feed, castrations, fencing and shelter for all three facilities the GDA Equine Division used to house horses it impounded in cruelty cases since almost 1992, when Georgia passed the Humane Care for Equines Act without any appropriations.  This past year GDA stopped impounding horses in cruelty cases and that responsibility now lies with local counties’ Animal Control agencies to impound, house and care for impounded horses.  Many counties in Georgia do not even have animal shelters and of those that do, many can house dogs and cats but are not equipped to house horses.

HORSE OVERPOPULATION IS ONE OF THE INEVITABLE RESULTS OF HORSERACING & INCREASED BREEDING

The racing industry discards horses they cannot race or put out to stud, sticking the rest of taxpayers with the cost attached to caring for them for the remaining 80% of their lives.  RACEHORSES’ LIVES ARE DEPRECIATED OVER 3 YEARS BY THE RACING INDUSTRY ON THEIR TAX RETURNS, (while a horse has a life span of somewhere between 25 and 30 years), allowing the racing industry to recoup their costs while they dump their unwanted horses onto the rest of the public to care for them the remainder of their lives.  We already have an overpopulation of unwanted horses in Georgia and across the country,  Slaughter has been and will remain, until the SAFE Act passes, Racing's "retirement" program.[iv]  Approximately 65,000 horses are shipped to Mexico and Canada to be slaughtered annually[v].  Slaughter is not euthanasia, but a brutal, long, and terrifying death. 

HORSE FATALITIES and ILLEGAL DOPING = NEGATIVE NATIONAL PRESS & FEDERAL REGULATION[vi] 1,167 racehorses died on American racetracks in 2018, 1,104 in 2019, and over a thousand each year for many years[vii].  Thousands more are injured.  They are over-raced, over-drugged and under-cared for. The doping and fatalities of American racehorses and the indictment of 37 major well-known trainers and veterinarians in the national news in March of 2020 brought renewed Congressional attention and new Federal regulation to American horseracing. These deaths and injuries are the result of too much strain being put on racehorses’ bodies.  Some of the biggest prize purses are won in races held for two- and three-year-olds, which equates to placing a preschooler into pro athletics—they get hurt and their careers ended before they are even fully grown, when their skeletons are still hardening. The horse racing industry regularly uses drugs on horses meant to ease pain, such as morphine, to get them out onto the track again as fast as possible after injuries or strains. But masking the pain and running on existing injuries causes breakdowns or worsens the injuries.  

THE FEDERAL HORSERACING INTEGRITY AND SAFETY ACT OF 2020 (HIS ACT)[ix] The HIS Act was signed into law December 27, 2020.  It imposes a ban on race-day doping, the establishment of a uniform national standard for rules and regulations for U.S. horseracing that would be overseen by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) under the FTC. The HIS Act requires a medication control program with better anti-doping measures and racetrack safety standards. This increased regulation will inevitably increase overhead costs and reduce profitability of horseracing.

THE FEDERAL SAFE ACT, IF PASSED, WOULD MAKE SLAUGHTER AND TRANSPORTING FOR SLAUGHTER ILLEGAL IN THE U.S., increasing the number of homeless racehorses Georgia’s taxpayers will have to foot the bill for. Polls show 80% of Americans do not agree with slaughter[x].

GEORGIA DOES NOT HAVE A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF EQUINE VETERINARIANS TO HANDLE AN INCREASE IN HORSE POPULATION

HORSERACING SUBSIDIES ACROSS THE U.S. Pennsylvania leads the nation in racehorse subsidies ($240 million per year) and total horse deaths (556) from 2014 through 2018.  Pennsylvania, with its three thoroughbred racetracks, subsidized no less than $228 million per year to the racing industry, or a total of $2.2 billion since 2010, the year the Network began tracking the subsides. The state's 2018 subsidy is $242 million, up $3 million from the prior year.  Pennsylvania's decade-long support is followed closely by New York, since 2010, with $944 million, Louisiana with $616 million, Indiana with $497 million and New Mexico with $489 rounding out the top five subsidized state.” – USA Today 10/31/2019

[i] https://horseracingwrongs.org/
[ii] https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/betting/nevadas-horse-racing-handle-in-sharp-decline-before-doping-scheme-1976742/
[iii] https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/this-time-horse-racings-aging-demographic-problem-is-very-real/
[iv] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/horseracing/2019/10/31/breeders-cup-horses-go-racetracks-slaughterhouses/2485345001/
[v] https://www.horsenation.com/2020/02/13/equine-slaughter-fact-check/
[vi] https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/life-culture/horse-deaths-are-threatening-the-racing-industry-in-the-us-is-the-sport-obsolete
[vii] https://horseracingwrongs.org/
[viii] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/aug/02/the-sport-is-at-a-tipping-point-inside-us-horse-racings-deadly-crisis
[ix] https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1754#:~:text=Horseracing%20Integrity%20and%20Safety%20Act%20of%202020.%20This,on%20the%20development%20and%20maintenance%20of%20the%20programs
[x] https://www.aspca.org/about-us/press-releases/aspca-research-confirms-americans-strongly-oppose-slaughter-horses-human

Georgia has one of the worst records in the country for animal overpopulation and neglect and cannot even keep up with the responsibilities we already have!  Nor can the local counties, towns and cities!  We cannot add racehorses to the list of animals that are already suffering from lack of resources.

Horseracing is not an ethical industry.  An average of 24 horses suffer fatal breakdowns at tracks across the country EVERY WEEK. Horses are forced to race when they are so young their skeletal systems are still growing and unprepared to handle the pressures of competition racing at high speeds. Fragile two-year-old horses are forced to run at reckless speeds, just to impress potential buyers. Every year, more than 10,000 broken-down racehorses are crowded onto trucks and transported on a grueling journey to Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses. The horse racing industry breeds tens of thousands of thoroughbreds every year, in the hope of breeding the next Kentucky Derby winner. The training facilities have barns they refer to as “kill barns.” These barns are full of young horses destined for slaughter after breaking down during the training process. Racehorses are sometimes given an aggressive, daily regimen of pain-masking drugs and treatments. These drugs are not used for genuinely therapeutic purposes—they're used to keep horses going when their legs and lungs are screaming "Stop!”